BOC: CotHM opinions reprise

[Jon Jarrett]

        Dear All,
                  I've had the album for a couple of months now and given
it a fair bit of play, though maybe not as much as it's due because I got
along with a clutch of very good albums and they have rather outshone it
in terms of player time (Scorched Earth's _Fed To Your Head_, Tony
Hill's _Inexactness_ and Clutch's _Pure Rock Fury_ being the chief
offendors here), and what with the slew of opinions the presence of we few
like myself who didn't rate it much at first, I thought I might have
another crack at the thing in the light of better acquaintance.

        And it has in fact grown on me. I do really like `Now is the
Time', lousy Shirley lyrics with all important ideas repeated at least
once not withstanding. The opening riff saves it, anchors itself in your
skull and won't leave. I'd have edited that and made it the single, nere
mind `Pocket', might have stood out a bit more. `Pocket' I am occasionally
seeing the point of, I think it's just not aimed at me; I'm very rarely in
the mood to let it pick me up and bounce me about so it just skids past me
without getting its hooks in. On the other hand, `I Just Like to be Bad'
is still *awful*. Not only is the tune irritating and Eric sounding
_winsome_ fer Chrissakes but the abysmally poor lyrics can't even maintain
it to the end; not only do we get a weak caricature of a girl who doesn't
get tied down and does her thing, which I can live with as a concept, but
at the end without actually doing anything but tacking a throwaway line
onto it she's turned into just another all-American cutie just looking for
the right man to stay home and bake cookies for. Tchah. I wouldn't mind so
much if this, like `You're Not the One', were intentionally ironic but
it's not, is it? But anyway.

        Again, I recognise fully that the band has probably never played
better since the original line-up. Everybody is really good (apart from
Alan whom I only recognise in one organ part though some of the guitar
must be him also; I see from the interview with Buck someone kindly
posted a link too that he plays the lead on `Pocket' and has a guitar
duel with Buck of sorts in `Here Comes That Feeling', so that's three
parts we think he did on a whole album...), particularly Eric who turns
out some of his best ever work I think; the best example being `One Step
Ahead of the Devil' which to my mind has very few other merits apart from
a certain amount of attack that isn't about much on this album. But Eric's
giving it all he's got, makes it worth listening to. Danny and Buck and
even Bobby are all also showing up well here. I just wish the material was
better...

        To pick up a few of other people's points before I go on, I like
Theo's point about being a kind of _Flat Out_ 2; there's a lot fo what
sounds like Buck-pop kicking about and what startles me is that Eric wrote
some of it. Lots of people are saying it's unfair to expect another
_Secret Treaties_ and that's fine, the band doesn't work like that any
more, you won't get that white-hot stuff all fused together again. I was
hoping for another _Cultosaurus Erectus_ personally... (my fourth
favourite album easily). At least this isn't actually any of BOC's other
albums done again, which would actually be pretty disappointing I suppose.

        But my problem is still the production. As I said, it's perfect,
almost... _too_ perfect. Important words like attack and edge that you
couldn't leave out of any description of the early albums, hell, even out
of a description of _Club Ninja_ (which though otherwise I do think it has
nothing to recommend it apart from a couple of songs that might have been
good if arranged differently or partially rewritten does at least grab you
and growl in your face when it's not screaming for blood), are just not
appropriate here. The problem I thus get is that it doesn't sound like a
BOC record. If anything in terms of sound it strikes me like a tBS
release, and I had the same initial problem with them  in that they didn't
to me have that kind of sonic magic, the fizz of the circular saw, the
glint of the knife, the laughing aggression that a really good BOC tune
should have. Now of course tBS aren't BOC and so I did my best to detune
my ears until I was hearing the music not the space I wanted it to be in
and though I still think the first two are a bit restrained, for obvious
reasons, from _Box of Hammers_ on I love the stuff.

        But there has never been a shortage of decent songs with tBS. Here
in fact there are some decent songs, even if there's no great ones, which
HF has (I rate SYiB and HM as great, `Cold Gray Light of Dawn' as very
good, a couple of others as good (`X-Ray Eyes', `Still Burnin'',
maybe? Changes every time I play it, except that it's never `Live For
Me'). That great one isn't on CotHM but `Now is the Time' is very good, I
quite like `Here Comes That Feeling' and `Stone of Love', I also like `Eye
of the Hurricane' and that one seems to grow on me with every
play. `Pocket' as I say I occasionally get into the same room as but
mostly it eludes me, that's fine, I recognise its merit; same with `Good
to Feel Hungry' which is very odd to me but still clearly good if not
directly appealing, you know what I mean? I don't like `Showtime' at all I
do quite like `Dance on Stilts' but I don't rate it very highly as a song
for some reason, and `I Just Like to Be Bad', well you saw my opinion
already. So there's stuff here but it's hiding behind the polished leather
and comfortable chairs; it should be coming out to get me. The other two
BOC albums I really have trouble getting through, `Spectres' and `Mirrors'
are again the ones where *that* sound is hard to hear, even though they do
both have the great songs, and so while I like this album as a soft-rock
one, it's pretty good stuff in that field, it isn't I think ever going to
rate very high on my list of BOC albums.

        There, I think that says it all. Won't stop me playing it of
course, whereas CN, tRBN and `Spectres' and `Mirrors' really don't get a
lot of time in my stereo glad though I am that the latter two and maybe
three at least exist. I see someone else has the same production
problem with tRBN so someone maybe knows what I mean. Yours,
                                                             Jon

ObCD: Motorhead - _Motorhead_
--
       Jon Jarrett (01223 514989)     jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk
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  "There is a certain pleasure in being mad, which none but madmen know"