The 1985 Listening Post - The Jazz Butcher - Sex and Travel

The Jazz Butcher - Sex and Travel

#182

May 1985

The Jazz Butcher

Sex and Travel

Genre: Indie Rock

4.5 out of 5

Highlights:

Big Saturday

President Reagan’s Birthday Present

What’s the Matter Boy

This time, unlike last time, The Jazz Butchers sound very much like they are from the 80s. Now, that doesn’t mean Human League or China Crisis or the like. It sounds like…don’t shoot me…if David Bowie fronted Everything But the Girl. Until later when they start to sound a LOT like Talking Heads (“President Reagan’s Birthday Present”).

Maybe this is why The Jazz Butcher didn’t make an impact here. They are an aggressively named band whose music is actually very pleasing and, at times, gentle. Their songs are dynamite. 

There is nothing to dislike here. But also, it just sounds like so many other people. Besides the aforementioned, they, at times, also come across as early Cure. And The Kinks. Definitely The Kinks. They would’ve toured with the Kinks if they were around in the early 70s.

This is really good stuff, tho. I know the review didn’t make it sound like I liked it, but, dammit, I did. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/sex-and-travel/1329691707

The 1985 Listening Post - Tangerine Dream - Le Parc

Tangerine Dream - Le Parc

#180

May 1985

Tangerine Dream

Le Parc

Genre: Electronic

3 out of 5

Highlights:

Boie dul Bologne (Paris)

The Cliffs of Sydney (Sydney)

It’s been a while since I listened to Tangerine Dream for this project. Force Majeure and Tangram were excellent in an era where they and Kraftwerk and OMD were defining this space. I don’t pay attention to soundtracks here so they’ve not been around for a while for me.

In the interim we’ve had a few really excellent Jean Michelle Jarre records but electronica hasn’t factored in as much as synth pop.

This is an album wherein each song is sort of a soundtrack of it’s own, inspired by an actual park somewhere in the world. 

I’m not entirely sure if they are accurate portrayals, since I’ve never been to many of them. There is something truly ominous about “Central Park” and in 1985 I bet that’s what they were going for. It’s more like the soundtrack to a cop film than an ode to Olmstead’s genius of botanical engineering. 

Often, though, it feels like TD is playing catchup to Jarre (He should sue them for biting so hard on him in “Gaudi Park”) and that means it doesn’t feel fresh. It shouldn’t today. But it feels like it would’ve felt pause when it came out.

I’ll say this, though, “Le Parc (L.A. Streethawk) is exactly as Los Angeles should sound in the 80s. Pulsing, lights dancing off puddles from imagined rainstorms (why was there SO much water in LA Movies and TV shows???It NEVER fucking rains here!), but, again, Jarre did this already and he did it better. Hell, Hammer did it better. Moroder did it better. 

Tangerine Dream sounds like latecomers to a genre they pretty much pioneered. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/le-parc/440308368

The 1985 Listening Post - Grim Reaper - Fear No Evil

Grim Reaper - Fear No Evil

#179

May 1985

Grim Reaper

Fear No Evil

Genre: Metal

3.75 out of 5

Highlights:

Fear No Evil

Never Coming Back

Rock and Roll Tonight

Final Scream

COWBELL!!!! There’s a freaking cowbell on the opening track!!!! And, you know what? I dig it. It’s well produced and well played and hella fun. 

Like most of this genre, it should be an EP. Or not listened to in one sitting. It’s a LOT of the samey sameness. 

But “Final Scream”cracks me up. 

But you get what you sign up for and Grim Reaper delivers. It’s better than their last one. And better than many in this category. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/fear-no-evil/620928934

The 1985 Listening Post - Del Amitri - Del Amitri

Del Amitri - Del Amitri

#178

May 1985

Del Amitri

Del Amitri

Genre: Indie Rock

4.5 out of 5

Highlights:

Heard Through the Wall

Hammering Heart

Sticks and Stones, Girl

I Was Here/Crows in the Wheatfield

Breaking Bread

Maybe I just love Scotland.

I mean, I adore Scotch. A good Speyside, lowland, peaty one, like Laphraoig or Lagavulin or Auchentaschen. 

And a lot of Scottish music

The Fratellis. 

The 1990s

Paolo Nutini

The Yummy Fur

Franz Ferdinand

Glasvegas

The Bay City Fucking Rollers!

the list goes on and on.

And to that, I add Del Amitri. 

Another terribly named band (It sounds like it should be the band for a Yngwie Malmsteen-esque guitar solo hero, no?).

But it’s not that. It’s Indie rock that is eminently listenable. 

The songs are staggeringly assured but also have that innocent, joyful sound of tubeway buskers. (They should have been called The Tubeway Buskers!

I adore this record. I wish I had heard it 34 years ago. I’m glad I did today.

https://music.apple.com/us/album/del-amitri/1142909324

The 1985 Listening Post - Fiction Factory - Another Story

Fiction Factory - Another Story

#177

May 1985

Fiction Factory

Another Story

Genre: SynthPop

3.25 out of 5

Highlights:

Victoria Victorious

You ever hear “(Feels Like) Heaven”? It’s a nice synth pop hit from 84. Somehow we didn’t cover the band that made that single but they released one more album before they gave up the ship. 

This isn’t terrible but it doesn’t expand the model, ala Eurythmics. It becomes just another new wave, bass heavy, keyboard driven synth pop entry. Since they aren’t Howard Jones, or even Level 42, they just sound anonymous. 

It says a lot that the track “Victoria Victorious” is the best one here and features a guest vocalist (Fiona Carlin).

https://music.apple.com/us/album/another-story/651870268

The 1985 Listening Post - Lizzy Borden - Love You to Pieces

Lizzy Borden - Love You to Pieces

#176

May 1985

Lizzy Borden

Love You to Pieces

2.75 out of 5

No. 

This is not a female fronted glam metal band. It’s another in a long line of shriek metal nonsense. 

It’s just so ploddingly boring. There were a LOT of record contracts given out in the 80s and few of them amounted too much. Lizzy Borden is nowhere near as much fun as Crue or Poison or others of this ilk. They sound more like Iron Maiden as pop metal than anything else.

Good logo, though.

https://music.apple.com/us/album/love-you-to-pieces/60357236

The 1985 Listening Post - Warlock - Hellbound

Warlock - Hellbound

#175

May 29 1985

Warlock

Hellbound

Genre: Metal

2.75 out of 5

I blame Ghostbusters. Obviously the same people who saw Spinal Tap and thought it was a documentary then saw Ghostbusters and thought that the mouth of hell had actually opened and decided the best way to combat it was by bringing the Rawk! Except for bands like Bathory who wanted to bring forth the hell demons. It was a battle not between demons but between the rock and roll soldiers who went to battle to defend/defeat them.

It is really really hard for me to get over the fact that these records all came 30 years after “Rock Around the Clock”.

This stuff is 34 years old. More time has passed SINCE it’s release than between Bill Haley and Warlock. 

That’s weird. This is actually more accessible than most in this category but it’s really not all that inspiring. Better than their last, but that’s nor really saying much.

https://music.apple.com/us/album/hellbound/1444038520

The 1985 Listening Post - Bathory - The Return of the Darkness and Evil

Bathory - The Return of the Darkness and Evil

#174

May 27 1985

Bathory

The Return of the Darkness and Evil

Genre: Black Metal

2 out of 5

Highlights:

Reap of Evil

The opening sounds like a halloween haunted house walk through in some suburban outskirt. It’s a good house. At first. And then you walk through and it’s so fucking gory. It isn’t just jump scares, it’s gruesome. The severed heads look real. There’s a guy in a gimp suit. A real guy. While you are terrified of him you also have to wonder…is that HIS gimp suit? 

You walk through the living room and it’s the only room without cobwebs and paraphernalia. In fact, it’s just some middle aged guy watching tv, drinking a beer. He’s watching…Small Wonder reruns and laughing and you can’t tell if he’s actually part of the haunted house or not. Maybe he just decided that this was HIS room and fuck all y’all. And all the while, the rest of this Bathory record is played on distant speakers. 

When you exit, you’re offered candy and you take it, shake your head and move on to the next house. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/the-return-of-the-darkness-and-evil/1438704969

The 1985 Listening Post - New Model Army - No Rest for the Wicked

New Model Army - No Rest for the Wicked

#151

May 1 1985

New Model Army

No Rest for the Wicked

Genre: Rock

4.75 out of 5

Highlights:

Frightened

Grandmother’s Footsteps

Better than Them

No Rest

Drag it Down

NMA was a bit of a discovery for me last go round. Here they kick any post-punk to the rearview and amp up the pedal to the medal post-new wave rock. 

I’m a sucker for this band, it seems. 

Did they ever tour with The Alarm because they are trafficking in the same anthemic tropes. I wish there was someone’s roommate in college who would’ve exposed me to this. But I’m glad I get to hear them now. 

Impossible to categorize, perhaps that’s why they’ve never really broken hard into the mainstream, but this is the second excellent outing in a row from Justin Sullivan and the crew and I’m so grateful to this project for helping me discover them. 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/no-rest-for-the-wicked/696714025

The 1985 Listening Post - Vicious Rumors - Soldiers of the Night

Vicious Rumors - Soldiers of the Night

#173

May 25 1985

Vicious Rumors

Soldiers of the Night

Genre: Metal

1.75 out of 5

If I hadn’t JUST heard Destruction, whose album was released on the same day as this, I can tell you honestly that I would not have liked this any better. 

It’s all part of a rapidly dying genre: angry (at what, exactly) or warrior metal, excuses to pump fists in the air and riff on electrified pentatonic scales. 

Snore. 

FYI, this band’s TWELFTH album was released in 2016. Make of that what you will.

https://music.apple.com/us/album/soldiers-of-the-night/1049041344