If you consider the ideal Rock’n’Roll life to involve burning brightly for a short, mercurial period and then fading to black, then the RE-FLEX story seems to fit the mould, at least superficially.
If you’re of my vintage, you may well be scratching your head this juncture and thinking “yeah, Re-Flex, I remember them...weren’t they bloody massive in the mid-80s?” Yup, indeed they were, and this new re-issue of their sole studio album ‘The Politics of Dancing’ came with a massive-selling single (the title track) and several more which systematically clogged up FM radio between 1983 and 1985.
However, as founder member Paul Fishman’s witty sleeve notes recall, Re-Flex hardly experienced the overnight success their records suggest. Peddling a contemporary Pop sound pepped up with a hefty dollop of the white boy funk that was helping the likes of Level 42 crossover into the charts, Re-Flex had spent much of 1982 looking for a deal and had a couple of hard kick-backs in the process, not least courtesy of a couple of stinging run-ins with famous A&R man Muff Winwood.
Their persistence eventually paid off and EMI (Europe) and Capitol (USA) stepped in with deals. Re-Flex decamped to the studio with respected producer John Punter (Japan, Roxy Music, Slade) and laid down the songs that would populate the huge-selling ‘The Politics of Dancing’: their traditional guitar/bass/drums/keyboards sound augmented by then-futuristic technology like Linn Drums and Fairlight sequencers.
And therein lays the rub when listening to ‘The Politics of Dancing’ with the benefit of hindsight. Mention Linn machines, Fairlights and those dreadful Simmons drum kit sounds now and you usually can date stamp an album with such components to almost a specific week in the mid-80s. And so it proves with ‘The Politics of Dancing.’ Cop a listen to the first track ‘Praying to the Beat’ and you’re transported to a world where mullets, ‘Miami Vice’ and shocking stone-washed jeans hold sway. Shudder.
Nevertheless, while it’s impossible to deny that the album’s sound has dated, the fact Re-Flex had a way with a hook helps their cause somewhat. Seemingly incapable of writing anything without a dynamic chorus, songs like ‘Praying to the Beat’, ‘Hitline’, ‘Hurt’ and ‘The Politics of Dancing’ itself (which still regularly bothers radios to this day) all dig into you regardless of your resistance and while the sonic architecture may have dated, the energy - nor singer Baxter’s charismatic voice – remains palpably intact.
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Back in the day, the Americans were the first to capitulate. ‘The Politics of Dancing’ steamed into the Billboard Chart’s Hot 100 and a little later European and Far Eastern markets caved in too. In jig time, Re-Flex went from headlining the modest but popular indie haunt The Venue in London’s Victoria to opening in front of 80,000 people a night on The Police’s ‘Synchronicity’ world tour. Sting even dropped by to add backing vocals to the song that should have launched the second Re-Flex album.
With the world seemingly ready to fall at their feet, Re-Flex should have gone supernova, but instead their second album ‘Humanication’ (ready to go early in 1985) was shelved after the first single ‘How Much Longer’ was deemed “too political” thanks to its’ eco-friendly lyrics. With their career suddenly sputtering out, Re-Flex recorded a couple of tracks for the 1987’s ‘Superman IV’ film but then effectively ceased to work as a unit, even if – like The Police – they never technically announced a split.
With the coming of the internet, Re-Flex’s reputation has soared, hence the re-mastering of the band’s lone album and its’ championing from a whole new generation of fans referred to as ‘The Action Fraction.’ Thanks to their fervour, the band’s brief, but mercurial spell in the limelight can flare for a second time. I get the feeling it may not be extinguished too quickly either.
Re-Flex online
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