The 1986 Listening Post - Love & Rockets - Express

Love & Rockets - Express

#382/2062

September 15 1986

Love & Rockets

Express

Genre: Alternative

4.5 out of 5

Highlights:

Kundalini Express

All In My Mind (both versions)

Yin and Yang (The Flowerpot Man)

As much as I’ve gone on and on about my adoration of their NEXT record, one would have thunk I might’ve gone back into L&R’s catalog but I’m just not built that way. 

If something’s great, getting me to buy their earlier stuff is a long shot and hooking me to their next one is subject to my capriciousness. 

The sound I loved on Earth, Sun, Moon is forming here. They are really beginning to understand how to commercialize that industrial sound of their past. (The acoustic “All in My Mind” is something I imagine Pink Floyd fans could bring themselves to love).

https://music.apple.com/us/album/express/1309761131

The 1985 Listening Post - Love & Rockets - Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven

Love & Rockets - Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven

#389/1025

October 11 1985

Love & Rockets

Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven

Genre: Goth Rock

3 out of 5

Highlights:

Haunted When the Minutes Drag

So, here we are. Love & Rockets’ first album. I won’t hear them for a few years and that album remains a favorite of mine from the era. But, after the weird David J offerings and Tones on Tail there’s a welcome commerciality to it. 

It’s here that we can truly hear the connection between these guys and latter day Beatles and Moody Blues. Love & Rockets is the spiritual cousin to Psychedelic Furs, especially as they divest themselves of their darkness and embrace the lushness of production. 

It’s not fully formed here, as the songs are all still relatively weak but you can hear where they are going. 

Especially on the harbinger of things to come “Haunted When the Minutes Drag”.

https://music.apple.com/us/album/seventh-dream-of-teenage-heaven/1199491386

The 1983 Listening Post - David J - The Etiquette of Violence

David J - The Etiquette of Violence

#266

1983

David J

The Etiquette of Violence

1.75 out of 5

I started listening to this and was losing myself in thesomnabulance of the first track when I took out my AirPod sfor a second and heard my daughter practicing her violin. Those two seconds were more pleasant than anything on this record. This is the sound of someone who has lost the musical script and is putting his depression and anger on record. Thank god guys like David had music to turn to cuz otherwise the suicide rate in England would be so much higher. 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/etiquette-of-violence/252831717