ABBA The Album (Atlantic)

Mention Sweden to me and here's what comes into my mind: Lousy parties with food (ain't never been at one that didn't feature those ever-lovin" bouncing meatballs); permissive sex (my theory being that this "sexual freedom" bit only has happened there first because everybody looks the same and people thought they were going home with their hubbies or wives only to discover the next morning that they'd goofed, leading to lotsa giggles—fun lovers those Swedes); Erik cigars (throw away the filters and they still taste rotten); Suicide (like I said, fun lovers "til the end);

Incest (legal now over there, so I guess we better get ready now for the invasion of the Mongoloids next century); Ingmar Bergman (gimme a break!); John Cassavettes (American Bergman—only diff; Bronx accents); The big dummy from Journey To The Center Of The Earthy who spent most of the movie addressing his pet duck. Best line: "Onka minka manna han lorca intur dom, Gertrude!!", spoken when the bad guy (I think it was James Mason) tried to turn the webbed creature into a fricasee because no one had eaten in three weeks and it seemed the logical thing to do. Young blue eyes didn't let it happen though; those Swedes respect their animal friends.

Of course that guy was only an actor, and Jules Verne most likely didn't spend more than 15 minutes out of his 80-day tour of the planet in Sweden "cause why bother? Nothing ever happened there that the rest of the world could care less about except maybe an interesting Viking or two raising a ruckus on some deserted ocean long, long ago. Until Abba that is. Abba; two men and two women. Benny, who lives with Anni-Frid (Frida to her friends) and Bjorn, who's married to Agnetha; the latter have two kids who, at this very moment, may be playing masseur and masseuree in the BA household. (In fairness, I should say that I don't know for sure if the two kids are of different genders. If they aren't, then the sibling hanky-panky doesn't qualify as official incest—unless, Pater and/or Mater are in on it. And who knows what really goes on in Sweden these days? Since porno films became real porno films, with no socially redeeming value chains to tie them down, all those "scientific" Swedish sex films have disappeared.)

But that's beside the point. Which is that I love Abba. I love them without knowing my Bjorn from my Benny and my Frida from my Agnetha. As a matter of fact, that might be one of the reasons I do love them. They are nothing more to me than the sound of their songs, singles to be exact, singles that have driven me gonzo over the last few years. The Abba gang seems to want nothing more than to make great sounding songs that sound real nice on the radio, be they rockers—"Waterloo," "SOS," "Ring Ring" (personal fave), or schlockers—"I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, J Do" (and I do—Connie Francis 70's style), "Fernando" (take that, Evita!) and "Dancing Queen" (ain't their fault it was a disco hit). And now Abba—The Album, not to be confused with Abba—The Movie, which it's going hand in hand with, so that we will all get to see them sing and act (I'm told the movie has a plot and everything. "Course I'll have to boycott it to keep my illusions going).

I don't know which tracks on this album are tied up with the movie concept. I doubt that it matters. Every song on side one could be a hit and probably will be, from the ethereal "Eagle" to "Take A Chance On Me" (Beach Boys meet Kraftwerk by way of the Honeys) to "One Man, One Woman," a "let's get it together "cause we're married and stuck with each other" , tear-jerker (beware of possible Olivia Newton-John cover) and their current single "The Name Of The Game" (God, they know Tony Franciosa all the way over there?). Side two's a little less magnificent but it does have "Hole In Your Soul," which states that romantic ballads are all phony and that only rock and roll hits ya where ya breathe. "My friend Sal, he's a chauffeur, Annie goes to school/ Jerry works at the office, Sue lies by the pool," sing the gals in the best imitation of "My Boyfriend's Back" by the Angels I've heard as they bring folks from all walks of life together for a sock hop. No exclusionary tactics with Abba. They believe in the brotherhood of man. Yes, concerned with the world, they are beckoning punks, disco-ers, housewives, truck drivers, everybody to join in. And join you do, you gotta admit it—I know people who say they hate them and when discovered humming along to "Honey Honey" or "Knowing Me, Knowing You" embarrassingly claim that they thought it was another group.

There is a serious side to Abba, though, as demonstrated by the three song "mini-musical" that closes the record. Aptly titled "The Girl With The Golden Hair" (no Clairol needed in Nordic circles, thank you), it moves from the joy of singing for a living ("Thank You For The Music") to musings over leaving home in search of fame and fortune ("I Wonder") to "I'm A Marionette," a rather dizzying number about not having a life of your own and being unhappy as an entertainer. "I feel like a pushedaround refugee" sing Abba and maybe that's why they've never played the States. (If and when they do, I'll go, but only blindfolded.) I hope that the ending of this record on a down note doesn't signal trouble in Abbadom. I mean, Abba makes me feel good, with no strings and I like it that way. I, for one, don't want to have bad dreams in which Ted Lewis comes down to earth for a visit and has to yell "Is anybody happy?" Meatballs, anyone?

BRIAN ENO

Before And After Science _(Polydor—Import)_

Brian Eno is mechanized anathema. The sounds of Eno are the collected sounds of some sentient alien seltzer busily digesting a greasy heart that's too big for its own cogs. This Metropolis moke master of machine squirm has all the chops to counteract the current deluge of amentia in a misinformed, misunderstood punknology, as well as an extraordinary sense of image that takes him on occasion beyond mere musician on into the murky realms of sonic painter. And it's as a sonic painter where Eno will eventually leave his mark.

On his last release, Another Green World, Eno failed to match up his musical tiffany, machine head rigescence and livid language grins. That album contained stunning examples of all three, but somehow it was all fragmented and never quite meshed together the way it should've been. The musical tiffany was there on "Sombre Reptiles," the machine head rigescence on "Sky Saw" and the livid language grin on "Becalmed," but there wasn't a single tune that incorporated all three levels of Eno's marmoreal musical magic. Such earlier language tics as "Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch,"1 "Needles In The Camel's Eye" and "Mother Whale Eyeless" also reflected this inbred split in his musical personality.

Well, it seems that Eno's music has again progressed, and so has his understanding of the word as rhythm. On Before And After Science the balance has been achieved and the perfect Eno album released. This will be the album that'll enable even the novitjatee complete access into his world of abstraction and absorbtion, as well as enriching the world of distraction and disruption already experienced by the seasoned Enoite.

The underlying tension between image and sound is almost unbearable on a few of the songs. "Here He Comes" constantly threatens some portentous climax both musically and lyrically, but it never happens; instead the tension is taken into still other levels of sublime calm on the fol lowing song, "Julia with..." which is the perfect Eno song, the perfect fusion of image and rhythm Most of the songs are sly paint ings covering some oblique overall theme. "Energy Fools The Magi cian" sounds like it might be some kind of Uriah Heepish song but it ain't, instead it's a glowing re port on magic and science and how together they rule the world So if you're expecting some sort of rakish carburetor "tohubohu," forget it. Eno remains as shape less and idoless as ever, and his music is beyond as well as before and after science.

Joe Fernbacher

ANGEL White Hot (Casablanca)

The short relievers in Angel have been fidgeting around the Casablanca bullpen for nearly three years now, waiting anxiously for that disastrous inning when the pasty-faced fireballers of Kiss get knocked out of the box, and it's all up to these white-hot bonus cherubim to bring glory back home to the Casbah... But crafty manager Neil Bogart, hot off the doubleheader triumphs of Donna Summer and Parliament, is set to go the distance with the big guys of Kiss, and the phone ain't ringing for Angel.

Which is kind of sad, since if there ever was a band psyched up for superstardom (both .in their own minds, and in the machinations of their imagedesigners), Angel is that band. Can't let that nifty reversible logo go for naught, it's gotta be imprinted on the public's viewscreens sooner or later. For now, though, the persevering Angel logo will have to settle for inscription on some of our nation's finest budding-adolescent chests, as White Hot includes a flyer announcing the formation of the "Angel Earth Force" (an alternative service to the Kiss Army), and advertising the attendant deluxe Angel t-shirts to the loyalist troops.

So the groundwork for Angel's superstardom gets ever more solidly-constructed, but the actual payoff of all this preparation continues to remain just over the horizon. The problem is that rock styles changed while Angel was out woodshedding their preconceptions, and continental-inflected metal ain't exactly & la mode anymore. Punky [sic] Meadows" mascara-encrusted eyeballs are only the beginning of this band's irrelevance to 1978.

Which is harsh, but hopefully also edifying to this particular aggregation, who have always managed to bring some kind of barband-bred musical honesty and kineticism to whatever pretensions of style they've wallowed through—in other word&, I basically like "em.

Angel may be aware of their stylistic dilemma, in their own ethereal way, as White Hot betrays some slight shifts of approach, as in the Beatleish (or Pezbandish) "Stick Like Glue" and "Flying With Broken Wings," or in Angel's return to their own Eastern Seaboard roots by remaking the Young Rascals" immortal "Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore." The rest is that familiar Angel-metal (some of) you have come to know and love, and works fine, except for the perfectly dreadful "Winter Song" (rock and Christmas don't mix unless you patronize the holiday in best Beach Boys-style, guys).

In the meantime, I've gotta call this meeting of the local chapter of the Angel Earth Force to order: "Resolved, that Mickey Jones never existed, and that Felix Robinson is the premier bassist of recorded history..."

Richard Riegel

WAYLON & WILLIE _ (RCA)

"Pick Up The Tempo" again. "It's Not Supposed To Be That Way" again. Tracking these guys separately or in tandem means a hell of a lot of comparative listening, like Bird variations on "Just Friends," and they're not even dead yet. Plus: a song with "cowboys" in the title and two duets on post-matinee idoldom (decidedly substandard) Kristofferson songs. Another loose and friendly LP of undemanding country noodling in the familiar Waylon and Willie mode; no strings, but not enough piano either, and melodies that all sound like the "windshield wipers slappin" time" part of "Me And Bobby McGee." What began as a reaction to country-politan conservatism has become conservatism itself, with Willie lending his pipes to every session in town from Mary Kay Place to Duane Eddy, and Waylon smoothly clippityclopping in a bid to become B.J. Thomas on "The Wurlitzer Prize (I Don't Want To Get Over You)" (swell title, wasted).

Larry McMurtry on Texas, c, 1968: "The state is at that stage of metamorphosis when it is most fertile with conflict, when rural and soil traditions are competing most desperately with urban traditions— competing for the allegiance of the young. The city will win, of course, but its victory won't be cheap—the country traditions were very strong."

What he didn't count on, couldn't have foreseen, was the sentimentalization of the modern cowboy ethos, the glamorization of pioneerdom that Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson so successfully exploit. When they sing "Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys" they mean "Baby, a cowboy is the only thing to grow up to be," and for them "cowboy" is stretched to mean truck driver or country singer. As likeable as Waylon & Willie is—Nelson's singing, especially on "If You Can Touch Her At All," is sexy and warmblooded, and the W&W duets have an appealing offhandness to them—it's also complacent, and most of the songs are slender. And in tone, if not always in text, they're propagandists for an insular kind of "mellowing out" (the term is actually used on "I Can Get Off On You"). "Luchenbach, Texas" is really an insidious little song, at that.

One on one, Nelson steals the game right out from Jennings on this democratically weighted album (in addition to the five pairings, each has three solo spots, one of which is a four-minute attempt at something "ambitious"; Waylon tackles Stevie Nicks" "Gold Dust Woman" and Willie does a conventional May-December waltz-ballad, "A Couple More Years"). Reclaimed from the song cycle of Phases And Stages, "It's Not Supposed To Be That Way" is one of Nelson's more moving songs, and although both of their singing styles have, in effect, become self-imitation, Willie's crooning and odd phrasing prove more resilient than Waylon's diesel-fueled machismo.

These two erstwhile renegades are a known quantity by now, and why fight it? It's all on the surface, with their regressive crackerbarrel philosophy on wimmen and such, Waylon's manly grumbling (they'll name an after-shave for him yet: use "Waylon" and get back to the basics of love), Willie's awshucks sensitivity. They make a dandy pair, and so safe that it's time for them to have their own television series as Singing cowpokes; now if they could only decide which one would be Gabby Hayes.

Mitch Cohen

CHET BAKER You Can't Go Home Again _(Horizon)__

In 1953 Chet Baker was jazz's fair-haired boy, young white West Coast lyrical soft trumpet player and, with Gerry Mulligan's pianoless quartet, as famous as a post-bop jazz musician could be. He even became a soft (tho not quite as lyrical) crooner, but faded into obscurity during the Sixties— not total obscurity because there was always those classic sides from the Fifties and still an occasional album but mediocre or hard to get. When I started to listen to jazz, a tot in "62, Baker was rarely played on the radio and usually as a golden oldie. There were rumors of problems with drugs, rumors of comebacks, rumors of forced retirement. By 771 wasn't sure if he were alive or dead, didn't really care—except for Miles I preferred hot trumpet players like Freddie Hubbard before he sold out (can't blame a man) or Lee Morgan before he died...

Then this album appears on (the) Horizon with a picture of this guy peering out of the shadows, hair slicked back (perspiration?), a patchy beard and wrinkled brow and, this you can see from the one eye peering out of the shadows, afraid. If it wasn't for the classy/ casual threads, he'd be a ringer for one of those Southern migrants who wander up and down John R street in Detroit and furtively ask hippies for spare change. It's Baker back from the pale after kicking a thirteen year heroin habit ("57-70 the liner notes inform us), after nearly dying, after literally losing his chops and having to teach himself to play trumpet all over again. Perusing the liners I see the album is electrified and sweetened with strings and tho the picture on the album is a strikingly poignant illustration of Thomas Wolfe's title, I suspected the album would just be strikingly bad. But it isn't, it's fantastic.Since Miles has disappeared, Baker is the most inventive lyrical jazz trumpeter currently releasing sides.

The background on the album is electric and funky but never heavy handed or dull and the strings are so unobtrusive you'll barely notice them. Credit goes to Don Sebesky for the chameleon arrangements and honorable mention to tenor saxophonist Michael Brecker, a fluent post-Trane hard-edge funk player who manages to avoid most of the cliches of the idiom and shares equal solo space with Baker. As for Baker, his artistic comeback is secure—he can play it hot hard, cool soft, long lined or pithy, always intelligent and musical. Whether his commercial comeback is secured, well, it's jazz you know, palatable for mass consumption, but still jazz and hard to say.

Richard C. Walls

STARZ Attention Shoppers! _(Capitol)_

Attention Shoppers! Yeah,, that oughta perk up the ears of anyone who's ever been run over by a stampede of housewives eager to pick up on last week's wilted lettuce or last month's antique apple dicer at $pecial $aving$. A favorite marketing device of Sears and K-Marts everywhere. Too bad this record has trouble even making it up to Woolworth's status.

Yep, sad to say, but in one swell swoop, Starz have fallen from a promising middleweight contender in the Aerosmooch sweepstakes to a faltering pretender in same, mainly through a combination of dumb moves that their usually-ontop-of-it management firm (the Aucoin bunch) should have avoided like a kiss of death.

Ya see, early on, Starz realized that if ya don't have chops (and they don't), ya better have hooks. So the best stuff on last year's Violation was reasonably catchy and "Cherry Baby" was a moderate hit. So this time around, they figured to go all out for the AM market by making the material even more mundane than usual.

So far so good (if dullness is in again this year), but after being waltzed twice around the studio by Jack Douglas, they figured they could do it themselves this time. No way. They just ain't up to capturing the gloss rock that boss jocks love to jump on.

The trouble starts with the opener, "Hold On To The Night." The tune's an ok radio riff, but the production reeks. The guitars clang instead of roar, the vocals are buried in the mix, and the segue to the fade is clumsily abrupt.

And from there on, it's downhill! No memorable riffs or melodies, no guitar solos to shake you outta your stupor. Just a handful of half-fulfilled hooks left hanging from the rafters. At this rate, Starz will be working barz soon and someone will stumble over their be-you-tiful logo in a Sav-On somewhere and wonder what it is. That's rock "n" roll?

Michael Davis

ART GARFUNKEL Watermark (Columbia)

This is an astonishing record.

I'm glad there isn't a Pauline Kael of the record business. At least if there is one, I haven't heard of hinVher; and it certainly isn't me. So I get to say "This is an astonishing record," without fear of having the quote lifted and being responsible for lines around the block.

I asked to review this record because I'd been told that the songs were by Jimmy Webb, and that Paul Desmond played on it. Garfunkel was the least of it. And now I've heard the record, and he's still the least of it.

He's a perfect clone; his female counterpart is Linda Ronstadt. What I mean by that is that they are both capable of making this gorgeous sound, unimpeded by any insight into what the words might mean, and are thus perfecjt malleable raw material for a producer. Usually, I think that producers get too much credit, but now I'd like to propose a Law, or at least a hypothesis: The importance of the producer increases in inverse proportion to the sensitivity of the performer. Thus: Bob Dylan's producer holds a stopwatch; Garfunkel's or Ronstadt's invents the record. Not a new situation; Ella Fitzgerald has never known what lyrics meant.

Not a bad point, and I pat myself on the back for making it, but not what I meant by astonishing, either. I can see where Paul Simon might have thought his old partner a beautiful tabula rasa to painf on. But I'm astonished that in Hollywood, where I live, and where the received opinion is that the action has shifted from the dying movie business to the burgeoning record business, that the record hipsteYs would repeat the same mistakes that drove the movies out of business.

Here's what I mean: there's a note on the back of this album which reads, "This album was produced from December 7, 1976 through December 23, 1977." It was recorded in Muscle Shoals, Hollywood, Westwood, San Francisco, New York, and Dublin, Ireland. Backup includes The Chieftains, the late Paul Desmond, The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, and I swear, The Oklahoma Baptist University Chorale. And harmony vocals by Paul Simon and James Taylor. That makes this record, I figure, the equivalent of Hello Dolly! or Funny Lady. Everybody in the United States has to buy it twice for it to break even.

Well, it's a nice record, but it's not that nice. Webb, whose talent I admire inordinately, must have caught on early to the fact that Garfunkel just makes this noise, and pushed off some of his least successful songs on him—even the title track, from the infamous The Yard Went On Forever album. And Paul Desmond plays his last lovely, hesitant solo. But what really bothers me, a key to the whole work, is when Garfunkel joins his old returned partner and the Third Man, James Taylor, whose combined energy couldn't power a lava lamp, for a soaring Magnificat based on the old Sam Cooke piece, "(What A) Wonderful World." Well, I'm too old to feel nostalgic about that tune, and its message remains so subnormal that even Phil Spector might recoil from embellishing it. But not Garfunkel. He sings it as though it were "Bridge Over Troubled Water." So I have to figure he doesn't know the difference.

That's what's been the matter with rock and roll all along. Johnny Rotten just said he was the first punk.

Joe Goldberg

THE JAM This Is The Modern World (Polydor)_

QUICKIE QUIZ-The Jam is a throwback band that most closely resembles one of the following: (a) 3 Dog Night (b) The Who (c) Freddie & The Dreamers (d) nobody, ya dope!

The answer, of course, is (d). It s too easy to dismiss The Jam as mere Who mimics. To pronounce Modern World a£ the equivalent of The Who Sell Out (just as numerous critical boobs announced that In The City was only The Who Sings My Generation re-hashed) would be doing this band a grave injustice.

Certainly The Jam does emulate The Who. Paul Weller, leader & spokesman, even wears a Who button on the cover shot of Modern World (not as swell as Charlie Watts" Between The Buttons button, tho) to convey his loyalty (and roots) out front. An arrow points to the button as if to underline the mid-60's reference point. In homage, The Jam has adopted an overall sound that's heavily influenced by Townshend & Co., but the similarities are obscured by the band's striking differences: Townshend wrote comic stories & mini-operas; Weller attacks social ailments through concrete images of city life. Roger Daltrey can sing; Weller & Foxton can't. The Who did powerful cover versions ("Out In The Street" "Under My Thumb"); The Jam are lousy at it ("Midnight Hour" "Slow Down") (however, without any shame, both bands on "Batman" match each other in numskullery). So forget The Who; now on to The Jam.

"This is the modern world!" The Jam exclaims, not in celebration (as Jonathan Richman's "Modern World" celebrates the coming of a New Age), but as an observation of harsh realities & 70's stagnation. "And I'd look down upon the map/ The teachers who said I'd be nothing—". "All Around The World" extends this sociological perspective to a global viewpoint, and "Life From A Window" romanticizes this desire for observation until it becomes introspection ("Life from a window, I'm just taking the view/ Life from a window, observing everything around you/Staring at a grey sky, try to paint it blue—teenage blue"). Not that Weller is a great lyricist, but even the protest songs like "London Traffic" & "Standards" appeal to the heart with a desperate sincerity. A simple line like "It's all so sickening and we're so satisfied" without any hint of artificiality attacks the laid-back disease infecting the brains of today's deadbeat teens.

And the music strengthens the urgency of the message. Quite an improvement over In The City, too. Even got melodies this time, folks, with handclaps & harmony & production & sheesh, the whole works! "Here Comes The Weekend" is especially arousing. When The Jam triumphantly shouts "Long live the weekend, the weekend is dead," heck, I thrust my fist through the ceiling. Most of the other songs inspire similar reactions (smashing chairs, beating heads against walls, etc.). Actually, ignoring "In The Midnight Hour," there's not a blotch in the whole batch. The Who probably could do better, but who gives a goddamn whooot about The Who anyway?!

My only reservation in wholeheartedly supporting The Jam is that they're too quick for comfort. Despite The Jam's acute perceptions, the mass is gonna pass due to a belly full of Whoppers. As the immortal prophet Bo Diddley once said on "Road Runner": "You say you fast, but it don't look like you gonna last." Beep, beep...zooooom ...oh well.

Robot A. Hull

ROCKETS Love Transfusion (Tortoise International)

As the first white r'n"r band from the Motor City to arouse a significant national commotion, Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels have enjoyed origin-of-the-species veneration from Detroit rock fans ever since their mid-60's breakout. Ryder's revival of the group as "Detroit" in 1971 briefly reignited the dieseling hopes of the Detroit Rock culture (centered around this very mag) that the Big D and its bands would top-eliminate the pop competition yet.

But despite its excellent highenergy r&b sound, Detroit's debut album flopped, as Paramount's indifferent promotion ran up against the singer-songwriter fixations of that season's rock public. Mitch Ryder faded into.-obscurity once again, only to watch fellow Michigan sloggers Bob Seger and Ted Nugent finally achieve substantial national popularity, after a decade's worth of striving by each.

The recent vindication of (forms of) Detroit Rock by these latter bands seems to have inspired the once and future Wheels to give it , one more shot. This time they're the "Rockets", a name that ties up several eons of Motor City mythology into one neat cover logo, an Olds Rocket 88 hood ornament by (who else?) Kelly & Mouse Studios. Mitch Ryder himselfs not along for this particular blastoff, but original Wheels guitarist Jim McCarty (who missed the Detroit configuration) has rejoined eternal driving Wheel drummer John (the Bee) Badanjek to front the new Rockets.

But if Detroit was too good an LP for laidback 1971, the Rockets" debut set is not quite up to pop music's careening 1978 pace. As the Sex Pistols" name was tidied up to Love Gun for adolescent-mongering Kiss, so the Rockets dilute

the image another degree further, to Love Transfusion — give blood, not war, etc., as a mellowedout John Sinclair himself might advise us by now.

Simply enough, Love Transfusion is plain old boogie music, as good as we always knew the Wheels could do it, and probably as accessible as any region ot the U.S. could ask for. In fact, the frequent slide guitar tradeoffs between McCarty and newcomer Dennis Robbins impart a definite Southerrrn-rock flavor (say apolitical Lynyrd Skynyrd or maybe a vacationing-in-theMidwest ARS) to the music.

The nine songs are all by Badanjek or McCarty, and are virtually interchangeable, although the obligatory Detroit-chauvinist anthem, "Fast Thing in "D'etroit," and the title cut, churn it up rather nicely. Nothing here stands out as much as Detroit's spirited cover of Lou Reed's "Rock "n" Roll," but the Rockets" debut is still solid, dependable r'n"r. As a Motor City visitor who's cruised Woodward Ave. in his own time, I gotta put it in the native idiom, and say that this set's not the bomb, but it ain't bogue either!

Richard Riegel

SUICIDE (Red Star Records)

Paul Bern did it because he couldn't do it to Jean Harlow; Johnny Ace didn't because he couldn't count; George Sanders did it because he was bored (and despite all the existential ya-hoo THAT'S the ONLY reason tp do it). No, It's not fratricide, not matricide and not insecticide, it's that K-Tel of demises, suicide (talking about the act not the group). Suicide—the ultimate entertainment, the kinkyest of kinks and the only real solution to inflation and unemployment. I like Suicide (talking about the group not the act). Why? They remind me of the first Stooges album and besides, the concept of punk synthesizers ain't that hard to digest.

Their sound is unique, a massive clot of Wild Man Fischer attitudinizing and stamping plant technological titillation without a single scintilla of promise, just demise personified. These two biomaniacs flummox, fluoresce and fizzle into your ears in an anencephalic symphony of spontaneous, directionless dirge. That's why their vision is so frightening and fundamental. Taking all the bad parts of cough syrup musical technology presented by such stalwarts as Tangerine Dream, Gong, ELP and all German groups; Suicide ingests them and regurgitates "em right back in a tsunami of tasteless bliss.

Alan plays lead throat and Martin Rev plays instrument. The songs are interesting excursions into droneland. "Ghost Rider" has one of those infectious rhythms so it's hard not to like it, "Girl" is literate like T.S. Eliot, and the epic is a little synthop called "Frankie Teardrop" which is just a thinly disguised retelling of Frankie Machine and the Frank Sinatra story. And guess what, they even get political, when was the last time you ever heard of a progressive band getting political. They do a toon called, "Che" and it's better than the soundtrack from the movie of the same name and it's also better than Omar Sharif.

So as far as a first effort goes, these two mechanized marvels get an A on the ok meter. Of course, if could be that Alan and Marty are just two clowns who have found a hard method with which to try and steal your money. Like they say in the comic books, "Eat meat, Veggymen!!!!" This'll surely put the big S back in suicide.

Joe Fernbacher

SWEET

Level Headed

_(Capitol)_

Big change for The Sweet here. Seems they decided to bring their music more inline with their name, forsaking those heavy-set voting booths of sound like "Fox On The Run" and "Ballroom Blitz" in favor of lightweight foamdomes stuffed with butterfly strings and nuzzling harpsichords—roughly the equivalent of Wayne Newton doing a hopped-up version of "Proud Mary," only in reverse. You want to say "But that trick never works, Bullwinkle," but they just reply: "This time for sure!"

Whoops, musta had the wrong hat. Most pf the songs on Level Headed sound like answers to the $20,000 Pyramid clue: "Things associated with a cake." No more speaker-numbing MAGILLA pontoons for these guys. Now it's nurse-fulfilling ditties like "Letters D'Amour" and the gustful "Fountain." Come make moo moo at my pee pee. Not that ballads are generically bad, but Sweet ballads consist mostly of flowery arrangements lacking a strong melody to carry them off. "Dream On," with its lovely piano and home movie strings, is one of the dampest doilies ever to mildew a tone arm, and until now, I'd thought that cow diapers like "Anthem No. 1 (Lady Of The Lake)" had been banned forever under the Jon Anderson act.

There are some salvagable cuts, but you'll need a jelly blaster to find them. "Silver Bird," with Steve Priest's intense "Hungry"-like bass beetle heads and one of those story lines about young lust and "The games that we played" (I suspect they warrant "Clue" or "Drop The Handkerchief") is a solid tune with mucho teen appeal, and "California Nights" (creative titles part III) is a likable "California Girls" type tour of the States. Vegas chicks are phoney, Bronx gals dig baloney, that kind of thing.

But that about covers it, the rest of the songs being either kittendirected softies or one of their misguided attempts at disco. There's even something of an "experimental" effort called "Air On A Tape Loop," a synthesized wave length pool topped with leaky rubber rafts Qf guitar and enigmatic alphabits. The "In" sound from Way Out!

Things could be worse, though. What if their name was The Cute?

Rick Johnson

TUFF DARTS! (Sire)

Tuff Darts are closer to the eleven-year old (male) state of mind than Shaun Cassidy. Pre-teen boys say things like, "Fran-ceen? I'd rather chew bubble gum from the sewer than hold hands with her!" You know, anything to deny that those impertinent erections have anything to do with girls (yecch!). Like The Little Rascals before Darla moves next door and Alfalfa feels this stirring... Trouble is, you're supposed to grow out ot that female-hating phase, but Tuff Darts haven't; they even extend their immature hostility to such tired targets as dirty old men, urban conditions and Humanity In General. And you don't believe them for one second.

No matter how obnoxious John De Salvo's lyrics get, there's no sting at all. The rottenness is a pose that the rest of the Darts can't hold up. Tommy Frenzy's voice is niceguy characterless, and Jeff Salen persists in composing divertingly old-fashioned tunes. The sound of the entire debut album, in fact, is so clean—vocals totally distinguishable, pop textures, good separation, decidedly non-punkish instrumentation like electric piano and saxes—that no one seems to have told the Darts that they're supposed to have some menace. When they try to be vitriolic or ominous ^as on "My Guitar Lies Bleeding In My Arms") they're as silly as Phantom Of The Paradise.

Not all of Tuff Darts! emphasizes the fundamental conflict that sabotages such quasi-satirical cheap shots as "(Your Love Is Like) Nuclear Waste," "Slash," "Rats," "Phone Booth Man" and "Fun City." On the parts of the album where DeSalvo is stifled and Frenzy isn't compelled to sing lyrics that clearly make him uncomfortable, Tuff Darts are a band you could live with. Dumb fun, quite a few levels down from the Ramones, but okay. Salen, left to his own devices, is a talent both as writer and lead guitarist; his "All For The Love Of Rock And Roll" (from the early Dart repertoire, their Robert Gordon days) is a peppy journeyman anthem, "Love and Trouble" and "Head Over Heels" are humorous without bludgeoning, and "Who's Been Sleeping Here" simply.outclasses the rest of the album by yards, a fine rock and roll song. Frenzy's compositional contributions are less promising, but even he has a flair for flippant cruelty that DeSalvo lacks.

It'll all get sorted out. There'll be Yardbirds, and then there'll be Count Fives, and worse. Bands that transcend the movement, those who embody it, and those who hold middle ground. Tuff Darts —on record more than in person, where Frenzy's personality makes him, rather than DeSalvo, the villian—are centrists, cashing in on one hand, parodying on the other, and it's that dichotomy that probably drove Gordon, a rocker who knows exactly what he wants, away. The album is salvaged by Salen's rather middle-of-the-roadish tendencies, but they also undercut the band's impact and diffuse their identity, which may make it hard for them to establish themselves in a cluttered field. Between their lampoony posturing and creative insecurity, Tuff Darts are one confusing band, and they weren't ready to record an album. Neither were Count Five, and they never got a second chance.

Mitch Cohen