The Chameleons: Auffuhrung In Berlin

AUFFÜHRUNG IN BERLIN (1983; 1993)

1) Less Than Human; 2) Paper Tigers; 3) Monkeyland; 4) Thursday's Child; 5) Second Skin; 6) Pleasure And Pain; 7) Singing Rule Britannia; 8) Perfume Garden; 9) One Flesh; 10) In Shreds; 11) Splitting In Two.

Out of all the official and semi-official archival live albums associated with The Chameleons, this is the one that usually gets the highest praise, and it is easy to see why. Recorded at Berlin's Loft venue shortly before the release of Script Of The Bridge, this is a surprisingly high quality product (lead guitars and rhythm section sound fabulous, with near-ideal separation), and, just as it was with the Peel sessions, you get to hear classic early high-energy Chameleons without the production excesses of their studio records (namely, good drums).

Half of the setlist predictably consists of Script Of The Bridge tunes; the rest is a preview of several songs from What Does Anything..., plus a few non-album numbers like ʽLess Than Humanʼ — and only one hitherto unheard song, ʽSplitting In Twoʼ, an Alternative TV cover that they often used to finish their shows in the early days. (Admittedly, it does not sound seriously differently from the typical fast-paced Chameleons song.)

Since the show was professionally recorded, and the band's interactions with the audience are minimal, there are hardly any substantial differences between this record and The Peel Sessions, except for (quite fortuitous) discrepancies in the setlists, but I guess there is something to be said about the wholesome experience of a single show. My main gripe is that neither of the two has ʽUp The Down Escalatorʼ, still arguably the single greatest Chameleons song in the «upbeat» mode — not clear what it was that made them avoid that one so much. Too cheerful for public consumption? Anyway, be sure to grab this one, if only for the excellent sound quality.

The Chameleons: This Never Ending Now

THE CHAMELEONS: THIS NEVER ENDING NOW (2002)

1) The Fan And The Bellows; 2) Tears; 3) Intrigue In Tangiers; 4) Is It Any Wonder?; 5) Seriocity; 6) Swamp Thing; 7) All Around; 8) Second Skin; 9) Home Is Where The Heart Is; 10) View From A Hill; 11) Moonage Daydream.

One album can be just an accident, but two constitute a tendency: I may just be right in my sus­picions that The Chameleons actually did not think much of the production on their original albums themselves — so here you have another big bunch of acoustically based re-recordings,  mostly of tunes from the band's «softer» albums, but not necessarily so: the record opens with ʽThe Fan And The Bellowsʼ, energetically driven forward by the percussion of the now-returning John Lever, but otherwise completely dependent on acoustic rhythm and lead guitars. Also, there are two alternate versions of songs from Why Call It Anything? (ʽAll Aroundʼ seems to just be an alternate mix of the original; ʽMiracles And Wondersʼ is genuinely converted to acoustic mode and detached from its lengthy ambient coda); ʽIs It Any Wonder?ʼ, re-recorded from a rare original off their 1990 EP Tony Fletched Walked On Water; and an out-of-the-blue cover of Bowie's ʽMoonage Daydreamʼ because... because they like David Bowie.

Second time around, though, this is not nearly as touching as the effort they made with Strip. The approach is no longer so fresh and unpredictable; more importantly, the songs themselves were not too good to start with — I mean, ʽView From A Hillʼ was really just a drawn-out mood piece to finish Script Of The Bridge on a solemn note, and like it or not, it was one of the few songs where the production, with its multiple layers of keyboards and guitars, really made sense; here, it is largely reduced to some interminable chuggy acoustic plunking and light-solemn vocal harmonies that would fit in better on, say, an AIR album than here. Likewise, the one good thing that I remembered about ʽSwamp Songʼ was its slightly spooky froggish guitar croaking; here, it is transformed into acoustic country-blues that is about as exciting as any similar acoustic number on a Bonnie Raitt or a Sheryl Crow record.

One song where the acoustic difference really makes a great difference is ʽSecond Skinʼ, whose formerly distant romantic electric guitar riff, transposed to the acoustic setting, has gained in volume and clarity — yet I am not so sure if the new approach is better, because the distant original was more «spaced-out», reaching out to you like some distant star, or a comet swooshing by. That spaced-out atmosphere is only reconstructed by the band at the very end, once they launch into their version of ʽMoonage Daydreamʼ — still more of a humble tribute to the creator than a daring reinvention, but with an interesting take on the solo part (no Ronson-esque alien fireworks, more like a quiet post-rock dissolution of electric current). Bad news is, ʽMoonage Daydreamʼ alone is still better than all the Chameleons songs put together, so that on my second listen I could not wait for all that stuff to end so that Mark Burgess, too, could declare himself an alligator. Which, to be frank, he never really was.

Considering that The Chameleons broke up once again soon after this record's release, never re­convened for another big project in the next fifteen years, and that, as of now, John Lever is dead and buried, it is a safe bet that This Never Ending Now has fulfilled its promise and become the last (semi-)original Chameleons release we will ever see (although Lever and Fielding did make another album together two years before Lever's demise). A bit sad, since Why Call It Anything? did show promise and proved that the band members' talents survived into the 21st century; then again, with all this focus on reinventing their legacy, they might not really have had it in them to create new material on a regular basis. In any case, these acoustic albums are a decent last gift for those of their fans who, together with the band, had outgrown the excesses of Eighties' techno­philia and regained a taste for less synthetic-sounding instrumentation — and, perhaps, a chance for those of their fans who have not outgrown it... to reconsider and repent.

The Chameleons: Why Call It Anything?

THE CHAMELEONS: WHY CALL IT ANYTHING? (2001)

1) Shades; 2) Anyone Alive?; 3) Indiana; 4) Lufthansa; 5) Truth Isn't Truth Anymore; 6) All Around; 7) Dangerous Land; 8) Music In The Womb; 9) Miracles And Wonders; 10) Are You Still There?.

This may be the first time in history that The Chameleons landed with a sound that finally satisfies my tastes — interestingly enough, they did it without sacrificing their usual vibe, though, implying that you can actually get an «Eighties sound» without embracing all the lows of Eighties' production. First, you can have a solid, powerful drum sound without covering all your beats in booming synthetic gloss. Second, you can mix your guitars and vocals in such a way that they still sound deep and solemn, but not «cavernous» — atmospheric, yet perfectly distinctive for each and every note. Third, this way, even if your style is rather uniform, each song hasa better chance of registering because the chord sequences take aural priority over echoes, reverbs, and trying to fight your way out of this mess.

Most importantly, though, the band wrote a good album. Nothing spectacular, and predictably a lot more sleepy and sentimental than their best stuff from the beginning of the bizarre decade, but really, having re-cut their teeth on those Stripped arrangements, Burgess, Fielding and company found enough genuine melancholy and anger in themselves to put out a set of meaningful and moderately catchy songs that take off more or less from the same platform on which they landed Strange Times — without that record's epic flavor, perhaps, but also without its tendency to slip into endless dull meandering.

A good pick to quickly get the gist of the record would be its opening track, ʽShadesʼ. Here, we have a clever lyrical figure of speech ("pull the shades of grey together"), a solid driving rhythm (it takes some time to understand that it was nicked from Bowie's ʽMan Who Sold The Worldʼ, by which time you yourself might already be sold on the song), the band's old skill at building atmosphere from polyrhythmic layers of guitars, and boatloads of ambiguity — the overall mood can only be described as «pessimistic optimism», as its originally dark and threatening melody gradually collects itself in a near-uplifting crescendo. Nothing too flashy or unusual here, not the slightest attempt to sound «mysteriously impenetrable» or to build a brand new universe from scratch, just good old quality product that makes its honest point, then fades away. I like it.

This level of consistency is maintained throughout the entire album. The wave that carries Bur­gess now is decidedly political — fear of a neo-conservative reversal in society — but, unlike so many youngsters, these guys, having actually lived through the Eighties, know what they are talking about, and are able to deliver tunes like ʽAnyone Alive?ʼ ("Bush is back / It's a matter of fact") in a perfectly convincing manner. In a way, those jangly guitars now sound like warnings of impending catastrophes even more than they used to — perhaps simply due to better produc­tion, though. And then there are all those traces of the band's having lived through the New Romantic era — the way they croon "a little rain's going to keep on falling on me / I'm going to keep on calling to you" (ʽLufthansaʼ) is so charmingly anachronistic, you could probably give this song to A-ha and nobody would notice the swap. A bit cheesy, not to mention overlong, but somehow this heart-on-sleeve delivery over a minimalistic, endless plunking of four chords manages to be nostalgically endearing — go figure.

Like Strange Times, this new record, too, is overlong: they had every reason to ironically call the last track ʽAre You Still There?ʼ, since the previous one, ʽMiracles And Wondersʼ, ends with a lengthy sci-fi / ambient collage that is more worthy of a soundtrack to a documentary on space exploration or aquatic life than a nostalgically and politically charged neo-New-Wave album; and on the whole, the album is way too slow and quiet so as not to lull you and cradle you and make your attention wander. Nevertheless, it still gets a thumbs up — it's the real thing, not a poseur's act and not a flat attempt to sound exactly the way they did before, simply to pay service to the small handful of loyal fans from twenty years ago. One of those decent comebacks that have no chance whatsoever to be recognized and remembered on a large enough scale, but totally worth the time of anybody wondering how it is possible for a decent oh-so-Eighties band to legitimately update its sound for the rather amorphous twenty-first century.

The Chameleons: Strip

THE CHAMELEONS: STRIP (2000)

1) Less Than Human; 2) Nathan's Phase; 3) Here Today; 4) Soul In Isolation; 5) Pleasure And Pain; 6) Paradiso; 7) Caution; 8) On The Beach; 9) Road To San Remo; 10) Indian.

And here comes the inevitable reunion. Had it taken place just five or six years later, the Eighties nostalgia would have kicked in with full strength — but as of 2000, the musical world still tended to regard that period with apprehension, and the last thing it needed was an authentic new Chameleons record with authentic Chameleons production. Surprisingly, this seems to have been precisely the Chameleons' way of thinking — because the first thing they did upon reconvening was remake a large chunk of their past glories in such a way that could not possibly remind any­one of that one decade to which these glories had been inextricably bound.

Strip is not completely unplugged: there are a few electric guitar flourishes here and there, not to mention electric bass. However, for the most part, it all consists of acoustic performances of their old songs that sometimes sound like demos, and sometimes sound like something directly in­spired by being jealous of the commercial success of Eric Clapton's acoustic ʽLaylaʼ. ʽLess Than Humanʼ opens the proceedings with an oddly shaped scratchy pattern, as if they'd decided to merge it with ʽVoodoo Child (Slight Return)ʼ, but the main melodic part is all jangly acoustic, the percussion is minimal, and the emphasis is on the voice — which, funny enough, changes here almost as much as the instrumentation. Suddenly gone is the deep, dark, doom-laden tone of Mark Burgess' old voice; in its place is a soft, high-pitched, much more «human» delivery. The man wants to be your friend now, not your worst nightmare. Provided you let him.

There is not a lot I can say about this reinvention, except that it is a reinvention: it is actually very interesting to listen to these tunes in new incarnations. I have already corrected myself that they do not always sound like demos, because there are often multiple overdubs, and significant care has been taken to give the acoustic guitars a full, well-produced sound: the production is not perfect, but not lo-fi either. My biggest fear concerned the two extended monsters from Strange Times — both ʽCautionʼ and ʽSoul In Isolationʼ are here, but both of them sound significantly better than they used to, with some truly lovely interwoven acoustic patterns that make the songs much more memorable than they used to; and somehow Mark's desperate "I'm alive in here!" cuts me to the bone far more effectively.

In the end, I guess it all boils down to how much you are a true child of the Eighties: for me, the dreaded «Eighties sound» was the worst thing about the original records, and Strip is a very happy confirmation that these guys used to write very nice music that had to wait for fifteen years before getting its due. Sure, this is not rock'n'roll here: by going this route, they intentionally deprived themselves of one of their strongest sides. But it should be noted that they also did not select many of their rock'n'rollier songs to cover here — the decision to focus on their slower, more Goth-like material was the correct one, since there is clearly no way that an acoustic rendi­tion could embetter something like ʽUp The Down Escalatorʼ. As it is, Strip finally convinces me that, when they put their mind to it, they could do «slow and moody» stuff as vividly as any of their contemporaries.

The only new material on the album comes at the end: a brief arpeggiated instrumental on a near-classical scale (ʽRoad To San Remoʼ — fortunately, they never really took it) and one new pop rock song (ʽIndianʼ) that features the only heavy percussion track and the only loud electric guitar solo on the entire album, but is otherwise inferior to the old classics, sounding not unlike some long-forgotten outtake from an uninspired Springsteen session. As a taster of better things to come, this was not a good omen; but as merely a symbolic indication of The Chameleons not being quite dead yet, it's perfectly listenable. Regardless of its presence or absence, I give the album a thumbs up: for Chameleons fans, it is an essential addition, and for those who could never break the ice around their classic stuff, it could actually turn out to be a real icebreaker.

The Chameleons: Dali's Picture

THE CHAMELEONS: DALI'S PICTURE (1993)

1) Everyday And Crucified; 2) Monkeyland; 3) Dreams In Celluloid; 4) Love Is; 5) The Fan And The Bellows; 6) Looking Inwardly; 7) Dali's Picture; 8) Nostalgia; 9) Less Than Human; 10) Things I Wish I'd Said.

Another archival release, and a good case could be built for it actually being the single best Chameleons album out there. Although precise details on the package are lacking, these ten tracks all seem to predate the sessions for Script Of The Bridge, going back to 1981-82 when the band did not yet have a stable recording contract and, more importantly, no connection to Colin Richardson — meaning that the production on this sounds all late Seventies post-punk rather than early Eighties gloss. Just as it was with Peel Sessions, the one band member to really benefit from this is the drummer; but on the whole, there is far more punkish anger and energy here than even on Script, let alone all the later records.

Indeed, in the beginning The Chameleons were quite a tight, vicious little outfit, and you can easily see this by comparing ʽSecond Skinʼ with its early prototype, here named ʽDreams In Cel­luloidʼ. Where the final product ended up more like a dream-pop song, with ambient keyboards, cavernous guitars, and romantic vocals, the original was all guitar-based, and those guitars sounded sharper and deadlier, and all of the song's melodic elements were fully on the surface rather than buried deep in the mix, to be more felt than heard. Without denying the benefits of the final version, I insist that both have to be heard in order to appreciate this band more — and that the old version lets you form a positive impression of the band's songwriting abilities more quickly than the new one.

The band did have some fabulous guitar riffs in their inventory — ʽThe Fan And The Bellowsʼ, combining vicious punk verses with romantic pop choruses, is a great example of how they could kick as much ass as The Jam one minute and then serenade as sweetly as The Smiths the next one, in between lyrics about masturbating Cupids and manipulating bitches. ʽEveryday And Crucifiedʼ is one of the most paranoid and tense tunes they ever did, even if its debt to Joy Division is all too obvious (but whose isn't?). On the other hand, the title track and ʽNostalgiaʼ are spiky little power pop numbers, particularly the latter with its truly nostalgic chorus — as good as anything that, say, The Bats and their like ever recorded.

One cannot escape certain limitations of format, of course, and the band's total dependence on «chugging» rhythm guitar, which was already a little boring on Script Of The Bridge, is even more noticeable in this stripped-down format — now you could actually argue that Colin Richardson's production techniques were precisely a well-calculated scenario to distract attention away from these limitations. But if you like this style of music, there is no denying that every single song on here has its own melody — plus all that energy of youth and excitement of disco­very, one that would very soon whittle away as the band became studio pros. Heck, in a way, this might be the only Chameleons album you'll ever need in your collection, unless you are a big fan of Eighties' overproduction. Thumbs up, totally.

The Chameleons: John Peel Sessions

THE CHAMELEONS: JOHN PEEL SESSIONS (1990)

1) The Fan And The Bellows; 2) Here Today; 3) Looking Inwardly; 4) Things I Wish I'd Said; 5) Don't Fall; 6) Nostalgia; 7) Second Skin; 8) Perfumed Garden; 9) Dust To Dust / Return Of The Rednecks; 10) One Flesh; 11) Intrigue In Tangiers; 12) P. S. Goodbye.

As befits every second-rate band, The Chameleons have a huge number of live albums out, most of them released in semi-official status on various tiny labels, and trying to trace them all down and discuss each one separately would be taking this completism thing way too far. But this reasonably concise and high-quality package from the ubiquitous John Peel is worth mentioning, especially because it came before everything else and could be regarded as a comprehensive summary of the band's legacy — put out at a time when there was no talk of a Chameleons come­back, and the fans could hardly hope for anything better.

In brief, there are two things about this compilation that make it particularly attractive for me. First, the setlist: these tracks are taken from three separate sessions — four songs from 1981, way before they got around to recording their first album; four from 1983, promoting Script Of The Bridge; and four more from 1984, promoting What Does Anything Mean. At this point, the sessions stop, meaning that there is nothing from Strange Times, which is quite a relief. But it also gives you a couple of early songwriting attempts that cannot be found elsewhere (well, they can now, but not back then): ʽThe Fan And The Bellowsʼ, a good punk-pop romp with a healthy dosage of youthful protest energy, before it began mutating into acid depression already on their first LP; and ʽThings I Wish I'd Saidʼ, which sounds, well, like any other fast early Chameleons song, but at least it's better than any slow late Chameleons song.

Second and maybe even more important, the fact that these takes were recorded live for radio broadcast means — yes, you guessed it right: a relative liberation from the confines of glossy Eighties production. The biggest beneficiary of this is drummer John Lever (and his predecessor Brian Schofield, captured on the first four tracks), who is here able to fully and openly participate in the ritual, now that his fills are less robotic and you actually get to feel the effort he puts into every bit of his pummeling. The performances themselves are not at all different from the studio versions, so, for future reference, I'd simply take these versions of ʽHere Todayʼ, ʽDon't Fallʼ, etc., over their regular studio equivalents.

Other than these two points, there is little that could be added to this brief evaluation. Given the spotty record of The Chameleons, it is nice to see a package that managed to concentrate on all their good sides and largely avoid the bad ones — it is nice, in fact, to be able to say anything good about a live album by a band whose live shows were seemingly not all that different from the way they played in the studio.

The Chameleons: Strange Times

THE CHAMELEONS: STRANGE TIMES (1986)

1) Mad Jack; 2) Caution; 3) Tears; 4) Soul In Isolation; 5) Swamp Thing; 6) Time/The End Of Time; 7) Seriocity; 8) In Answer; 9) Childhood; 10) I'll Remember; 11*) Tears (full arrangement); 12*) Paradiso; 13*) Inside Out; 14*) Ever After; 15*) John, I'm Only Dancing; 16*) Tomorrow Never Knows.

The one and only album that The Chameleons released for Geffen Records would also be their last one for more than a decade: immediately after the death of their manager Tony Fletcher, they disbanded, although I suppose that there must have been something more to that — lack of com­mercial success, for instance, or personal friction between the band members. Could hardly have been personal dissatisfaction with the record, considering that Mark Burgess still regards Strange Times as the group's best album — an opinion with which, unfortunately, I cannot agree.

The record is indeed a fan favorite, but the only thing that I could «objectively» agree upon with the admirers is that this is a stab at Creative Maturity, and if you think that the very act of thrus­ting your lance against the dragon of Creative Maturity automatically calls for a Medal of Art Rock Valor, feel free to call Strange Times a masterpiece — even if, as far as I can see, the brave knights were charred to a crisp by the dragon's mature fire breath. What this means, basi­cally (no pun intended), is that some of the songs are longer; some of the songs are slower; some of the songs are more soulful; and some of the lyrics are more introverted.

But if your long, slow, soulful, introverted songs share all the problems that used to pester the band's short, fast, playful, extraverted songs, is this really a meaningful achievement? Namely, the production values remain absolutely the same — despite, or, more likely, because of the band now working with The Cure's own production David M. Allen: big drums, cavernous guitars, and typically Eighties synthesizers converge on almost every track. The melodic underbelly of each song follows the same principle — complete monotony from start to end, and, unlike The Cure, The Chameleons know very little about creative overdubbing, so there is none of the intricate and intriguing sonic layering which Robert Smith bakes in his cakes and which can often make even the most melodically simple and straightforward Cure song into a sonic masterpiece. And, as before, Mark Burgess only plays one role: an earthier, more realistic, but less emotionally rousing spiritual relative of said Robert Smith.

I will admit that the opening song, ʽMad Jackʼ, is an energetic pop rocker in the best traditions of Script Of The Bridge and remains as the high point of both this album and The Chameleons' original career in general. Except for the awful production (really, this is one song that deserved a proper in-yer-face sound, rather than the usual lost-in-the-forest atmosphere), it's got all the decent ingredients: a rousing and catchy opening riff, interesting lyrics that are open to all sorts of inter­pretations (you could just as easily associate ʽMad Jackʼ with Ronald Reagan as you could with Timothy Leary), a rowdy barroom chorus, and a steady, fast beat to keep it all together. Too bad there is not another song like that on the entire record.

Because once it is over, your hopes come crashing down with ʽCautionʼ, an insufferable, eight-minute-long quasi-Goth monster that thinks it can boil up and keep hot an air of apocalyptic depression just by repeating the same predictable minor key jangle over and over and over. Any musical development in the song? Sure. Midway through, it gradually fades out, and then begins to fade in again, and then there's, like, a crescendo, with, like, John Lever putting in more fills and Burgess actually rising to a whiny scream, and the guitars playing at louder volume, but without ever changing their initial jangly pattern. Unless one is immediately struck by lines like "One by one by one / We disappear / Day after day / Year after year... We have no future / And we have no past / We're just drifting / Ghosts of glass", I cannot see how one could regard this song as anything but a gigantic — or maybe not even so gigantic — failure to get oneself elected into the Mope'n'Roll Hall Of Fame, next to The Doors, Pink Floyd, and The Cure.

Alas, the album never truly recovers from that crash. Subsequent tunes may be shorter (although at least ʽSoul In Isolationʼ still tries to repeat the same feat, with a slightly faster tempo, but equally monotonous results), may be speedier, may suddenly switch from electric post-punk to acoustic post-folk (ʽTearsʼ) — nothing helps. Departure from the simpler, but shapelier pop format of Script has simply not been compensated by any positive factors: now the songs are almost completely hookless, but the arrangements and production values stay at the same old, boring level. With a little effort, I can single out ʽSwamp Thingʼ, which does sound a bit like its title — with a bunch of «twangy», delay-driven chords and ghostly echoes creating a nervous, suspenseful atmosphere for the first couple of minutes, although eventually it still mutates into the same old jingle-jangle. "Now the storm has come / Or is it just another shower?", asks Bur­gess in the chorus; well, as far as my opinion is concerned, the whole record is an unending series of drizzling showers that never gather enough force to convert into a proper storm.

My only guess is that the lyrics, and the utter conviction with which Mark delivers them — the good old Joe Strummer bark when necessary, the Robert Smith wail when not — are that single factor which tips the scales in favor of the record for its fans. When I look at the words for ʽChild­hoodʼ, for instance, they are really good: it is not easy to write a song about preserving the innocence of the child state and not make it sound like a bunch of high school clichés, but "I saw innocent kids turn cruel / In the playground at school" is a good start. If only the «climactic» invocation "just a little more heart now!" could match it sonically, but it just gets lost in the air, like everything else here.

I give the record a thumbs down. I imagine that with better musicians, more creative producers, and, most importantly, at some other time better than 1986, Strange Times might have ended up a moody atmospheric masterpiece, maybe not on the level of, say, Talk Talk, but, heck, who knows, at least on the level of U2. As it is, I can only see it as a disappointing end for the first stage of an initially promising career. Nor does the expanded CD edition make things any better, with its bunch of bonus tracks that culminate in Strange Time-ified covers of Bowie's ʽJohn I'm Only Dancingʼ and the Beatles' ʽTomorrow Never Knowsʼ (the latter also including a snippet of ʽEverybody's Got Something To Hide Except For Me And My Monkeyʼ, a cool idea in theory but not at all working in practice). Altogether, this makes for about sixty minutes' worth of Dullsville '86, and I'd honestly even take Phil Collins over this.

The Chameleons: What Does Anything Mean? Basically

THE CHAMELEONS: WHAT DOES ANYTHING MEAN? BASICALLY (1985)

1) Silence, Sea And Sky; 2) Perfume Garden; 3) Intrigue In Tangiers; 4) Return Of The Roughnecks; 5) Singing Rule Britannia (While The Walls Close In); 6) On The Beach; 7) Looking Inwardly; 8) One Flesh; 9) Home Is Where The Heart Is; 10) P.S. Good­bye; 11*) In Shreds; 12*) Nostalgia.

Some critics ardently defend this record, insisting that its similarity to Script Of The Bridge is superficial, and that in reality it manages to surpass its predecessor in scope, depth, taste, and any other qualities that separate Art from Arse. Perhaps they are really thorough and accurate people, capable of seeing something that I fail to see even after three or four listens; honestly, though, while I do perceive slightly cleaner production and a bigger role allocated to synthesizers (as seen already on the brief lead-in instrumental, ʽSilence, Sea And Skyʼ, so ethereal that I keep waiting for it to break into the Twin Peaks theme at any moment), I am not sure that these changes neces­sarily improve on the impact of Script, nor do I succeed in observing any other visible improve­ments in melody, arrangement, lyrics, or vocal deliveries.

Overall, things stay the same: what we have here is nine more examples of «average» song­writing where intelligence and restraint are greatly valued over raw emotional expression, thus damaging both the band's commercial potential and, I am afraid, the artistic as well: too much Apollo, not enough Dionysus. The band's intentions remain admirable: few people in the music business circa 1985 were able to spell out everything that was wrong with life in the UK (and, by extrapolation, in the whole wide world) this articulately — ʽReturn Of The Roughnecksʼ and ʽSinging Rule Britanniaʼ, sitting back-to-back in the middle of the album, are, in theory, fabulous anthems of impending doom on both the personal ("I'm a working class zero / Chained to the tree of life") and the social ("Vices embraced in times of crisis") levels. But something about these songs still makes them stop just short of brilliance, and I cannot easily decode what it is.

Perhaps it is the production, after all — a special style of Eighties production that reduces all melodic ideas, no matter how excellent, to the same common denominator: with big drums and delayed guitars dominant on each and every song, two or three numbers into the album I am already showing signs of being worn down. This is precisely where the situation might be saved with a super-class singer like Bono or Morrissey or a super-class guitar player like The Edge or Johnny Marr, people that are able to transcend the limits of generic, monotonous production; Mark Burgess and his guitarists cannot transcend it, not even with briefly attention-attracting gimmicks such as quoting ʽShe Said She Saidʼ at the end of ʽSinging Rule Britanniaʼ (so that, once again, instead of feeling the music, you begin sending signals to the logical part of your brain, trying to understand what these two songs might have in common).

On a positive note, even in purely musical terms, these are good songs. Even if they still tend to rely upon fast-tempo chug-chug-chugging riffs much too often, they are still more complex than the average chainsaw buzz rhythm track, and sometimes include mood-shifting key changes that can take the song in a completely different direction — note, for instance, how the angry, fuzzy verse riff of ʽSinging Rule Britanniaʼ is replaced by a cleaner, more «heavenly» (or psychedelic) riff of the bridge section. The eight-bar riff of ʽLooking Inwardlyʼ is one of the simplest and catchiest musical phrases they ever came up with, and I cannot help wondering how it would have sounded in Paul McCartney's hands — then the song unpredictably slows down for the second half, and becomes a soft dirge, punctuated by melancholic single-note lead guitar howls (yes, looking inward can be quite painful for the looker, we know that). Even their synth-centered songs are creative: ʽHome Is Where The Heart Isʼ progresses in mid-tempo «waves» of synthesized sounds washing each other off the table, instead of merely provi­ding a monotonous adult contemporary background.

Nevertheless, you know something's not right when you literally have to screw your ears into the sound in order to appreciate the band's songwriting and musicianship: unless this Eighties sound is like mother's milk to your organism, now that the surprise of discovery is no longer there and things become rather safely predictable, Mark Burgess' depress-poetry is not enough to overcome the basic effect of boredom. And, perhaps even more importantly, by 1985 they were outdone on all fronts by The Smiths — who had better musicianship, better production values, a far more gripping frontman, and totally comparable poetic skills, while at the same time aiming for simi­lar emotional impressions. Of course, The Smiths had bigger egos, too; but hey, rock'n'roll has always been your basic playground for big egos from the days of Little Richard, so I am not going to automatically prefer The Chameleons just because Mark Burgess is tactful enough not to shove his broken heart right in your face.

The Chameleons: Script Of The Bridge

THE CHAMELEONS: SCRIPT OF THE BRIDGE (1983)

1) Don't Fall; 2) Here Today; 3) Monkeyland; 4) Second Skin; 5) Up The Down Escalator; 6) Less Than Human; 7) Pleasure And Pain; 8) Thursday's Child; 9) As High As You Can Go; 10) A Person Isn't Safe Anywhere These Days; 11) Paper Tigers; 12) View From A Hill.

Oh no, not another band from Manchester! Well, from Middleton, to be precise, a town with but 42,000 inhabitants (as per 2011), meaning that approximately as much as 0.001% of the Middle­ton population came together as The Chameleons back in 1981 — a pretty impressive figure, if you ask me. Led by bass player, singer, and primary songwriter (I guess, although credits are democratically shared among all four members) Mark Burgess (no relation to Tim Burgess of The Charlatans, though who knows, if you go real deep in the past?..), The Chameleons also consisted of two guitarists, Reg Smithies and Dave Fielding, with no clear separation between rhythm and lead guitar duties; and drummer John Lever, a strong and passionate fellow who was, unfortunately, born in the wrong era of electronic enhancement.

These days, you do not hear all that much about The Chameleons, and there is a reason for this: while their ambitious debut, Script Of The Bridge, is often hailed as their best album, it really does not make that much of an impression if you arrive at it already after having dutifully dige­sted all the big New Wave / post-punk names of the era — starting with Joy Division and ending with early U2 and The Cure. The Chameleons were intelligent lads and they made good music, but in terms of style, they were followers, not leaders: nothing on this record sticks out as highly individualistic, a performance that you could never for the life of you confuse with somebody else — I mean, they didn't call themselves «The Chameleons» for nothing, right?

Nevertheless, once you have accepted the fact that this is «just another early Eighties band», it is also easy to accept the next few — that the guys were good songwriters, capable of coming up with their own hooks, clever lyrics, and reasonably optimistic / pessimistic moods that never went all the way up to the giddy heights of U2 or sunk down to the heavy depths of The Cure, but, in the process, also avoided the «inadequacy risks» commonly associated with either of these bands; that is, whenever Burgess and the boys sound uplifted or depressed, it comes across as less open­ly theatrical than when Bono or Robert Smith do it. Which is not necessarily a plus (at their best, Bono and Robert Smith blow these guys out of the water), but it works wonders on the consis­tency front — there is not a single song on Script Of The Bridge that would disgust or irritate me in any imaginable way.

The single worst thing about the album is the production: that big Eighties sound is present every­where, with all the songs thoroughly drenched in echo, all the drum parts futuristically enhanced by electronic processing, all the guitars steeped in reverb — co-producer Colin Richardson, who, odd enough, has almost exclusively worked with heavy metal bands outside of The Chameleons, made sure that fashions be respected and that the band be recognizable on the same arena-rock circuit as U2. Given the length of the record — its twelve songs clock in at just under an hour — this makes the first couple of listens fairly tedious for anybody who is not thoroughly enamored of «mullet pop». It does not make things easier that most of the songs are attached to the same type of rhythmic patterns — you know, «the U2 chug», where you spend most of the time metro­nomically bobbing your head up and down, with a twist to the right or to the left here and there when a chord change comes on. It starts out with ʽDon't Fallʼ and never really shifts that much right until the very end — making you wish that they'd at least include a Black Sabbath cover on there or something, because they are chameleons, aren't they?.. For a bunch of chameleons, these guys show a remarkably stubborn aversion to changing color.

Got that out of our system? Good, because when all is said and done, ʽUp The Down Escalatorʼ is a great pop single: fast, energetic, anthemic, rebellious, with Burgess' rough, salt-of-the-earth, post-Paul Weller voice building up his set of complaints, ever faster and ever more aggressively, until it all comes down in the climactic hook of "there must be something wrong boys!" This, bar the dated production, is the kind of sound that never dies — inherited from The Clash and The Jam, it goes all the way up to Arcade Fire and beyond, and ʽUp The Down Escalatorʼ can have a proud spot in this parade-of-the-disillusioned chart.

Overall, Burgess and Co. do a fine job at bottling the protest spirit without turning the record into an exaggerated «Goth» experience à la Bauhaus — most of the songs combine a spirit of despe­ration with that of defiance: ʽDon't Fallʼ is defined by a cackling vulture riff swooping up and down, but its message is "I'm running for the door, I'm out on the edge, but I'm not defeated yet... don't fall, my friend, all nightmares have an end", even if the second song already shows that this last phrase is an example of wishful thinking: ʽHere Todayʼ was apparently inspired by the shoo­ting of John Lennon (surprisingly, it shares its title with the Paul McCartney song inspired by the same event — coincidence or adulation?), and it does a good job at applying the same playing and production style to painting a musical portrait of a dying man's state of mind, even if the tempo might be a tad too fast for a dying man.

There is no need to speak about the individual properties of every song: the very titles such as ʽMonkeylandʼ and ʽLess Than Humanʼ speak for themselves as far as The Chameleons' artistic philosophy is concerned, and most of what there is to say is usually in connection with whichever other artist it reminds me the more of — for instance, ʽSecond Skinʼ is one of the best Cure songs that The Cure never wrote ("cold, numb and naked I emerged from my cocoon"), and the album's second single, ʽAs High As You Can Goʼ, with slightly less cavernous production could occupy a respectable position on any Duran Duran or even A-Ha record. For the last number, ʽView From A Hillʼ, they slow down the tempo a bit and provide the song and the album with an extended instrumental coda — atmosphere, atmosphere, and more atmosphere, all very Eighties and maybe just a little psychedelic, wrapping things up with a few moments of frozen melancholic beauty that seem to rely too much on stock tricks than inspiration, but how could they not end things on a suitably epic note? One thing that Script Of The Bridge has in spades is existentialist philo­sophy, and I'm sure Kierkegaard has already added the record to his little collection, wherever he might be at past, present, or future.

The album certainly deserves its thumbs up, although it also firmly establishes The Chameleons as a «B-grade» level artist, above which they would never be able to rise — however, solid B-grade is nothing to sneer at, and, for instance, if you want intelligent and meaningful lyrics rather than hyperbolic wallowing in self-misery or cryptic pseudo-poetry, these guys might be far pre­ferable to Robert Smith or David Thomas. In any case, ʽUp The Down Escalatorʼ at least deser­ves a rightful place on any compilation of «flagman tunes» from the early Eighties, and ʽHere Todayʼ will be a standout on any Me, Me, Me And John tribute album.