The Album Review Club - *** Christmas Break Playlist (next album 7/1/26) ***

threespires said:
I haven't listened to this for a long time but it's interesting that what I both liked and disliked about it doesn't seem to have really changed over the years. Reading some of the other reviews makes me think again about how often timing is so important with the bands you end up loving. I was probably a couple of years too young to be meaningfully into the early stages of punk (not that this really is but that's another discussion) and I think it definitely colours my views compared to had I been at their early gigs etc.

When I do get round to doing my review I was going to point out that I think JJ Burnel was more than a bit of a knob and that as good and as different as his brutalist approach to bass was, the fact that he is underrated by many is offset by the fact he was so overrated by himself.

I was also going to point out that, no I definitely would not say any of this to his face. But I reckon it's entirely possible that one of the BM Waldorf Massive who've rocked up for this pick might actually know him and dob me in it!

So I won't be saying any of that :-)

I may have to go on the run anyway after my review but I reckon @Saddleworth2 might give me sanctuary ?
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JJ Burnel is a 7th degree black belt (nanadan) in Shidokan Karate and is head of Shidokan UK. In the early days of the band they had a fight with The Clash and The Sex Pistols and guess who won?
 
Saddleworth2 said:
I've given the album a few listens now and haven't really shifted from where I began which is that the Stranglers were one of my favourite bands of the late 70's although they coincided with a period where music took a back seat to young kids, work and playing rugby. They were one of many bands I have liked through the years but not really carried forward to listen regularly through the decades since. The Police are another example of a band I liked at the time but I probably haven't listened to them since they broke up in the 80's.

Of the 11 tracks on this album I guess I knew 4 really well as they must have been included on compilation cd's. Peaches was and is a great song and has stood the test to time. If only the other 10 tracks were of the same quality. I did like the opener 'Sometimes' which features some nice keyboard and bass work and a relatively strong hook. "Get a grip' featured nice keyboard work too and undoubtedly Dave Greenfield, gave the band their easily recognisable sound. I'm not going to overplay comparison to the Doors although the parallels are pretty clear although I was interested that Greenfield was more influenced by Lord and Wakeman than Manzarek. Lord's style I can hear pretty clearly and tbf I was never a huge fan of his or DP, preferring Emerson, Banks (in particular) and Wakeman. In terms of subtlety, Manzarek, to me stands out. Listening to some Doors over the last few days that was clear to me.

I am a fan of 'pushy' bass that sits at the centre of the music so that was a tick. The vocals less so which although they work fine on tracks like Peaches, in other tracks, grate and feel like they are forced to prove that the Band is 'punk' whatever that is. Despite that, the bands musicality just about wins through on this album.

So to scoring, the inconsistency of the songs puts this at a 5.5 for me. It's an album I enjoyed bits of but not enough to go back to it any time soon. Good pick though.
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There are 9 tracks on original album. And The Stranglers weren't a punk band as such.
 
BlueMoonRisin’ said:
JJ Burnel is a 7th degree black belt (nanadan) in Shidokan Karate and is head of Shidokan UK. In the early days of the band they had a fight with The Clash and The Sex Pistols and guess who won?
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And that's why whatever criticism of him I might write on here I'd magically forget if I met him in the street! Doesn't the story go that even mild mannered Dave Greenfield had Lydon up against the ice cream van during that fight?

Burnel always strikes me as the Brian Clough of bass playing, "I'm not saying I'm the best bassist in the world, but I'm in the top 1" .
 
threespires said:
And that's why whatever criticism of him I might write on here I'd magically forget if I met him in the street! Doesn't the story go that even mild mannered Dave Greenfield had Lydon up against the ice cream van during that fight?

Burnel always strikes me as the Brian Clough of bass playing, "I'm not saying I'm the best bassist in the world, but I'm in the top 1" .
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I didn't know the details of their fights. JJ is a great bassist, maybe not the best but his style suited the band.
 
BlueMoonRisin’ said:
I didn't know the details of their fights. JJ is a great bassist, maybe not the best but his style suited the band.
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I'd go further than that, in no small part it help defined the sound of the band like Foxton did too. Interesting that they both came to the bass from originally playing the guitar and I think you tell in the nature of a lot of their basslines.
 
threespires said:
Burnel always strikes me as the Brian Clough of bass playing, "I'm not saying I'm the best bassist in the world, but I'm in the top 1" .
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You've just given me a fantastic idea - we should do a Brian Clough round where everybody has to review in the style of Cloughie :)

"If we had a disagreement about an album, we'd sit down and discusses it's pros and cons and after 10 minutes, we'd agree I was right."
 
Rattus Norvegicus – The Stranglers

I must have heard about three songs by The Stranglers in my life, and I only knew for sure that “Golden Brown” was one of theirs; the others I will have heard on adverts or TV soundtracks.

Mentally, I always had them pegged as one of those shouty late-70s bands, so I was pleasantly surprised when I listened to Rattus Norvegicus for the first time. There is quite a bit of that shouty, strident vocals thing that renders so much of that period’s music unlistenable for me, but in this case it’s backed up by an interesting sound.

I agree with @BlueMoonRisin’ s assessment that Dave Greenfield is the unsung hero of this album because on some of these tracks he is definitely channelling Ray Manzarek. For me, without his input, this would have been a non-starter.

“Sometimes” and “Down in the Sewer” are both excellent, and “Hanging Around” and "(Get A) Grip (On Yourself)" are decent, the latter with a hooky chorus.

Elsewhere, “London Lady” has some great dynamic chords and “Princess of the Streets” some more nice keyboards but the shouty vocals get in the way, “Peaches” is familiar yet repetitive, whilst “Ugly” is a truly awful song.

So, a really good opener and closer, but I found a lot of what came in between patchy. There are some good individual moments on these songs, most of which are provided by Dave Greenfield’s keyboards, so I’ll give it a Jam+1 score of 6/10.
 
I quite enjoyed this. Yes it is very Doors-like. Is that a bad thing? There are some good evolving spells of synth and bass build. It has strong elements of punk and identity too. And for all it's frowny seriousness, it has some playfulness to it. Musicians know what they are doing, do not attempt at overgimmicking it. Peaches is the big hit but imo Down the Sewer is the song of the album. It could maybe do with a bit of a purge to remove some of the weaker songs, but overall, it is good and got me tapping/ nodding along to it. A good 7.
 
The Stranglers are a band I got into kind of retrospectively, sometime in the 80’s.
The thing about the stuff in the 70’s, is they were classed as punk and the singles were in a way, but I was wrapped up in Prog which was exactly the kind of stuff that punk was rejecting and rebelling against. I liked the singles like Peaches and Heroes because it wasn’t really like other punk stuff.

The Stranglers always appeared to be more mature. They were almost post punk before the punk era was over. They could actually play their instruments for a start and seemed to want to showcase mastery of same, which to me seemed the opposite of what the likes of the Pistols were at.
There’s some decent tunes on this album, but the quality isn’t uniform all the way through.
I had the best of CD in the 80’s and very good it was too. Most of what I like on this album is stuff I’ve already heard from the compilation album.

I’ve only done one listen. I’ll try to get the time for a few more before making a final judgement.
 
Still love this to this day.
A 17 year old when I bought this on vinyl.
All about the bass and synth.
Not a bad track on this but Sometimes,Hanging Around,Peaches,Get a grip on yourself and my favourite Down in the Sewer stand out tracks.
Every intro is bang on the money as well.
Off to investigate more of their stuff.
I had their first 5 albums but stopped listening to them after that.
9/10
 
BlueHammer85 said:
hard to nail, but would definitely class 'Down In The Sewer' as that.
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They got more mellow as they evolved. The latter albums are very different from Rattus Norvegicus. I had every album till Hugh Conwell left, Dreamtime was the last album he played in. After that I had no interest in the band when Paul Roberts became frontman.
 
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