Three tracks here. The A side is propelled along by a loud, gravelly bass and heartbeat thump drums merged with some choppy yet melodic guitar work - not unlike The Chameleons in fact, this (too) builds up into a relentless and repetitive wall of sound that’s shadowy, with a distinct echo about it.
Flip side ‘Signals’ is surprisingly livelier and more accessible, with a catchy rock n roll hook half-buried somewhere deep underneath the trancelike stylo favoured by these Reading lads. For REBUS, darkened melodies seem to take second place to surging energy, but there is something of a gravitational pull about their pulsating sound that seems to come from four or five fathoms down.
There’s a passable, mashed out cover of the DURAN DURAN classic ‘Girls On Film’ too, given the same sort of deep-seated treatment that shapes the band’s own offerings. Despite the stylistic strength of this genre-dodging outfit, the track emerges as pure Duran by the time it concludes, somehow marking out a huge difference in quality that sees Le Bon and co. come out streets ahead of their would-be successors, certainly as far as pop purity is concerned.
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So it’s a bad choice of cover, for the self-penned stuff has something that draws you closer to it, definitely.
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