Sonic Temple - The Cult

Provenance: I heard 'Fire Woman' on the radio one time and really liked it.

I've always been irked by the very existence of The Cult as it's prevented me from referring to the superior Blue Oyster Cult as anything other than 'B-O-C'. That, and that stupid 'She Sells Sanctuary' song.

Review: Emblazoned on the back of the album, in a typeface barely smaller than that used for the track listing, is notice that Sonic Temple is produced by Bob Rock. More commonly associated with Metallica's breakthrough into the commercial stratosphere, Sonic Temple almost feels like a warm-up to the monster albums Rock would helm (before, latterly, riding the desk for much of Michael Buble's career).

Although Metallica was a massive seller, metal fans are still torn over its merits and demerits. I've heard it dismissed variably as lightweight, mid-paced and aimed squarely at the casual listener, none of which I can particularly disagree with. But, as in the classic job interview scenario, it's exactly those seeming weaknesses that Metallica parlayed into strengths. I still don't rate it much as an album, but I can see clearly why it still pumps out of the car stereos of soccer moms the length and breadth of the Midwest.

But what's all this got to do with Sonic Temple? Well, because to these ears it sounds like a blueprint for Rock's approach with Metallica. A thick sound, big basic riffs, nothing sounding too busy or elaborate, songs all played at a mid-paced tempo. It's as if the lessons about producing an expansive, back-of-the-hall sound from Simple Minds' 'Don't You (Forget About Me)' were coupled with Mutt Lange's insistence that Def Leppard stripped down their riffs to the bones on Hysteria. The result is something that is digestible, radio friendly, chunky and, dare I say it, a touch cynical.

That's not to say Sonic Temple doesn't feature some good music. The opening one-two punch of 'Sun King' and 'Fire Woman' is pretty spectacular. These two songs loom out of the speakers, huge slabs of stadium rock with insanely catchy hooks. 'Fire Woman' in particular is an absolute stomper. This approach is also evident on cuts like 'Sweet Soul Sister' and 'New York City', where any pretence towards sophistication is sacrificed on the altar of simplicity. There's always been a place for big dumb rawk, as AC/DC could attest to, but here the grit and grime has also been cleared away in favour of a polished, layered sheen. And it mostly works. Hell, 'Soul Asylum' even gets away with a single note intro, that sounds like someone attempting to play Led Zeppelin's 'Kashmir' for the first time, and it still works.

However, Sonic Temple is only a qualified success. Let's revisit 'Soul Asylum', because after it actually does develop into a crappy version of 'Kashmir', things get even worse when Ian Astbury, hitherto one of rock's most preposterous popinjays, opens his fucking mouth. "Who - would break - a butterfly - on the wheel?" he emotes, before beginning another verse with "Who - would crush - this woman - underfoot?" Give me a fucking break, dude. I actually like Astbury's voice - it's distinctive, with a bit of yelp and swagger to it, but his delivery can certainly tip over into the histrionic and hammy (which is precisely why he fronted a latter-day version of The Doors, right guys?). But goodness me, some of those 'yeah-yeahs' he uses as punctuation get old fast.

The other big criticism I have is that Sonic Temple is two songs too long. Had the album stopped after 'Soldier Blue', I would've been much more hearty in my acclaim. "It's only two songs, you jabroni" I hear you say and yes, I dig, but in this instance it's more than a minor hitch. Given the absolutely unvarying tempo of the album, that final eight or nine minutes slides the experience over from rather enjoyable to a bit fatiguing. It's not that either 'Wake Up Time For Freedom' or 'Medicine Train' are bad songs per se, (though they both teeter close to the edge of acceptability), but these two constitute the sequencing equivalent of the mid-gig drum solo; you're looking at your watch and waiting for something more interesting to kick into gear, which in this case means putting on another album. Christ, 'Soldier Blue' is perfect to end on; ever since I read Simon Reynolds' (excellent) Shock and Awe I've been listening out for glam's influence on the rock music that came afterwards, and the mighty Glitter Band style drumming on this track is a prime example. Compared to the rest of Sonic Temple it even does something slightly different with the rhythm! Call it a day when you're on top!

Listening to this album for this blog has been fun, yet I genuinely had to blow dust off the CD box. I think I know why. Although I'm the mad king howling on the moor about the devilry of shuffle play, this is the perfect album to be mixed in to playlist. A lone track here and there, especially if it's 'Fire Woman', sound stunning. Two or three together are cool, you can drive to the supermarket to that kind of jive. The entirety of Sonic Temple in one sitting is, alas, a bit too much. It commits a cardinal sin of popular music, which is through precision-engineering and a dearth of variety, it becomes a wee bit boring. Oh, and that hokey blues intro to 'Medicine Train' is so bad as to be funny, worse than the bluegrassy bit that kicks off Warrant's 'Uncle Tom's Cabin', and that's saying something.

Idol Songs - Billy Idol

Provenance: When I was in my mid-teens a girlfriend of mine asked me what I wanted for my birthday. "Oh, I don't know, maybe a Billy Idol 'best of' album?". Instead, she dumped me.

Fast forward to 2010 and I'm stood in a rain-lashed field in Sweden. Billy Idol is finishing up onstage with a version of The Doors' 'LA Woman'. He has replaced Los Angeles with Malmo, despite being 130km away from the latter location. Hitherto in the performance he has treated us to the following:

a) An acoustic version of 'White Wedding'
b) The Allen Toussaint song 'Working In A Coal Mine'
c) A shitty autobiographical song that references 'Hot In The City'; this is further compounded by the fact that he doesn't go on to actually play 'Hot In The City'

It was one of the most depressingly awful experiences of my festival-going life. Nonetheless, I finally got my hands on this doozy - subtitled 11 of the Best - for two quid at a car boot sale in Eastbourne.

Review: On the 29 May 2016 Twitter user @TadKosciuszko had this to say: 'Mt. Rushmore of "punk" - Idol, Ghetto Blaster Guy from Star Trek IV, Adam Ant, & the guy that led the mutant biker gang in Weird Science'. Funny and true. Just as it maddens me that The Tubes are often classified as punk because they used the word in one of their song titles, it boggles my mind that anything Idol did as a solo artist can be remotely considered as belonging to the genre. 

As it so happened, both Idol and Ant were at the vanguard of the original London punk scene - but neither would make their name playing that music (though I should point out that Simon Reynolds does an excellent job at delineating how punk midwifed Ant's particular style in the superb Rip It Up And Start Again).

Despite retaining the more overt visual trappings of punk, it was Idol that moved further than Ant away from punk's initial art-school leanings. Who knows? Maybe the spiked-peroxide quiff and leather jackets acted as an affirmation to Idol, an aide memoir to himself that, beneath the poppy hooks, the expensive videos and the even more expensive nose candy, he was still a scrappy rabble rouser who dropped out of a Sussex University English degree in 1976. Certainly, in that sodden field in Scandinavia, he made great play (not all of it coherent) about how we all need to return to the roots - and rootsiness - of rock 'n' roll. Curious sloganeering for a man who made his name with a very airbrushed flash-metal sound, and who would later pioneer mixed media releases (yes, really) with his 1993 Cyberpunk album which came packaged with a 3.5" floppy disk.

But let us not judge Idol the man, let us speak of Idol the musician. Here are eleven, count 'em. Of the best. By his, or the record label's estimation, one presumes. Now, as much as I've been down on Idol thus far in this article, let me say this - by my reckoning, there are three tracks on here that are brilliant, and possibly qualify as masterpieces within the realm of pop. This troika of triumph is 'Rebel Yell', 'White Wedding' and, greatest of all, 'Flesh For Fantasy'. The first two rock hard and feature tasty guitar work by the underrated Steve Stevens, but have the kind of precision-tooled studio polish that sounds great on a transistor radio and a melodic sensibility so strong that they grapple your cerebral cortex into submission.

Time for another reference to an ex-girlfriend of mine! This time it's to go on record with an apology to Bianca. Back in the day I'd listen to Spree FM in her kitchen in Berlin, which would play 'Flesh For Fantasy' virtually every day (or so it seemed). Bianca made it known she liked the song; I greeted this opinion with the mockery I believed it deserved, but today I am a changed man and I have this to say: Bianca, if you're reading this, I am sorry - 'Flesh For Fantasy' is incredible, even if lyrically it's mostly gobbledegook. On this issue - and this issue alone - you were right, and I was wrong.

What of the other eight songs that comprise his 'best'? Well, as you can probably guess from my annoyance that Idol forswore 'Hot In The City' back in 2010, I really like that one. Same goes for the mellow, dreamy 'Eyes Without a Face'. These are tier two Billy Idol songs. Then you have the curios like 'To Be A Lover', which contains all the trappings of church-inflected soul - bluesy piano, call-and-response female backing singers, tambourines - but winds up sounding like an ersatz mechanised gospel fever-dream. There's also 'Dancing With Myself' - which was recorded with his previous band, Generation X, and is by far the most 'punk' thing on this collection - and 'Sweet Sixteen', a weird, glabrous, spacey drowning pool of synths and angst.

Pretty much everything else on here is pony. At the very least, it's entertaining crap. I don't skip the clunkers like 'Catch My Fall' or 'Don't Need a Gun' when I give Idol Songs a spin as at the very least they stand as testament to Idol's 'swing-and-a-miss' approach, one that was evident even during his commercial peak. For all his faults, missteps and periods of inactivity I'm a sucker for the leathery old charmer. I'd even take another chance with the live experience on the basis that I'd be treated to (at least) eleven of the best.*

*(I was trying to find a place to include a "mo', mo', mo'" gag but decided it would only cheapen this august and serious blog.)