Arts The Michigan Daily Wednesday, August 12, 1981 Page 7 Undertones The Undertones-'Positive Touch' (Harvest)-The Undertones have grown up, and you know what that means. No more teenage sexual agony, no more psychotically willful immersions in the perpetual frustration of love, no more obsessive rampages against chasity or jubilant celebrations of summer. The boys are men now and have come to the sudden realization that getting the girl doesn't stop the horror show. That generally spells the end of such erec- tion rockers, and there has never been any prior indication that The Underton- es were capable of escaping the genre. POSITIVE TOUCH therefore comes as the year's most unexpected success. There is an abrupt sophistication to the band's sound, a musical abandonment of the things of childhood. Songs are arranged in omnibus fashion with sudden melodic shifts, further emphasized by the spare, pseudo-60s production of Roger Bechirian. And while songwriting brothers John and Damian O'Neill are still writing about love, their illusions about it are history. So now they are singing about the illusions, often with a wizened sense of foreboding. Thus, while the shimmering susurration of "Julie Ocean" and Feargal Sharkey's mesmerized tenor establishes a dreamy intimacy, it is edged with skepticism: "Nothing good lasts forever /And sometimes nothing starts." "HIS GOODLOOKING Girlfriend" details the self-delusion of a social misfit whose newfound popularity is actually attributable to the attractiveness of his girlfriend. A year ago this song would have eulogized the lust of the pursuer; now it sadly considers the doomed nirvana of the victim. Indeed, the intimate sadness of the album is pervasive, despite plucky melodies and room-shaking lead riffs in "His Goodlooking Girlfriend" and THE UNDERTONES Positive Touch 4 4 C "Hannah Doot." The latter is convulsively catchy, yet tenderly laments, "She's crying/ I'm trying/ Not to feel so sad/ It's time to say goodbye." These are strange, mysterious love songs, sometimes almost mystical ("Forever Paradise"). They are vigorously beyond the youthful wanderlust of previous efforts, and are hypnotic because this troubled maturation is universal to the human condition. THEY MAY EVEN be a deliberate self-repudiation. Many of the songs cer- tainly write off forever what The Undertones themselves once were. This is most obvious in "Boy Wonder," the saga of a permanent adolescent that con- cludes, "When it comes to real life/ He'll be too late." The neurotic flavor of that song saturates much of the album, which is why it maintains its liveliness and appeal in the face of such disillusionment. There is a psychotic furor loose in the structure of these songs, sometimes lending a trance-like feel to them. More often, though, the charismatic little melodies are perversely played off against enigmatic personas. "You're Welcome" features a strongly melodic guitar against Sharkey's quirky phrasing of lines like "Sad girl/ Such an unusual attraction/ Sad girl/ How come you look so hurt?" That same idiosyn- cratic structure is at work in "Life's Too Easy" and "Crisis of Mine," echoing a startled self-disgust for obliquely "dreaming in our own stupid world." THE UNDERTONES have authored their own comeuppance. They've done it remarkably well, even including a riveting song about that very process. "Sigh and Explode" states the central dilemma that brought all of this on: "How can I know when a woman's not a stranger?/ How can I know when a stranger's getting stranger?/ I tend to ignore it for my own satisfaction/ But sooner or later I'll just sigh and explode." It is the LP's finest song because rock and roll is most effectively music of the moment. Even producer Bechirian's Beatle-esque touch fits, because there is a similar feel to The Undertones' sudden maturation and that of the Fab Four themselves. Well, The Undertones are no Beatles-and thank heaven they don't try to be. They are a vastly improved band, and have unexpectedly managed to save themselves from a dead-end genre. This album is hardly perfection-ofttimes the terms are too simply stated-but it's pointless to quibble with unexpected blessings. Fred Schill Icehouse 'Icehouse' (Chrysalis) -Well, Icehouse is almost there, but I'm not sure almost where. They seem to be in- fluenced by a lot of genres, but no one in particular enough to say "Oh, they're a such-and-such band with occasional tinges of this-and-that." - 1 Since they seem a little uncertain about what direction they want to go, it's equally difficult to know which standards to use in evaluating how far they've gone toward arriving there. IN GENERAL, their songs have a firm basis in standard rock and roll formulas with a lot of progressive rock keyboards and the occasional pop hook. dangerously on being uninventive and Remove the classical keyboards and pretentious, but manage to pull it out they could sound something like The almost every time with a clever pop Cars. Remove the hooks and they could hook. The only thing that Icehouse sound something like The Alan Parsons lacks is the kind of insistent, Project. Remove the rock and roll propulsive production that makes Duran foundation and they could almost be Duran's beat commanding even when New Musik. their vocals and instrumentation prove Altogether, they're hard to peg. The uneventful. closest comparison would be to Duran So, all Icehouse need do is surrender Duran, which is somewhat of a com- some of their progressive pretenses and plement. (After all, I could compare give themselves over to that tren- them to Classix Nouveaux or Spandau dy new wave dance sound and they'll Ballet or U-2). probably be okay ... but don't ask for Like Duran Duran, they border much beyond that. -Mark Dighton ~ mm- mm- mm- -m mm - - m - - - - 1 -1 I ~ARMYI SURPLUS 1 We stock a full line of clothing, boots, backpacking & 3 1 F camping equipment, hunting clothing, military sur- * plus clothing, and camouflage clothing. 1 201 E. Washington at Fourth 3 / Open Mon.-Sat. 9-6 994-3572 I- IIerchandised with this coupon 1 viSA.(except sale items) 1 " "Expires August 15, 1981