ARTICLES AND REVIEWS

TEMPTATION from SOUNDS APRIL 9th 1983

There is a body of opinion in the sounds office (and not a very attractive body at that) which holds that the spirit of radical music resides in any band seen at the right elitist night-club wearing the right posey clothes and the right silly hair-cut drinking the right cocktail and occasionally releasing very nice, very bland plastic pop records with very nice, very bland lyrics. Like, erh, can't you just hear the stock exchange crumbling at the tortured trumpeting of self- styled 'marxists' HEAVEN 17 who, like Weller, seek to emulate the grace and glory of classic black soul music, and end up with a sorry non-song pastiche that's all production and no passion. At least GLEN GREGORY'S grating vocals had something worth saying on 'FASCIST GROOVE THANG'. Here the blando lyrics and the awesome ordinariness of the song, especially it's gloomy pseudo-dramatic opening, just add to the over-all embarrassment of this band's claim to radical fame.

Review by GARRY BUSHELL.