THE BATS: DADDY'S HIGHWAY (1987)
1) Treason; 2) Sir Queen; 3)
Round And Down; 4) Take It; 5) North By North; 6) Tragedy; 7) Block Of Wood; 8)
Miss These Things; 9) Mid City Team; 10) Some Peace Tonight; 11) Had To Be You;
12) Daddy's Highway; 13*) Calm Before The Storm; 14*) Candidate; 15*) Mad On
You; 16*) Trouble In This Town; 17*) Made Up In Blue.
The Bats are Robert Scott on rhythm guitar,
vocals, and songwriting duties; Kaye Woodward on lead guitar and vocals; Paul
Kean on bass; Malcolm Grant on drums. The Bats formed in 1982, released their
first EP in 1984, but had to wait half a decade before releasing their first
LP, Daddy's Highway, in 1987,
featuring twelve original compositions by Scott and also making additional use
of session guest Alastair Galbraith on violin. Oh, and they are, of course,
from New Zealand (from the wonderfully named city of Christchurch, to be
exact).
These are the dry facts that no one need deny.
The accompanying assumption is that The Bats loved their homoplastic relatives
The Byrds, and everything that had to do with folk-pop jangle in general.
Subsequently, they did not exactly invent what is informally known as «Kiwi
pop», but they very much defined it and helped substantiate its stereotypic
«nice and jangly» image — and they themselves were never nicer and janglier
than they are on this here LP debut.
Few things are simpler than the Bats formula —
maybe the Ramones, but then, punk thrives on simplicity, whereas folk-pop need
not necessarily be as one-dimensional as Daddy's
Highway. Steady, danceable rhythm, usually taken in mid- or fast tempo for
optimal effect; two guitars — one with lower pitch, one providing the jangly
flourishes; quiet, relaxed vocals, either solo or with doubled harmonies,
always keeping fairly low in the mix; inobtrusive, usually introspective,
lyrics that are not meant to be paid serious attention to. This description
pretty much applies to every one of these twelve songs, as well as the five
bonus tracks taken from B-sides and EPs and appended to the CD reissue.
If you really like this sound as such — and,
for all its minimalism, it is a pretty
seductive sound, and it must have been even more seductive, coming on the
airwaves in the synth-pop dominated 1980s — Daddy's Highway may appear to you as an endearing sonic
masterpiece. Compared to something like R.E.M. or The Smiths, the music is
clearly «fluffy», but, on the other hand, it is not here to accompany a
pretentious, «artsy-fartsy» personality like Stipe or Morrissey: Robert Scott
humbly stays out of the spotlight, letting the music always speak for the man.
This is not an endorsement of those who hate pretentious personalities — just a
reminder that there is a time for everything, including a time when the simple,
pretty, monotonous music of The Bats might work more efficiently than the more
demanding, but not necessarily more satisfying music of R.E.M. or The Smiths.
Individually, the songs are not divided into
highlights or lowlights: from the opening life-asserting guitar dialog of
ʽTreasonʼ and right down to the bass-heavy sounds of the title track, the songs
are all nice, mildly memorable, and generally interchangeable. Vivacious tempos
help out a lot — every time the band slows down, like on ʽMiss These Thingsʼ
(with surprisingly out-of-tune guitar, which might have been intentional), they
tend to lose my attention. But almost every song, at the very least, tries to
generate and develop its own hook, even if it does not always succeed —
subsequent listens, once you've gotten past the similar atmosphere and start
picking up the actual differences in melody, reveal that some songs are better written than others.
For instance, I would suggest that ʽTreasonʼ,
with its ascending-descending riff, is better than ʽTragedyʼ, with its rather
tired and worn-out folk chord pattern; or that ʽNorth By Northʼ, with its
gritty rhythm section workout and «quasi-spooky» echoey vocal overdubs, rocks
harder than the happy bounce of ʽTake Itʼ; or that the siren-esque double
guitars that open ʽBlock Of Woodʼ are a much catchier introduction than the
somewhat distracted strumming that opens the way-too-Smiths-like ʽSir Queenʼ. I
could suggest all this and more — but then, in the end, this would all look
like nit-picking, and rather belong in some parallel world, where The Bats are
recognized as the greatest band of all time and armies of musicologists are
paid to offer competing interpretations of each chord change in each of their
songs.
Therefore, having said all I really have to
say, I leave you here with a thumbs up and an extra recommendation for the bonus-tracked
edition: the last song here, ʽMade Up In Blueʼ (the title track from their 1986
EP), shows that The Bats were capable of «anthemic» choruses as well, and rocks
almost as hard as ʽNorth By Northʼ.
Check "Daddy's Highway" (CD) on Amazon
Check "Daddy's Highway" (MP3) on Amazon
Daddy's Highway is one of NZ's finest albums - though not as good as Submarine Bells. The album lacks a bit in personality department, but you won't get a nicer collection of intelligent pop songs anywhere else.
ReplyDeleteIndeed - like the Smiths for happy people.