There's A Reason Penetration Always The Blue Robe Without A Word Mr. Blur Fragile A Future in Noise Down On The Farm Mary Marie Warner Brothers Records, K56919, 1981 Tom Verlaine: Guitars, solos, vocals and bass Fred Smith: Bass Donald Nossov: Bass Jay Dee Daugherty: Drums Rich Teeter: Drums Ritchie Fliegler: Guitars Bruce Brody: Keyboards "you're a graduate of the Reemco School of Numbness/ and you walk in here with your fifteen degrees..." (A Future in Noise) Here it is - the best Tom Verlaine solo album, faithful to the blueprints laid down in Marquee Moon and a signpost showing where rock music has never been, where it ought to be and where it should be going. No-one took any notice, of course, which is why - over twenty years later - this album still rocks more than most things around. In a decade where popular music sacrificed content to style almost every time, albums like this made you believe in it all again. It has a rock and roll heart that it wears on its sleeve and its not afraid to wear its brain there, either - pretty rare in itself, especially then. Not "look at me, I'm so smart!", but a recognition, an awareness that loud guitars and active brain cells needn't be mutually-exclusive. (You think The Ramones were really dumb, or that Elvis didn't know exactly what he was doing?) The sleeve shows a picture of a man who looks like he knows something that you don't. And he does. And here it is. It sounds confident, positive and full-on and it sounds (even though you know it wasn't) like it was played live. It's music that you want to hear live. It's music that you need to hear live. It sounds as if it sprang, whole, straight out of Verlaine's head and fingers. It's that good. The striking b/w photo on the back sleeve places us right in New York. But there's love in the City ("Mysteries come and go/but love remains the best kept secret in town"). Love and moonlight, stars. Water and lilies and "harps across the river". Dreams of Down On The Farm. The love songs are sympathetic and lyrical and/or idiosyncratic. You always feel you know exactly what he's talking about but, then, you're not quite sure... As a collection of related songs, the album is cohesive and seamless. It's one of the few albums I know whose running order I wouldn't change if I could (usually means moving the fillers to the end - but there are no fillers here.) It sounds like a band that's played together for a long time which either means that everything is worked out to minute detail in the studio or that Verlaine has the gift of picking the right combination of musicians to record with. The interplay and dynamic between Verlaine, Jay Dee Daugherty and Fred Smith recall the telepathy that ran through "Marquee Moon" The guitar playing is more assured than ever - witness the contrasting guitars layered over each other in "There's A Reason", building into a fury which seems threatening to burst right out of the speakers and ending in a mass of fiery guitars zapping all over each other. "Penetration" lurches along with light chords held together by Daugherty's drums and Verlaine's halting bass, until it moves into the harsh guitar lines of the chorus. The curt, angular guitar chords in "Always" and the crazy, bursting-out solo frame the desperation in the lyrics. "The Blue Robe" is a constant, almost-hypnotic rhythm/groove through which the guitars entwine and weave as if trying to find a way in. The only lyric is the single repeated phrase "Hi-Fi" which, for some reason, seems to make perfect sense. "Without a Word", the closest thing to a ballad here, is a moment of reflection in the middle of all this urgency. "Mr Blur" ("Very most sincerely yours,/signed Mr Blur") is full of ringing chords and lines until the brief, fractured guitar break turns it upside down. "Fragile" has a crazy, looping guitar rhythm which almost sounds like two songs being played at the same time. "A Future in Noise" is frantic and busy with great drumming and guitar break; if I was the subject of this the guitars would hurt more than the put down in the lyrics. There are sounds here which no-one else ever got from an electric guitar. Hearing it in 1981, it seemed incredible that Tom Verlaine wasn't accorded the same respect as the usual pantheon of resting-on-their-laurels guitar noodlers. It still does. "Down on the Farm" bursts with tension between the thick, startling chords and a constant high, staccato figure. The bass and drums are dense and urgent and the guitar solo sounds like someone trying to break out of a straightjacket in the dark. The vocal (the best on the album) is almost desperate, torn between taunting, self-mocking and pleading, almost playing with the words as he sings them. The singing throughout the album is something of a revelation. Verlaine has never sounded as if he enjoyed singing so much - sometimes harsh and buried in the mix, at other times breathless or even lost. Although there were other great moments to come, Tom Verlaine would not (to date) make another solo album that hangs together as well as "Dreamtime" or another album that sounds so much like music that someone just had to make. It's timeless and it's important, and everybody should have a copy - as long as it's not mine.