The 1981 Listening Post - The Angels (AKA Angel City) - Night Attack

 The Angels - Night Attack

#546

November 30 1981

The Angels (AKA Angel City)

Night Attack

Genre: Rawk

2.75 out of 5

Highlights:

City Out of Control

“Well, that last record didn’t work, mates. What say we just try to be AC/DC for a while?

Well, that didn’t work. What is it? Are we terrible? 

That can’t be it. I mean, can it?”

It can.

They try for the pop road with “Fashion and Fame” but that feels like they are trying to write a single and it’s much ado about little. But count me in on the aggressively scratchy follow up “City Out of Control” which, along with “Living on the Outside”, (just go with me on this) feels like they listened to a lot of INXS and The Alarm. 

The album unfolds strangely, with the better tracks omg side one being at the end of Side One.

And the band continues this on Side two where they sow their heartland rock oats and we get harmonica mixed in with the rock. 

I feel this album’s order is messed up…hang on a sec…even though the US release has a different order they still manage to screw it up.

A shame. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/night-attack/168389701

The 1980 Listening Post - The Angels - Dark Room

 The Angels - Dark Room

#263

The Angels

Dark Room

Genre: Power Rock 

3.25 out of 5

Highlights:

Night Comes Early

While they will hit their apex in a few years The Angels, also known as Angel City, from Australia come across as a Boomtown Rats sound alike band. Just a year earlier the Rats put out one of my favorite records of the era, The Fine Art of Surfacing. This record sounds like someone got their hands on that Down Under and made it the template for their recording d’etre. 

The songs are sort of uninteresting and the vocals are just play Lemmy-Ugly, man and they do not really fit the tunes. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/dark-room-deluxe-edition/158020672

The 1986 Listening Post - The Angels - Howling

The Angels - Howling

#454/2104 LISTENING POST DISCOVERY

October 29 1986

The Angels

Howling

Genre: Power Rock

4.5 out of 5

Highlights:

When the Time Comes

Don’t Waste My Time

Where Do You Run 

Hide Your Face

Standing Over You

Requisite 80s cover:

“We Gotta Get Out of This Place” by Mann & Weil, turning it into…an INXS song? If it was recorded by Iggy Pop, who absolutely should have done this. It’s the weakest track on the record, btw. 

If you take just about any 70s Glam Power Pop Rock band (like, say, Bay City Rollers) and add a ton of heft, crank up the bass and teach one of them to lick on his axe like he was making up for not having an aluminum foil wrapped cucumber in his pants, you might get The Angels.

I still don’t like the lead singer all that much but this is actually better than their last and makes me want to go back into the archives and listen to their oodles of earlier stuff. 

Of course, the reason this is so good is probably cuz the lead singer and guitarist jettisoned the rest of the band really went for that commercial sound. They hit it in spades but there were no takers stateside. This is not a ready made hitmaker. This is the kind of band that needs to slog it out in 50 cities and towns and pubs and clubs and make a name for themselves in a van. 

Hard to do that from Australia. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/howling/160332754

The 1984 Listening Post - The Angels - Two Minute Warning

The Angels - Two Minute Warning

#309
November 28 1984
The Angels
Two Minute Warning
2.75 out of 5

Highlights:
Look the Other Way

You know, we've heard a ton of music from Australia. A lot of it has been IMPORTANT (Midnight Oil) or solid rock (Hoodoo Gurus) or angular (Split Enz) but the biggest heroes from Down Under are AC/DC and we've heard very little of that style from Oz.
Until this album.
The songs are solid, guitar driven, top down convertible in the sun, rawk. If only the lead singer didn't sound like they forced their manager to record vocals while in the bathroom suffering from constipation.
This reminds me of the Good Rats. This is neither a compliment or an insult. The Good Rats were neither good nor bad. Which is why you are asking yourself, right now, "Who were the Good Rats?"
Exactly.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/two-minute-warning/160332595