Reviewed by Jim Coursey
Released: 1981 Faction (Liverpool UK) Faction Genre: Minimalist New Wave Rating: 2.5 out of 5 Highlights: Crazy People Directive 59 Tired Of Love Faction was an offshoot of short-lived Liverpudlian punk band Pink Military, and I’ll admit that I had more fun playing “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” with founder Nicky Hillon and the band [1] than I did listening to them. Their lone album has its moments, to be sure, and I’ve grown to appreciate them over repeat listens. But for a band that sounds like it’s experimenting, their album just feels unimaginative, lazy, and half-baked. First, let’s start with the two songs that were apparently released as singles. “Jamaica Day” and the eponymous “Faction” simply don’t highlight anything but the bands’ lack of vision. To be fair, I can’t imagine that the band had any intention of playing these on Top of the Pops. I even quite like “Jamaica Day” for about 90 seconds at which point I find it frustrating – it’s a refrain in search of a song. [2] Sure, on Side B of a solid album this would be a fun diversion. But a single / album opener? At least it’s far better than the song “Faction” which is an ugly maximalist mess to the rest of the albums’ determined simplicity. Meanwhile all three of the first three tracks abuse the fade out, riding a single chord pattern through the duration of the song without bothering to even find an ending. The worst of the three is the annoying “Disney”, which can’t muster enough interest to surpass the two minute mark. Because of the bad habits in the first two tracks, by the time we reach the pleasant 3 minutes of instrumental noodling that is “Ritual 1”, it’s hard not to feel like they showed up to the session without any idea what they were recording. It’s not until track 6 that things get good. Though none of the three highlights muster a proper ending, they are each sufficiently ear-catching and varied to warrant repeat listenings. Each song is marked by low key drumming, sparsely effected guitar, and keyboard weirdness, all with earnestly amateurish vocals. Fans of minimal-leaning new wave obscurities like Young Marble Giants, Marine Girls, In Embrace, The Flying Lizards and 49 Americans will find something to enjoy in these relatively unadorned nuggets. Much of the rest of the album is sloppy or unfulfilling, but I might have rated “Faction” a notch higher had it not been for the track “Far Away.” Anyone familiar with Brian Eno’s classic “Golden Hours” will recognize this shameless ripoff, featuring a simplified version of the keyboard pattern, a Fripp-esque guitar part, and an inversion of the chord pattern. Plagiarism aside, it’s just not a good version of that song. Five songs in I’d written this band off, and while they ultimately found some worthwhile material it never transcends that first impression. ********** 1. The album was engineered by Gil Norton, who went on to produce Pixies, Throwing Muses, Foo Fighters, etc. Predecessor band Pink Military featured singer Jayne Casey who left on maternity leave, and returned to the world of music with Pink Industry, who rest somewhere between goth and Young Marble Giants, and whose album I used to listen to in college. Most strikingly, Casey was in Big in Japan prior to Pink Military, which featured Holly Johnson (Frankie Goes To Hollywood), Budgie (Siouxsie and the Banshees), David Balfe (Teardrop Explodes), and Bill Drummond (The KLF). Quite the line-up for a short-lived band that never released a proper album! 2. The core of “Jamaica Day” is actually pretty fun, but it repeats ad infinitum while the synth player noodles around. Meanwhile the “lyrics” consist of someone singing “Jamaica” over and over again, to eventually adding in some “Oooo-Waa-Ooo”’s in response.
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