THE PRETENDERS Learning To Crawl (Sire)

by Joe (void where prohibited by law) Fernbacher

I can't help myself—I am all aboil with excitement as I approach this review of the new Pretenders LP, Learning To Crauol. See Joe approach the review. Approach the review, Joe. See Joe run away from the review. Run away, Joe. See Joe go and approach that golden-tressed, loosely dressed girl waiting there at the bus stop. Go steal her bus pass, Joe, go moles... See Joe go to a liquor store. See Joe go to a movie. See Joe trying to get away from this review. See the bus almost coming. Out damn review, out!!!!

For some reason, I really wanted to write about this record, but now that it's here, I don't for the life of me remember why. It might have had something to do with the fact that 'Middle Of The Road' is, uncategorically, the most engaging song I've heard on the radio since they played the Tubes' 'Talk To Ya Later' to death.

Or it could have had something to do with Chrissie Hynde (the personification of that ever-elusive rock everybabe if ever there was one) and her continued homage to pissoffedness. Or it might have had something to do with the fact that during a particularly violent bout with the grape, I thoroughly convinced myself that Martin Chambers bore an unnerving resemblance to Max Gaif (Barney Miller's Stan Wojohowiecz, a character bom in Buffalo, N.Y., my home town, for all you buffs of the trivial out there in the wasteland). Or that Chambers used to pdssess the most frightening set of sideburns I had ever seen, thereby instantly putting him in my good graces.

It might've been a perverse desire to dwell on the ODs of James Honeyman-Scott apd Pete Farndon—no, it definitely wasn't that, because everyone's mentioning that these days and I don't really want to... Death, especially that kind of death, is much too personal and should just be left alone.

Might it have had something to do with the abstractly apparitional coolness of C. Hynde's playful dominatrix contralto? It might, since, her voice, with its unerring achiness, has always been the mainstay and major attraction of this band. Take, for example, the cringing rendition here of the Persuaders' early '70s hit, 'Thin Line Between Love And Hate' in which Ms. Hynde shows us some soul chops heretofore unexpected but somehow always yearned for.

Or, perhaps, more than anything else, it'could have been Chrissie Hynde's uncanny ability to swear better than anybody on record that drew me to this record like a leather studded fly with a whip in one hand and a dictionary of slang in the other. Her 'shiftin' bricks,' and '...oh no, not me baby, so fuck off,' on 'Precious' from the first Pretenders LP are indeed precious gems of rock scatology, and Ms. Hynde continues her penchant for steel mill conversation on this record with 'Watching The Clothes,' a song I started out hating and ended up loving. Besides the fact that it would make a great companion piece to ZZ Top's 'TV Dinner,' Chrissie's growling, 'I've been kissing ass/Trying to keep it clean?' is great in execution as well as intention. I mean, the lady sure can speak to the get down-ness of life. 'Watching The Clothes' is more honest than Donna Summer's 'She Works Hard For The Money,' and that's all I'm gonna say on that subject.

Or maybe it was, all in all, just that excitable rockin' of 'Middle Of The Road,' with the fervent Robbie McIntosh's guitar solos, that drew me into this assignment. Whatever it was, this review will self-destruct in five seconds, 'cause here comes that

Crawling up from his private abyss of ascerbity, he gazed upon Hynde as she was bathing in the light of klieg. Soon, like Actaeon of old, he was transformed into a stag, the dogs of review once again yawping 'n' nipping at his heels wanting a taste of his blood', wanting a taste of his needs, wanting his review in ON TIME. Deadline as metaphor is a hard thing to try and sell to an angry editor staring at a gaping hole in his 'zine, so I guess I best stop.

P.S. 1 didn't talk about the other previously released songs, 'Back On The Chain Gang,' 'My City Was Gone,', and '2000 Miles,' simply because they were 'previously released.' Also, the 'Time Won't Let Me' riff in 'Time The Avenger' is...simply there, that's all.

JUDAS PRIEST Defenders Of The Faith (Columbia)

Here's the scoop on Judas Priest—if your average record store had a 'no frills' aisle, its heavy metal shelf would be stocked with nothing but Judas Priest albums. J.P., you see, makes letter-perfect generic heavymetal. This band hits the essence of the form dead-on and offers no special packaging whatsoever. But hold on—that's not quite the put-down it may first appear to be. At least not when you take into account the particular way Judas Priest sucks off HM's cliches, and also what those cliches are all about to begin with.

First it's important to siate LOUD AND CLEAR that, for the most part, the Priests are not just boring metal jerk-offs (a la Iron Maiden, current Kiss, Motley Crue, ad crunch nauseum). They may take the most rote route, but they still manage to milk the ride for some thrills. To be more specific—while neither of their guitarists is ever going to give Eddie Van Bertinelli a run for his money in the originality department, they still do whip out lots of dumb-fun pig squeal solos. Similarly, 'singer' Rob Halford does boast a likeable HM snarl, but his howling doesn't really stand out like the total crazoid squawk of prime Ian Gillan, or bring up phlegm like that genius from AC/DC. (For the record, AC/DC stands out as metal's finest due to that band's considerable finesse with early '70s slobbo plod-rock). As for Priest's own relatively memorable riffs, they're some of the 'purest' of the genre, direct descendents of those of the band who originally defined what became metal's 'party line'—Deep Purple.

Interestingly, within an idiom that prides itself on cultural purity, J.P.'s untarnished roots gain special SIGNIFICANCE. Musically, in a pop world that's becoming more and more cross-fertilized, busing in disco, funk and reggae influences, HM may be the last true sanctuary of rock inbreeding. Which is not to say that heavy metal hasn't shacked up with various alien forms over the years. There's metal art-rock (which often can be condemned more for the art than the metal), and, especially in the '80s, corporate metal (like recent Def Leppard, Rainbow or Sammy Hagar). But even in these various sub-genres, basic metal ideology remains fixated, with the form's S-M symbolism generally overriding even the most 'meaningful' and identifiable marks of the individual bands themselves. And Judas Priest's eminently 'common' competence epitomizes that principle. This particular group, more than any other HM aggregation, allows you to appreciate the timeless gross-out joys of metal itself without distracting you with too much 'brand-name' identity. (Case in point being that the lone truly inspired moment of this band's career was a cover of Joan Baez's 'Diamonds And Rust.')

All of this also lends unintentional irony to the cliche title of Priest's new LP (finally, he mentioned it!). To Judas Priest, heavy metal truly is a faith for which one must abandon the notion of self. Which means that this new album sounds almost exactly like every other J.P. LP, though there seems to be more superfast songs running around and nothing quite so immediately catchy as 'Hot Rockin'.' Still, on the whole, the 'one-sound-fits-all' approach continues to work just fine. Judas Priest are still the best of the nobodies. And until some new leather loyalists come along to seize that dubious title, I say, more power to 'em, whoever they may not be.

Jim Farber

EURYTHMICS

Touch

(RCA)

Our Story So Far: last summer, like all God-fearing Americans I turned my radio way up each time it was graced by 'Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This),' Eurythmics' out-of-leftfield international debut smash. As you all no doubt remember, this went on for so long my knob hand grew weary, though not as weary as the rest of me when arch, flash Annie Lennox—she of the orange crew cut and leather accessories—became a permanent fixture of MTV. Eventually, there came 'Love Is A Stranger,' an even better single, and it, too, was similarly debased on the small screen. And I became embarrassed about liking the songs so much in the first place and wondered if my pop antennae were properly adjusted. After all, a synth duo that presented Wildroot and wigs as daring or even new couldn't be all that hip to begin with. Performance covered that turf much better 15 (count 'em) years ago. Ho Hum.

Page Two: Last week I started listening to Touch, Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox's new LP, and it

started to feel like summer all over again. High summer, at that. For a full day 1 couldn't get past the first track, 'Here Comes The Rain Again,' which will do even better than 'Sweet Dreamy' if quality is a measure of anything anymore. This brilliant single features Ms. Lennox—-whose video persona implies that sex with three or four bull mastiffs might be mildly diverting— singing a tender song about, uh, mutuality and, I'll be doggone, chirping some fine 'shoo wop shoo wop's behind the chorus and even tossing in a few heart-stopping (well; my heart anyway) sighs, to boot. Meanwhile, her quiet half is working overtime. I don't care if it isn't Shadow Morton out there on the beach with a mike recording a thunderstorm, weird Dave Stewart is making suitably drizzly plink plinks with some machine or other—real atmosphere for a real pop song. He's even swiped the string fills from the Shirelles' masterpiece, 'Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow.' Imagine that: Boy George and Annie Lennox leading a new wave of girl groups into the middle '80s. Who woulda thunk it?

The rest of the album, musically adventurous, precise and generally intelligent pale-faced pop funk, stays focused on the heart of the matter. 'Who's That Girl?' could have been sung by anyone from the Teen Queens to the Three Degrees and the Afro-Caribbean inflicted 'Right By Your Side' coos Ronettes to me every time I hear it. Of course, the Cookies would not have sung 'No Fear, No Hate, No Pain (No Broken Hearts),' but the overwrought melodrama/frosty hauteur that their videos and such a wretched title led me to expect are cut throughout with expressive vocals and general excellence both of conception and execution. Likewise for 'Regrets,' 'Cool Blue,' and 'Aqua,' the last of which uses some Talking Heads neoAfrican choral counterpoint over and under a lead voice I like much more than Mr. Byrne's. (As girls on film go, I still prefer Tina, but we're talking plastic here.)

So what's not to like? Well, less isn't always more and a whole LP without a living, breathing drummer tends to sound thin and, well, synthetic. But, in 1984, that's not much of a reservation. And Eurythmics are not—repeat, not — progressive. (Now that the excruciating Yes have hit the Top of the Pops and, God willing, Asia is behind uS, maybe nobody's progressive anymore. Rick Wakeman, don't say nothing.) Clearly the game here is to imply, especially via video bombast, a serious hidden agenda and then to skip blithely along making POP HITS. If I can stay away from the TV, I should be very happy for the next few months.

Jeff Nesin

GEORGE CLINTON You Shouldn't-Nuf Bit, Fish (Capitol)

I like fishing almost as much as I like music. Dealing with dumb, slimy creatures can get to be a way of life. George Clinton likes to fish, too, but he's more into the deep-sea variety. He knows hooks a lot better than I do, but one thing I know is when to throw 'em back. I almost always throw 'em back. George doesn't.

Which pretty much sums up Fish. Clinton's brain isn't fried, despite a lifelong effort to make it look that way. In fact, he's actually a downto-earth-guy. All us fishermen are. Now if he can start doing something on vinyl with any kind of consistency, we can all agree he's the genius he probably is and cut bait.

But he can't—he continues with hjs magnificient obsession, which is obsession itself. Forget funkin', forget 'Maggot Brain,' forget 'Atomic Dog'—this cat's possessed with being obsessed. He's got a trillion or so angles, all of them oblique, and manages to raise entendre to the 32nd power every time he goes into a studio. Either that or he's just fucking around. There's no way to tell the difference, given the Mothership Uncertainty Principle.

Oh yeah, the album. Well, he's got one great song here—'Nubian Nut,' a rap triumph with weird racist (and 1 don't mean anti-white) overtones. Maybe it'll be enough to put the album in the (ha, ha) black. He's got one good song here: 'Quickie,' with what had to be about the most twinkie infectious guitar riff ever riffed. Outside of that, he's got youri usual centuries of psychedelic excess.

Unless you want to count the title track. It reprises 'Nubian Nut' musically and George produces the grand metaphor of the disc ('With electronic bait/Man is nuclear fission.') Will somebody send this guy a copy of Political Science?

So what's Clinton proved, outside of the fact that he's still a character? As usual, he's still a good producer, although it might be fun if he restricted himself to using only 700 or less sidemen per album. Also to the positive: he's still putting out records on major labels. To the negative: the joke's becoming positively pathological. Two great songs on the last two albums is good, but it ain't gonna make Prince sit around and pout.

Tell you what, George: why not stay out of the studio for awhile and concentrate on making an algebra of angling? Turn your genius to something worthwhile.

J. Kordosh

CHRISTINE McVIE

(Warner Brothers)

For years Christine McVie has been Fleetwood Mac's hidden strength. Though the addition of the carbonated California pop of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks in the mid '70s is credited with rejuvenating this warhorse '60s band, their frothy effervescence would have quickly dissipated without the cap provided by McVie's solid, fundamental musical approach. In Mac's vocal arrangements it's her haunting smoky voice that provides the root melody for Buck/Nicks to soar through, and it's McVie's songs-ffl 'Over My Head,' 'Say You Love Me,' 'Don't Stop,' 'You Make Loving Fun,' etc.—which consistently demonstrate the most soul and depth in the group's book.

It is this quality of soulfulness that has distinguished McVie's work over the years, from her game contributions to the Chicken Shack blues band and her first solo album, Christine Perfect, to her role in Fleetwood Mac and now a second solo record after a 15 year hiatus, Christine McVie.

The new. solo project is less of a departure from her current day job than her first record was from Chicken Shack. Where Christine Perfect was far superior to anything Chicken Shack recorded, Christine McVie trades off the strengths of the Fleetwood Mac formula that she is such an essential part of. Though 'Love Will Show Us How' is harder edged and simpler than a Fleetwood Mac song, stylistically it's the similarities rather than the differences that stand out. Co-writer/ guitarist/vocalist Todd Sharp uses the same kind of melodic single-line guitar figures that Lindsey Buckingham favors, and Buckingham himself guests on several tracks.

McVie's songs are as eloquent and personal an account of her love life as, say, Joni Mitchell's, but without the unseemly exhibitionism. (The name of her publishing company, Alimony Music, indicated her bemused attitude toward affairs of the heart.) Her expressions of love's pain ('The Challenge') and exhilaration ('So Excited') are couched in simple, universal images like the lonely bed and the long awaited knock on the door, yet her subtle melodies and sly, confiding voice infuse the images with tremendous emotional resonance. In 'I'm The One' and 'Keeping Secrets,'; she adopts a gettough attitude about love as she refuses to allow herself to be a victim, yet in 'The Smile I Live For' she accents her capacity for total surrender through some beautiful piano accompaniment.

Two of the album's best songs feature vocal and instrumental ex-^ changes with Steve Win wood. The opus-de-funk 'One In A Million' is a dramatic vocal trade-off between the two that reminds you just how good a blues singer Christine is. In 'Ask Anybody' McVie explores the psychology of her love entanglements with characteristic irony and that determined faith that keeps her searching for the ideal even after countless disappointments. The gentler, introspective tone she strikes here is supported superbly by Winwood's brilliantly understated keyboard and backing vocals, all of which combines for McVie's most moving vocal performance on the record. Let's hope she doesn't wait another 15 years to make her next record, becaue Christine McVie is, quite simply, the finest Fleetwood Mac spinoff solo album yet.

John Swenson

DWIGHT TWILLEY Jungle (EMI-America)

' In the acknowledgement section of his Record Guide, music critic Robert Christgau heartfully thanks his wife for teaching him to spot when a 'record is a non-entity, one of the hardest things to get a bead on.' Thanks to the Christgaus for naming those kinds of records, and a pox on Dwight Twilley for making this one named Jungle.

It's very hard to let go of true love, and true love is indeed what goosepimpled mobs of us felt when Dwight Twilley and drummer Phil Seymour released an album called Sincerely in 1976. If you've never heard it, scare up a copy and hang on. On that wonderous platter, they put the right pop stuff together in just the right proportions—Tom Verlaine with Chad and Jeremy, British Invasion pop with early southern rock, commerciality with artsy obtuseness, teeth with tenderness. Twilley Don't Mind (1977) has its moments, too— 'Trying To Find My Baby'committed arson on the solar plexus. Even people who hadn't felt true love figured Twilley would soon be up there with Tom Petty and Bob Seger in the ranks of All-American classic rockers.

Then Phil and Dwight broke up, and the impatient lovers in the audience didn't swoon over Twilley (1978); throwing turgid Barry Manilowisms into the chemistry just didn't sound good. 1982's Scuba Divers was much better—Manilow was gone, and Some of the snap was back in the rubber gloves, if you know what 1 mean. During interviews and shows he seemed an infinitely nicer human being than in previous years. A good guy on his way back to good music?

Well, let s just say it s all over now, baby blue. It's gotta be—who will give Dwight Twilley another chance to make another mediocre record that won't turn a profit? He's done five albums how, and Jungle is the third that doesn't cut it. You can't get a bead on the melodies — too nondescript. No rhythms really move either, except the ones in 'Don't You Love Her' (simple, elegant, and an exceptiori). The mix is also linbeadable. At least before you could hear his sexy phrasing. Now somebody took all that hokey echo away and even worse, you can barely hear him sing at all. And what happened to the old nasty rockabilly backbeat? 'You Can Change It' and 'Cry Baby' could be easily mistaken for a Quarterflash copy band; the title track sounds like the Doobie Brothers now that they're extinct; the beginning of 'Long Lonely Nights' approximates the general yawn of just about any song on white rock radio; and try to imagine the last cut being about a legless dog and not being very much fun. Whew.

The only explanation I can imagine for this change came from Twilley himself in an '82 interview. Apparently he came out of his selfdestruct rock star phase with a mighty desire to be as honest and no-frills as life would allow. Good for him; bad for his music. Bob Christgau would ask why I still get so wound up about Dwight Twilley. I guess fire damage takes a long time to repair.

Laura Fissinger

XTC

Mummer

(Geffen)

Mummer marks XTC's psychic retreat to the band's native village of Swindon, where folk are rough and still near to the earth. The women wear rubber Wellies 11 months of the year, and the more intellectuallyinclined of the menfolk spend many busy hours in the woods counting the rabbit droppings in a given square yard, in order to postulate theories of lapine population density for the learned journals. The group members of XTC themselves appear on the liner of Mummer in characteristic Swindon holiday dress—shredded newspapers and funny hats—historic costumes commemorating the miraculous escape from under the noses of Norman captors in 1067 A.D., of three Saxon firebrands, who disguised themselves as bundles of exelsior left out for the Neanderthals who rode the garbage carts in those days.

. Once upon a bright English spring [morning when the pop weeklies still spoke of the Sex Pistols and the Clash in the present tense, the brave lads of XTC had set out from Swindon for the shining promise of London, where there was sure to be work for fresh-faced boys from the provinces. Led by Andy Partridge, proud enough of his Maltese birth never to be ashamed of wearing prescription eyeglasses in public, and Colin Moulding, a dashing sort determined to rise above the chronic insecurities that bedevil bass players, the XTC-ers had had just enough art school to smooth out their rough edges, but not so much as to seachange them into hugely cynical artrockers of the ilk of Yes or Pink Floyd.

XTC got on rather well in London, signing with Virgin and releasing a series of records which the critics found difficult to peg but impossible not to love. The group purveyed a neo-artrock neurotically intellectual almost to the point of preciousness, and yet heartily clever and funny as well, and yet often so manic in its rhythms that the boys appeared to have been born Hottentots rather than Swindonians. And yet (the saddest 'and yet' of all), even after making pop singles as heartbreakingly brilliant as 'Life Begins At The Hop' and 'Senses Working Overtime,' and in the process, girding the globe in years of rigorous touring, XTC was known to only 1.37 percent of the rockfan populace west of the Greenwich Meridian.

Not theirs to say die, XTC has come home to Swindon to regroup, and reportedly to enter the St. Steelydan-the-Cooljerk Monastery of perpetual studiohood. Whether the band tours again or not, XTC has come up with a wholly new album in Mummer, new even in the continually astounding XTC canon. Mummer is all bucolic and verdant and muted where previous XTC records were nervous and herkyjerky and brittle in their intelligence (country lads down in The Smoke.) In plainer terms, Mummer is equal parts folk music and acolyte jazz to XTC's traditional powerpop. The herky-jerkies are still in there, but are buried so securely beneath mossy old stone walls of sound that one only begins to apprehend them after repeated listenings. At which point they threaten to become every bit as compelling as past-glory XTC hooks like that spine-harrowing bass swoop in 'Jason And The Argonauts.'

Ah, but these XTC swains remain a clever sort on Mummer, inserting their 'quirky' ideals right into your heart via tapdances down your ear canals. Could anyone ever again support either war or imperialism after encountering Mr. Partridge's 'Beating Of Hearts' or 'Human Alchemy;' respectively? Could anyone fail to doubt his or her existential role in the universe after hearing 'Great Fire' ('I'm animal and panicking')? Could anyone not be moved by the trysting-among-thecornrows poignance of 'Love On A Farmboy's Wages'? Could anyone not empathize with Colin Moulding's sentiments in 'Wonderland,' where he almost exactly mimes Alan Price's cheerful daggers to chide a lost love who's now 'flirting with the lower gentry'? And could anyone fail to appreciate Andy Partridge's dilemma in 'Funk Pop A Roll,' an attack on the commercial blight of the music business couched in a bright pop tune seemingly talior-made for chart commerce?

Ah, I thought not. The thatchedroof aural cottage XTC has erected on Mummer is so gorgeous and so evocative that it entirely justifies the band's retreat to the rural virtues of the studio. And a lusty 'Fie!' to those rogues at the ever-fickle English pop weeklies, who intimated that Andy 'bolted' for home only to found his own Partridge family!

Richard Riegel