Reviewed by Rob Slater
Released: 1980 Whitney ∙ Hardin ∙ McCracken & Townsend : Axis Point Boast Of The Town Genre: Wanna-be-band of musicians with cred. Some of their parts are less than the sum of their parts. Way eclectic. That’s the biggest plus. Rating: 2.5 out of 5 “Standouts” 1. Boast of the Town: Oh my God, aren't you supposed to start out with your best song? How long is this, 7 minutes? And one of the wankingest solos at the end. 2. Home Made Wine: I don’t remember. 3. Empty Sky: And oh my God-da-DaVita! Please don't tell me this is a whole album side! :-) Okay, not bad, listenable in the background. Not too long. 4. Rock 'N' Roll Circus: Not bad, repetitious. Rock and roll, that's what they say, but I'm not sure how rock and roll it is. Saxophone is actually not unwelcome. Which may tell you something. 5. My Love: Thankfully short. Guitar and saxophone thankfully wanking at the same time, so we didn't have to have one after the other. 6. Red Hot And Blue: Nice drum work with the guitars managing to stay in with the rhythm, but boring as hell. You're red, and spinal tap. Skipping the rest of this one. 7. Manyana: Got to give them credit. They're eclectic. Strings and decent piano. Pretty good almost loungy song. A little bluesier and better than that. Some Beatles sounds, but fairly generic. A bit of ELO, again without any brilliance. 8. Fire Mountain: Are these guys Canadian? They sound like they recorded in Canada and then had somebody else add some reverb and layers like a Donald Trump border wall of sound, rather than I Phil Specter. "Laser on the fire mountain." Wow. 9. Trouble: Nice start, but my expectations aren't high. This might have been the album opener if I was the a&r man. These guys put the okay in mediokre. Still, this is one of the top two songs on the album. Maybe not. I'm in trouble. On the double. Double trouble. No, you're not. No, you're in a band called Axis Point. 10. Drinking Song: Okay, this sounds like an extra song Extreme would have added as a bonus track. More Randy Newman or has elk (his ilk). Actually, this is kind of cool. Just doesn't fit with anything else on the album. 11. Okay, guys, did Dan Baird write this song, because it wasn't good enough to get on a Georgia Satellites album? Not that The Georgia satellites weren't derivative, but they were fun, witty, and sometimes even poignant. (Please don't kick me out of the Listening Post for using that word. :-)) that said, this is replaced the other two mediocre songs as my favorite on the album. We'll see if they don't screw it up at the end. OMG! Two things. Number one. I'm a doof. This song is not by that band; it is by Dan Baird. Number two. It isn't really good enough to be on a George's Satellite album, which is probably why Dan Baird put it out. George's Satellites, even if the biggest part was Dan Baird, we're greater than the sum. 12. I don't think these guys understand that if you don't start out with strong stuff nobody's going to hear the decent stuff at the end. (This decent song is actually by Steve Gaines.) Well, I had fun.
No comments:
Post a Comment