Music, Records, Allan Brown

Talk Talk - Natural History 1982 - 1988 / Natural Order 1982 - 1991

'They sound like Duran Duran after receiving some very bad news'

Talk Talk were the born-again virgins of British pop. They spent almost a decade as a conventional commercial entity, producing several albums of post-New Romantic synth-pop that was wistful and angsty and sounded like Duran Duran after receiving some…

The Primevals - Heavy War

Trashy Americana that does little to lift itself out of the pub circuit leagues

Discovering The Primevals are still above ground was a pleasant surprise. In the days when being in a Glasgow band meant regulation tank tops, shorts and sandals, The Primevals loitered like bad boys outside the chippie. Their thing was trashy…

The Wedding Present - Valentina

Well-worn template mixes with stabs at hummability

(Scopitones) The last time this reviewer looked, which wasn’t yesterday admittedly, The Wedding Present were a bracing proposition, the musical equivalent of being dragged along a cobbled street in Halifax with one leg tied to a Raleigh Chopper. Flat…

Upside Down: The Best of The Jesus and Mary Chain

(Rhino) Quite sensibly, this kitchen-sink-included compilation of the East Kilbride noiseniks does not arrange itself in chronological order, thus concealing the fact the band’s introductory fusillade of sonic fireworks – ‘Upside Down’, ‘You Trip Me…