Tuesday 23 January 2018

The Shoes (1977) Boys Don't Lie - LOST 70s GEMS

Black Vinyl Shoes was the sound album from the Shoes, a rare classic in the power pop genre, such a diverse record; jammed packed with beautiful mix of pop, rock, shiny guitars and heaps of semi- noise rock/psych electrics.

 Boys Don't Lie's fuzzed out pop attack is filled with shades of 2000s pop punk sounds, like Blink 182 particularly in its trembling bass segment, meanwhile the compressed, chunky signature guitar tone the late 70s would soon dominate rock from the 80s onward to the present day.
An album full of fuzzed out noise rock melded with power pop, though this means the vocals are so overpowered its a strenuous listen burying strong melodies. Black Vinyl is a strong LO-FI statement with enough textures and raw edge to make this a really underrated piece of work.
Highlights include the melodic, clean clanking guitars of Writing a Postcard, the claps and haunting reverb of Fatal and the sitar-esque guitar of Capital Gain; full of demented modulations and a real easygoing beat. The winding pedal steel of Fire for A While trippily driving the melody while in the background is a flanged acoustic or steel guitar strumming clankily.

The lyrical sliding feedbacks and overdriven guitars, as found on Tragedy, blend well with the centrally mixed, matter of fact vocals. The pop vocals are so restrained that their delivery flows seamlessly through the attention grabbing grooves. Along with the Scruffs and maybe Television this is some of the most exuberant and creative music of 1977 when punk was dying out opening a colourful future ahead for the music industry.


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