Angel Air 2013
Who Needs Pyjamas?
ASIA getting placed in JERUSALEM, not other way round, makes for a beautifully disorientating trip around the house amenities. Amen!
Don’t say you weren’t warned! Yet the “Are you sitting comfortably?” question that sets things in motion here fail to prepare anyone for the lava of images to come, given the disposition of that seat: a lavatory. Not exactly the situation where one would look for such dignitaries as Lynden Williams, a singer of cult hard rockers JERUSALEM, and Geoff Downes, a visual killer of a radio star. The latter helped the former fashion his reformed band’s second flush in 2009, and there was a lot of out-takes which didn’t have so much of a dignity about them, hence the recessional name of this collection – a concept one, based around the “Household Necessities Trilogy” and giving a logical buzzing context to the perennial “You’re So Square (Baby I Don’t Care)” by linking it to another rock ‘n’ roll, the DOWNLINERS SECT’s staple “One Ugly Child” – that is enjoyable on purely musical terms and even more so if you’re pay attention to lyrics. Listening to it in public may result in giggling and have you checked for normality, but doing it on the toilet is OK: don’t say you weren’t warned, then.
Ones who don’t take heed might latch onto the heavy funky message of “Brown Trousers” that catches the gist of the “if-then” conditional where AOR tropes suck on the Hammond meat and Ollie Hannifan’s axe bones with a side dish of mashed potato, brie and rubber duck, before serving a nu-metal clang with “Human Pie” filled with a harmony guitar. Such a bright feeling, helped by Nick D’Virgilio’s beat, swells in “Sunshine” and “Sunset Strip” whose romanticism can well be a parody of ’80s rock songs, yet it stands tall with the best of ’em up to infectious synthesizer solos, as does the translucent, albeit angry, eco-jive of “Elephants, Not Ivory.” But then a “Day Tripper” quote in “Walking In A Crocodile” adds an acid fuel to the fire, while THE KINKS’ “Wicked Annabella” thickens the “perfect enigma” mentioned a little earlier to carry on the exorcism vibe of “You’ll Never Catch This Boy” and pass it on to the “Hobgoblins And Fiends” theatrical rage topped with a “Dead Bones” psych blues.
Quite a juicy proposition like this doesn’t require a nightdress, indeed, as it’s hot as hell, the Devil having a ball here. Come out and play!
****1/2
