The 1986 Listening Post - Gangway - Sitting in the Park

Gangway - Sitting in the Park

#415/2094

1986 Housekeeping

Gangway

Sitting in the Park

Genre: SytnthPop

3.5 out of 5

After hearing so much great and groundbreaking stuff it feels decidedly weird to go back and listen to second rate synthpop.

Long after Squeeze and Madness were at their height, Gangway seems to be trapped in a time warp.

Nothing absolutely horrible here. Nothing that makes me want to join the Gangway Fan Club Internationale.

This album is as harmful as a pipe smoking bespectacled writer sitting in the park.

Which is the cover of the record. 

At least they knew….

https://music.apple.com/us/album/sitting-in-the-park/331492217

The 1984 Listening Post - Gangway - The Twist

Gangway - The Twist

#311
November 1984
Gangway
The Twist
3.25 out of 5

Highlights:
What?
Violence, Easter & Christmas

Jangle Pop meets The Style Council. Or Jangly Dream Pop. What would The Smiths sound like if Morrissey was not someone I was afraid would drink bleach and the rest of the band grew up in a sunnier climate with parents that loved and hugged them?
Gangway.

I chose to intersperse this with Celtic Frost because no two records could be as different (well, there's a LOT that could be different but far be it from to hide from hyperbole).
It made the listening experience very weird but here's the thing:
I would have thought that one being a respite for the other would engender a higher rating for the less offensive. This was not the case.
Instead what it caused is a whiplash case of dizziness.

So, when the percussion driven mood piece "What?" arrived I was taken aback. I actually thought maybe I was still listening to death metal.
More whiplash.

It gets a bit wobbly in the middle but recovers nicely by doubling down on The Smiths on a Carousel "Violence, Easter & Christmas" only to become twee & feeble toward the end.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-twist/269180868