The 1981 Listening Post - The Crowd - A World Apart

 Reviewed by Jim Coursey

Released: 1981 The Crowd A World Apart Genre: New Wave Rating: 3.5 out of 5 Highlights: Can’t Talk Right Time On My Own As You Were (Tomorrow) Huntington Beach’s The Crowd was a fixture in the early surf punk scene that coalesced around Orange County’s The Cuckoo’s Nest venue. They made their recording debut on the 1979 “Beach Blvd” comp, posting four punk tracks clearly reminiscent of The Ramones – fast, hard, simple. [1] [2] By the time they got around to a full length their sound had moved on quite a bit though. Opener “Something Said” sets the stage from the outset – the off-kilter midtempo rhythm and chorused bass underscore the new wave tendencies here, which don’t fully let up even as the chorus straightens things out with more of the post-Ramones vibe. “Can’t Talk”, “Right Time” and “On My Own” return to the pace of the Ramones, and the claps on “Right Time” are reminiscent of the earlier rock’n’roll eras that the Ramones tweaked. But the vocals have become more affected and there are just too many chords for the Ramones wannabe vibe to stick. “He” meanwhile reminds me of a more demented version of Adam and the Ants. It’s a good album, but there are downsides. The recording quality isn’t great – better than a lot of their punk peers but worse than a lot of new wave. Meanwhile Jim Decker’s vocals are a bit all over the place too. He’s got a good sound, with an acidic delivery and a thick vibrato that reminds me of a less cloying Jello Biafra. Unfortunately, Decker has a tendency to show emphasis by raising his pitch and shouting, which makes him sound a bit like a drunken karaoke singer belting out a song everyone in the bar already knows. Many songs come unmoored by the vocal – “Desmond and Kathy” and “As You Were” have a lot of potential but lose the plot thanks to the vocals. The Crowd broke up before ever releasing another album, in part due to increasing violence at their shows, only to reform at the end of the decade. [3] If Decker tamed his vocals it would have been interesting to hear them develop further. “A World Apart” showed a musical ambition that wasn’t defined by their scene alone. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jfhj-ewRB2w 2. https://deathburger.doodlekit.com/blog/entry/4535342/the-crowd-a-world-apart- 3. http://www.oocities.org/sunsetstrip/club/9953/history.htm.tmp