No rhyme, no reason. This is the first of what I hope will be many reviews of records selected randomly from my collection.
In the days before anyone had thought to give this stuff its
own condescendingly dismissive category (Hair Metal), the brand of music made
by bands like Alien, Quiet Riot, WASP, Madame X and their ilk was just Heavy
Metal with an eye-catching image. I hate these revisionist tags that get
appended to bands years after the event. All of a sudden, after years of being
Heavy Metal, prior to which they were a Hard Rock band, Black Sabbath are
Stoner Rock. What bollocks! Like stoners restrict their listening habits to
Sabbath and their thousands of (pale) imitators! I can just hear the music
police now: "Sorry son, I'm going to have to confiscate your jazz
cigarette until you finish listening to that Creedence Clearwater Revival
album." Wait a minute, jazz
cigarette? You don't mean to say that men with saxophones partake
too? Surely not!
So, we're clear then, Alien aren't Hair Metal! Having said
that, if the rear cover photo is anything to go by, someone close to the band had
ready access to a sewing machine and a pair of hair tongs. No, they absolutely,
probably aren't Hair Metal and if more evidence is required, just look at how
the band has broken the unwritten law of Hair Metal (that it's a boys only club)
by - whisper it - having a girl in the
band. Good luck spotting which one she is. I'll give you a clue, she's not the
one called Brian.
Okay, so what about the record? It starts with a china boy
cymbal crash and a smorgasbord of spacey sounds. I can just picture Alien
stumbling through the dry ice onto their Bacofoil and tinsel-festooned stage
with this as their intro tape. A few spooky backwards masked spoken vocals,
which I shan't translate for you as I value my stylus too much, add to the bargain
basement atmospherics. Any misapprehension that we're listening to a Hawkwind outtake
quickly evaporates with the decidedly meat and potatoes, NWOBHM-style riff and sub-Vince
Neil yelp that heralds the arrival of Cosmic
Fantasy, a track that is more earthbound than celestial, but dumb fun
aplenty nevertheless. The riff sounds like a variation on one that's been used
to good effect by both Bad News (Warriors of Genghis Khan) and Scorpions (Crazy World). Some convincing twin kick drums drive the song along.
Sonically, we're in Raven and Tygers of Pan Tang territory here.
Star Lover features vocals that soar to
almost waist height, weighed down by lyrics that undoubtedly benefit from being
largely unintelligible. The guitar solo sounds like a couple of stray cats
rutting in an alleyway.
Headbangin'
features lyrical gems like "we're a
hard rockin' band, we're playin' as loud
as we can, just trying to get what I need, headbanging in the street"
and one of those 'momma always told me...'-type
lyrics that are the bread and butter of third-tier Metal bands. What is it with
Heavy Metal bands in the 1980s wanting to share the mundane advice their
mothers gave them? It's either that or we have men who haven't seen the inside
of a classroom for a decade or more, telling us that they're too cool for
school or that they don't give a damn what their teachers tell them. Roxann
Harlow's kick-arse twin kick assault provides an unfaltering rhythmic foundation
on which Alien's two guitarists trade solos, but there's nothing much to
distinguish them from one another - same tone, same style - serviceable, but nothing
that would have had Tipton and Downing looking nervously over their shoulders. I
can confirm that this song is indeed suitable for headbanging and is vaguely
reminiscent of early Mötley Crüe.
Side two's opening gambit, Don't Say Goodbye, sounds
like a stab at writing something radio-friendly. It features an uncredited female
on co-lead vocals (presumably drummer Roxann Harlow). On this evidence, Alien
might have wanted to get her out front more regularly. A choppy rhythm guitar combines
with a sensitively picked chorus-effected guitar with pleasing results.
Final
track Cosmic Fantasy shares more than
just its title with its namesake on side one, as it is, as far as I can be
arsed to ascertain, exactly the same track. What's the point of that then? To
its credit, I had no overwhelming urge to take the record off before it had
finished, so I guess the song ain't so bad. A bit more backwards mumbo jumbo
and some cheap and cheerful sound effects give the impression that Alien have
returned to whatever planet they came from. A mini-LP, short and sweet.
As is often the case, the stories that attach themselves to
a band after they call it a day help us to contextualise and evaluate their
music and its ranking in the rock 'n' roll footnote hierarchy. Singer Frank
Starr found his true home when he resurfaced in the early Nineties in the
decidedly un-cosmic, back to basics, and rather marvellous biker-boogie band, The Four Horsemen,
resolutely shaking off any lingering whiff of that Glam / Hair stigma.
Bass player Damien 'The Beast' Bardot (AKA Michael Bruno)
died of cancer after 25 years on death row in Florida for the murder of a man
(Lionel Merlano) at whose apartment he'd been drinking. The victim was
bludgeoned with a crowbar before being shot in the head twice at point blank
range. Bardot is said to have returned to Merlano's apartment numerous times to
steal the victim's stereo equipment and other electronics before the body was
discovered three days later. Bardot / Bruno continued to proclaim his innocence
throughout his incarceration.
 |
| Bardot on death row |
Unsubstantiated internet reports suggest that Roxann Harlow is now a successful business owner. She also rescues animals, and counsels troubled young women. Thank god for that ray of sunshine! Another blast of Star Lover should cheer me up!
