keepers 3
keeper avg .231
The debut LP showcases The Smithereens' "Beatles meets AC/DC" style, though I consider them a Beatle-y E-Street Band. This sound combines catchy melodic riffs and a punchy clean guitar jangle borrowed from the Fab Four, but with a simpler Bruce Springsteen rave-up song structure and gobs of that mandatory 80s reverb. It includes much of the album, including opening track "Strangers When We Meet", "Groovy Tuesday", "I Don't Want To Lose You", "Crazy Mixed Up Kid", and "Hand Of Glory". "Time and Time Again" brings the standard McCartney bass line to the forefront as a guitar riff, making the song more frantic and punchy, while second track "Listen To Me Girl" slows down the formula to create a ponderous but powerful feel, which isn't as impressive with clean guitars a-jangling as it will be when combined with the hard rock production that would take over by the "11" album. The Smithereens finally live up to their explosive name on the single "Behind the Wall of Sleep"****, which feels more similar to R.E.M. than The Beatles, but much heavier, from the pounding 3-4 hits that precede each verse phrase to Jim Babjak's noisy Steve Van Zandt-esqe wailing. Two songs later is "Blood And Roses", the album's big hit, a slightly subdued carbon copy, grabbing that 80's trope of songs about red stuff line blood, roses, wine, whatever, boring. Then there are the two ballads, the meandering accordion-driven waltz "Cigarette", and the lounge-band "In A Lonely Place", which both suck more than their share of mojo right out of the room. But the album winds down on a relative high note, with the spacious penultimate "Alone At Midnight"****, and the goofy dumb fun "White Castle Blues"****, which works the love of sliders into a medley of all the styles approved by the E Street Band, summed up by the line "But memories such as Bobbo and puke, Are just part of the saga of White Castle blues". I was gettin really hungry up to that point.
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