After the break up of the original line up, it wasn't really clear to me if that was the end of Level 42 or not. In fact it seemed to take an age for this album to be released and it felt like the momentum built by the success of "Running in the Family" was lost.
In reality this record came out just one year after its predecessor and featured the brilliant musicians Alan Murphy (guitar) and Gary Husband (drums). Sadly I didn't get to see Alan play live, but I can tell you that Gary Husband is one hell of a talented drummer. The new members could clearly hold their own in a band full of incredibly talented musicians. As well as the new additions, stalwarts Wally Badarou and Julian Mendelsohn joined the band in the studio to ensure there was some degree of continuity in this period of uncertainty.
The single "Heaven in my Hands" opens proceedings with its heavy guitar and booming drums that sounds as "rock" as anything the band have ever made. Thankfully the layered clavinet sounds and the occasional brass riff stop this descending into the mediocre. The prominence of Alan's guitar continues on "I Don't Know Why" which is a rather straight forward love song bent around a Arabic sounding scale. The ballad "Take a look" is the first track that sounds more faithful to the traditional Level 42 sound and is all the better for it. By 1988 the sound of the Yamaha DX7 was becoming passée, but it remains intertwined with Mark's bass on the lacklustre "Over There". Side one finishes out with my favourite track on the album, Mike's composition "Silence". For a period in my adolescence I thought this song summed up all of my insecurities and I held it quite dear. Today the song sounds rather dated and I hear the lyrics differently, but this will always be a song I love to sing along to.
The second side opens with "Tracie" which is a look back at a teenage romance through slightly more mature and grizzled eyes. The music is upbeat and infectious but it does leave you feeling slightly dirty. The title track is sombre and rather disappointing ballad that just seems to amble along without doing anything at all. "Two Hearts" sees a bit of Roland D-50 blended in with the omnipresent DX7 and there's a clear but unimpressive melody running through the song. The final piece "Man" sounds like the Level 42 of 1984 and sticks out like a sore thumb as a result. This is a good song but it doesn't fit the pop/rock mould it is being shoved into and ends up a bit of a mess. This record is the sound of a band who were desperate to stay contemporary and get played on the radio, but in truth their heart wasn't really in it. 3/5
No comments:
Post a Comment