Word: sound
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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There is a warrior lope that goes along with the song, although Moses does not give it the full treatment now. Chin and chest jut forward at the assertion of organ tone: Hunnnnnnh! Hunnnnnnnnh! The Masai know how to look dangerous, and sound dangerous. And the history of East African warfare confirms that they are dangerous. But the visitor wonders why the hands of the men are so oddly soft...
Actually, such an attitude is typical of Edmunds who, for twenty years, has sought to become Britain's leading rock revivalist while modestly updating his sound to fit the times. In the late 1970s, he souped up his version of 1950s American rockabilly and became a leader of the "Angry Young Man" movement that made famous such British pub-rockers as Costello, Graham Parker, Joe Jackson and Nick Lowe. In the 1980s, he has even attempted, with varying degrees of success, to graft synthesizers onto his otherwise backward-looking music...
...Stranglers do manage to generate some interest in those songs augmented by a horn section, creating sound textures not usually heard in synth-pop. The best of these tunes is "Mayan Skies," an impressionistic little piece that is the album's least pretentious effort...
...chief appeal lies in their dissemblage of traditional rock music through volume and intensity, where (if you care to think about it) Husker Du's original and only appeal also lay. In fact, despite an atrocious sense of grammar and punctuation, Squirrelbait is better than their precursor because their sound is not burdened with the Husker's tendency towards artistic pretension and lyrical sappiness...
...less jarring than Big Black and more atmospheric than Naked Raygun, but the group still throws a powerful, if somewhat subtle punch. On "Song Of The South," Steve Bjorklund's guitar twists around the recited vocals, alternately merging with and remaining distant from the words. Initially, Breaking Circus almost sounds minimalist: one can hear area of silence between the guitar and the industrial beat of the rhythm section. Ice starts to crank up, though, with the desperation and fury of "Laid So Low" and a total sound begins to congeal...