This Picture
City of Sin
Arista
This Picture’s City of Sin would be more aptly entitled City of Whim. The British band can’t seem to decide whether they want to be yet another among the legions of ear-candy pushers or whether they want to be serious artists with a serious message.
With a sound reminiscent of Miami Vice soundtrack wannabes spewing cut-rate Roch Voisine and bargain-basement Mike and the Mechanics, in this music biz boxing ring the group is bound to bear the brutal beating due a flyweight contender shooting for the super-heavyweight title.
The best songs on the album—”The Outsider,” “The Prophet” and title track, “City of Sin”—have a modest chance of becoming minor hits…if time rockets backwards and forces us to relive the ’80’s. Even then, their chances of success would be questionable.
Whoever decided to release City of Sin was either blind to the modern music scene, or sorely in need of new glasses, because This Picture is sadly out of focus.
– Saleem W. Khan
Various Artists
Club Cutz Volume 6
BMG
Now that you’ve gotten the ground effects installed on the Cavalier, what better way to celebrate than by cruising down Yonge listening to Club Cutz Volume 6? All your favourites are here, including “I Was Made For Loving You,” a Kiss favourite resurrected with fervour by Chill. Rednex gives us “Cotton Eye Joe,” which sounds like John Denver meets Swedish disco. But the best part is the inclusion of Le Click’s, “Tonight is the Night,” a dance club standard bound to be recognized by even the most ardent metalhead.
This is the tape that gets featured in warm up parties at university residences across the country. Tons of synth and easy to learn repetitive lyrics based on picking up snuggle bunnies.
You may like it. But if you can’t stand the idea of slicking back your hair, wearing velour and going to bars where everyone asks what your sign is, then the whole thing is utter crap.
– Chris Rands
Hard Rock Miners
Rock ‘n’ Roll Welfare
Hypnotic Records/A&M
It’s hard to fault a band for a whole album when all of their songs sound the same. Indeed, if you’re AC/DC or Def Leppard, that’s the general idea and it’s called being consistent.
So the Hard Rock Miners haven’t so much released a bad album, but a bad album-length song interspersed with occasional tape hiss. Yes, tape hiss can be golden but that’s not the point. The point is the Miners’ Celtic-influenced hillbilly rock so rudely interrupts it. And not just once or twice, but on about thirteen different occasions with songs like “Old Man” (about an old man), “Oh This Night” (about a night), and “Old Vancouver Town” (about Vancouver).
Anybody got a copy of Back In Black they’d like to trade? Hysteria?
– Steven Yi
Robyn Hitchcock
Black Snake Diamond Role
Gravy Deco
I Often Dream of Trains
Rhino (reissues)
College Radio King Robyn Hitchcock has been around for nearly twenty years singing bizarre stream-of-consciousness ditties about whatever topics jump into his mind—usually fish, dead bodies, insects and sex. Hitchcock’s deadpan delivery of his lunatical lyrical juxtapositions can be memorably funny; unfortunately, these re-issues covering his work from ’81 to ’84 show the material straining for a contrived wackiness.
“Black Snake Diamond Role” is packed with novelty songs (“The Man Who Invented Himself,” “Do Policemen Sing?” etc.) that are entirely disposable. A record you’ll listen to once, smile and file away forever. Hitchcock’s second solo album (originally Groovy Decay) just makes matters worse—you won’t even grin on the FIRST listen. Gravy Deco is a composite of Decay and an album of demos, Groovy Decoy, but still isn’t worth your time.
After the failure of Decay/Decoy, Hitchcock announced a “retirement” from music. He resurfaced two years later with the acoustic I Often Dream of Trains, which offers two genuinely memorable songs about psychosis (“Sometimes I Wish I Was a Pretty Girl” and the a capella “Undiscovered Personality Traits”) and elsewhere concentrates on sad-but-pretty melodies and introspective lyrics. Not a perfect album by any stretch of any imagination, but worth listening to if you’re a Hitchcock fan.
For those of you that are not familiar with Robyn, these albums aren’t the place to start—he released stronger material as a member of the Soft Boys and later assembled the Egyptians. As for these three solo albums—label ’em “For Completists Only.”
– Rudyard Kennedy
Robin Brock
Blame It On Rock & Roll
Rock Empire
In the interest of fairness, we’re blaming this on Robin Brock.
– Matthew Shepherd
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