20 - Friday, February 19, 1988 ~ North Shore News

UK band to convert #. America

THE CHRISTIANS set out to convert North America; Roy
Forbes melts and mends hearts on Love Turns To Ice; The
Pogues let loose primal forces on their latest release;

Strange Advance members keep their heads in the stars and

their eyes on the hits.

The Christians — Island Re-
cords/MCA 1988

Liverpudlian soul music with a
Christian consciousness hit the UK
pop charts like a holy-roller storm
last year when the album broke out
at number two,

MICHAEL
BECKER

music reviewer

Delicious vocal harmonics give
away Garry and Russell Christian's
(yes, they are truly Christian in
surname as well as in spirit)
background singing aci.ppella in an
earlier group called Equal
Temperament. The trademark
vocal inspiration, drawn from the
Temptations and The Persuasions,
is wrapped in a contemporary
package of flexible keyboards and
guitars by Henry Priestman.

Priestman’s pen is guided by a
clear Christian perspective easy on
the dogma and heavy on the social
messages, giving empathetic voice
to the dispossessed and a twinge of
second thought to those straddling
the top of the material heap.

Side A opens with Forgotten
Town, a soulfully incessant tune
guaranteed to move the mind and
feet.

The proselytizing becomes overt
on Born Again: ‘‘We need protec-
tion from this infection; Some-
thing to ease this cruel disease; A
ray of hope and a new direction; |
called to you and you rescued
me.’* But it’s all right somehow
and becomes relevant in the con-
text of the sure-footed British
Motown mutations rounding out
the album.

The ideas are positive, the pzo-
duction work by Laurie Latham is
clean with lots of interesting
sounds to fill the ears and it’s all

voice from North Vancouver, by
way of Dawson Creek, is hot on
this, his fifth solo album after a
five-year hiatus.

The guitar picking is as
technically rich as ever. The 11
hook-laden tunes, 10 originals and
a cover of Hank Williams’ melan-
cholic Lost On A River, are all
finely crafted lyrical gems.

The record is a personal state-
ment in more ways than onc,
Forbes produced it, released it on
his own label, AKA, (in deference
to the casting away of the Bim
moniker) and has put his heart on
the line in the process.

The album starts strong with the

THE CHRISTIANS — easy
on the dogma and

heavy on the

social messages,

backing vocals.

Winterkill's languid and haun- .
ting country-style guitar-touches
weave a chilled landscape against
which Forbes’ plaintive voice ex-
pands on the metaphor with
words.

If all that stood between Forbes
and deserving popular acceptance
was a quirky nickname, Love
Turns To Ice generates enough
emotiona! heat to burn this classic
home-grown talent into the minds
of many.

Forbes is slated for a five-night
run of concert appearances at the
Vancouver East Cultural Centre, 8
p-m., Feb. 23 to 27. Tickets are

reserve seats call 254-9578.

The Pogues — If Should Fatt
From Grace With God, Pogue
Mahone/MCA 1988

The rabid, recling Irishmen, who
brought down the house at the
Commodore a couple of months
ago with blistering tin whistles and
accordion-fuelled pandemonium,
return to local fans with a new
release.

The record includes the new
songs heard at the concert, only
this time around listeners can
decipher and enjoy the beauty of
singer-songwriter Shane
MacGowan’s lyrics courtesy of an
enclosed sheet of words.

Pogues songs alternately mix up
the sublime mentality shared by
the best of Irish poets with the
drunken belly-in-the-gutter
ribaidry of a lush who has looked
a bit too deeply into his glass.
MacGowan tells great stories and
his words whip emotion and nar-
rative into epic proportions.

Streets Of Sorrow/Birmingham
Six takes on the simmering
Anglo-lrish controversy centred on
the six Irishmen many believe are
wrongfully serving life sentences
for the 1974 IRA Birmingham pub
bombings in which 21 died and 162
were injured.

MacGowan writes: ‘‘In Ireland
they'll! put you away in the Maze;
{n England they'll keep you for
several long days; God help you if
ever you're caught on these shores;
And the coppers need someone
and they walk through that door.*’

The sentimental sap runs thick
and true on songs like The Broad
Majestic Shannon and Lullaby Of
London.

An ancient, fundamental energy
has been unleashed on this collec-
tion.

Strange Advance — The Distance
Between, Current Records/Capitol
1988

Star circumnavigators Drew Ar-
nott and Darry! Kromm have
returned from their galactic
wanderings with another payload
of hits.

Destined for some major airplay
are Till The Stars Fall; Love
Becomes Electric, Hold You, a
great, upbeat serving of mass-
appeal material.

The Strange Advance sound
continues exploration through ter-
ritories charted in the previous two
albums and is essentially electronic
with a grandly sweeping melodic
scope.

destined for major airplay.

Part of the disc was recorded at
Mushroom Studios in Vancouver,
and Bob Rock mixed the brooding
track, Who Lives Next Door, a
song co-written by Arnott and
Paul Hyde.

92282890850 F0009GSSFS76,

Check out our large
special movie selection

Weekends & Weekdays!
New releases & popular hits only $2.83

Hurry & Save $$$ on our children’s movies

highly danceable.
tool—weekdays 71e, weekends 85e, FREE
Membership. Discount coupons not valid at

these low prices. Expires Mar. 31, 1988.

available at Black Swan Records,
Highlife Records, the Vancouver
Folk Music Festival office and

through the VTC at 280-4444. To

title track, Love Turns To Ice, a
rhythmically chunky piece of folk
power pop that soars with the
support of Connie Kaidor on

Roy Forbes — Love Turns To Ice,
AKA 1987
The little guy with the big high

SPN RIE AS LAD ERS ee A Re a Set ee

SRE SSE ect gy SAE

126) MARINE DRIVE, ROATH VANCOUVER,
(HEXT 10 SAVE ON FOCOS, PEMBERTON PLAZA}

PHONE: 984-0900

eeeseaoo2eo0ee9g
SGeaxr,reavesesen9

all month long!!!
§ To show our appreciation for your patronage
i for the past two years, we're offering our
4 famous Prime Rib Dinners at $2.00 off our
s regular menu price as well as a large selection
Ea of appetizers for only $1.99.

jx Door Prizes given away nightly
* Enter to win a trip for two to London, England
jx Free Parking after 6 pm
1 x Incredible waterfront view
*% Dine & Dance Wed. - Sat.
; x Reservations accepted anytime

| Reservations call 689-8888 .

ce
Neighborhood

200 Granville St., Van., B.C.
{LOCATED NEXT TO THE PAN PACIFIC HOTEL)

¢