Sunday Sun Stereo

Aug 10 2008 by Ettrick Scott, Sunday Sun

THE BUREAU — . . . AND ANOTHER THING (Bureau productions): The Bureau are one of the great lost bands of the 1980s, they came into being following a split in the ranks of Dexy’s Midnight Runners and recruited Newcastle’s own Archie Brown as lead vocalist.

The band split in the early 1980s but reformed in 2005 after WEA had re-released their debut album. The new material on . . . And Another Thing should compound the renewed interest in the band. The sound is less frenetic than Dexy’s impassioned take on soul, but no less affecting. Also, in Brown, the Bureau had a unique front-man with a distinctive, tuneful growl of a singing voice. If you’d like to catch them live . . . they’ll be at the Cluny in Byker, Newcastle, on October 8.

SOUTHSIDE JOHNNY WITH LA BAMBA’S BIG BAND — GRAPEFRUIT MOON (Evangeline): Grapefruit Moon is a selection of Tom Waits songs, radically reworked and then rendered in a big band style.

On paper, this may not sound like the greatest idea ever, I’ll concede. However, it actually sounds rather magnificent, and, given that Waits himself contributes a vocal to Walk Away, it’s pretty safe to say that the great man approved of the project.

Obvious reference points are Cab Calloway — of Minnie the Moocher fame — and Rat Pack-era Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin.

All The Time in the World is my personal pick of the bunch, with its driving bass borrowed from the Batman theme.

ALICE COOPER — ALONG CAME A SPIDER (Steamhammer): Once Alice Cooper started appearing in adverts with Ronnie Corbett on our TV screens a few years ago, his image as the wildest wild man of rock was severely compromised, although the damage had already been done when he guested on the Muppet Show.

Not that you’d guess that by listening to Along Came a Spider, a concept album about a serial killer called Spider who collects legs, in order to have enough to make his very own arachnid with. An interesting idea, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Musically, though, it’s the same overblown, airbrushed guff that Alice has been peddling since his Poison single hit big in the 1980s, which is to say that it’s essentially Vincent Price doing guest vocals for Kiss.