Welcome to another installment of Review Revue in which I wonder how the heck I got through my adolescence without hearing some band or other from the '80s. Today I bring you The Room. Before that moniker referred to a sublimely terrible movie by Tommy Wiseau, it was a short-lived but relatively prolific band from Liverpool. In their five or so years as a band, The Room managed to release four albums. In Evil Hour, our subject today, appears to have been pretty much the last thing they did. I'm just hearing them for the first time now and man, The Charlatans UK/Stone Roses/Smiths/etc. fan in me would have really dug this bit of Northern English post-punk pop had I managed to get my ears on it back when.
Dave Jackson, the band's singer, went on to form two other bands after The Room disbanded in 1985, Benny Profane and then Dust and the Dead Cowboys. He released his first solo album, Cathedral Mountain, just a couple years ago. He doesn't appear to have much of a web presence as a solo entity, but Cathedral Mountain is available in all the usual listening places. I'll check it out once I'm done with this The Room double album.
"2nd full LP from The Room. (Liverpool, OK?) Nice, melodic darker pop. IMPORT." "In the wake of the truly brilliant 'New Dreams for Old' single this album must be a godsend." "Well put..." "So far: Cool." "'Crying Red' is beautiful! (And produced by Tom Verlaine...)" "Cool!" "How about 'boring'?" "How about Brilliant?" "How about playing it lots?" "'Calloused Hands' is pretty, too." "Howz about keepn thiss in rotation?" "I really like this." "It's okay but not great." "Sleepy..." "Common radio noise." "Knee jerk response." "Best record in H. Dave Jackson is a godlike singer. So emotional." |
Wasn't I just talking about my childhood love of The Charlatans UK? Indeed I was. So it seemed like a fine time to take a moment to check out the debut album from these lovable Mancunians - who, it must be said, are still going strong, having released their 11th studio album in 2010 and rumored to …
Suzi Quatro is probably the first person I've covered in this blog series who was also a cast member on Happy Days - which I watched quite a bit as a kid, but I don't remember much of. But perhaps Quatro's bass-playing character Leather Tuscadero was an early influence, subconsciously leading me to…
