Slow Crimes

If a band that combines the shrill hectoring vocal tone of Flux of Pink Indians with the twee atonality of Henry Cow is your cup of tea, then you'll be thrilled to see the CD reissue of the Work's debut LP. It was originally released in 1982 and sounds it, but that's no criticism -- it's also avant-garde in a very distinctively British way, but that's no criticism either. What is a criticism is the fact that both "Flies" and "State Room" are avant-garde in really rather boring, aimless ways; it's also something of a criticism to say that "Like This" comes across as something that might have been Arnold Schoenberg's idea of pop music. But "Balance" is both weird and fun, with moments of frenetic polka-like punkiness and moments of strange (and kind of silly) quietude. Catherine Jauniaux's guest vocals are lots of good, squeaky fun, but ex-Henry Cow member Tim Hodgkinson is the one whose vocal style -- warbly, watery, unsteady -- really sets the tone for the album as a whole. The album's highlight track is probably "Brickyard," a rhythmically straightforward exploration of multi-layered percussion and guitar sounds and the kind of thing that really would have gotten Fred Frith going if Hodgkinson had brought in the charts during his Henry Cow days. If I keep bringing up Henry Cow, it may be because it seems like that band was doing all the things this band does best ten years earlier, and was doing them better. But that's not really a criticism either. Well, OK -- actually it is. ~ Rick Anderson