The Leader-Post from Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada • 70

14 The Leader Post Rcgina. Friday, January 30, 'l'J7ti "3 CO s. ,1 than to encounter, on some tare occasion, performers such as Carmen or Springs! rem or the Pretty Things who display a spe rial intelligence and insight, and. in fact, an obvious self-awareness of their own music, They write deliberately and consciously within the acknowledged conventions of their art. With Springsteen, it's a re-creation ol a primal sense of rock 'n' roll ami unaffected piirKise.

With Carmen, it's the notion of an elevated pop music that is best characterised by the Beatles in their mid -period with songs like Drive My Car and Hard Day's Night. Carmen's new album is the very apotheosis of this sensibility. It draws together some of the most startlingly engaging and insistent songs he's ever written. There's a sparkling richness of melody, a certainty of arrangement and Carmen's lyrics have a sympathetic irony and clear-minded poetic finesse that can charm and exhilarate. Hesings as he always has, about being part of rock 'n' roll.

Four of the album's cuts chronicle what it was like for Carmen and the Raspberries. As lie says "Four years on And things we're getting too intense Critics raving about our album f. We're making fifty cents." Carmen is a rock 'n' roller's rock 'n' roller. One hesitates to call him brilliant, because most people at this point turn off. but damn it, he is.

No one has provided pop music with a more polished mirror of itself, and his album is blinding in its reflection. Carmen's had the Edsel, now I hope he gets the hula hoop. Span stridently ply traditionally-fashioned folk melodies in the guise ol electric i I ecaineron presents a much more natural and complete cvolvenicttt. There are abundant lock mollis, there's a vital and essential pop accessibility, but spun throughout them there is also a gentle, spare and haunting folk style that aletls but never dominates one's sense ol the music. If Cat Stevens wasn't so cloying and spiritless, he might have been capable of a near-masterpiece such as Third Light.

Decameron has a perfect musical and lyrical balance however, that defies gravity. Something special. Eric Carmen (Arisliet. Erie Carmen was once the guiding light of the great but failed Raspberries, an American band whose melodic assurance, and bracing, polished rock arrangements drew deliberately from the British '60s rock experience, especially that ol the Beatles. The Raspberries, like many ol their ilk, the ackers, Big Star, Blue Ash, Stories, all American groups, were a beloved critics band and their 1973 classic, Starting Over, was Rolling Stones Best of the Year, as was Big Star's Radio City that of Zoo World magazine.

Shades of early Bruce Springsteen. Obviously to be hailed as sensational by the entirety of the critical community can be the kiss of death. I don't know whether or not you've seen the early-release ad for Carmen's album in the rock mags, but it pointedly conveys the idea that the writers are again in ecstacy. Nothing pleases a critic more ityCAitv PostScript Spc ial Steve Howe Beginnings Allan-tit). If this album doesti bore the pants ell even the hardest core ol Yes fans, then loyally knows no surrender.

Though Howe's guilar work usually proves i linent if not provocative within the context of the group, the solo album Is nothing hut errant noodlings, a little roly poly linger picking on one cut, a French minuet on another and some inexcusably H)stured rock in between. Messy, frustrating and irrelevant. Dan McCaln-iiy lati Mcl'allorty, lead singer of Scotland's hard rock troupers Nazareth, is a highly interpretative vocalist. On his own album he's able to stretch out a bit more, covering a singular range of songs and styles while still ensuring a semblance of continuity. Unlike Steve Howe', he's got something distinctive to offer, his voice.

While his supple rawness doesn't add greatly to the old Platters number, The Great Pretender it lares marvellously on a slow, sensual version of Neil Young's Cinnamon and even better on the Stones' raunchy Out of Time. Decameron Third Light Transatlantic has long been one of Britain's foremost folk labels, unavailable in North America except by special import. The company has now established domestic distribution in Canada and is making its pressings available at domestic prices, the first European company to do so. At the forefront of Transatlantic's new releases is Decameron's Third Light, the group's third album and by far its best. The band's music stands at a complete interface of all of folk, pop and rock.

Whereas groups such as Fairport Convention and Steeleye Carpentry corner 7 i The book offered today is titled How to Rehabilitate Abandoned Buildings. Perhaps it could have been tilled How to lie-model, as it has many ideas and step-by-step illustrations on little items which make restoration and remodelling easy. This book explains how to make roofing and foundation repairs, floor repairs, front step repairs, how to remove a wall and build a partition, how to repair and replace windows, how to rough in service lines, how to insulate, how to install a fibreglass tub and shower, and how to install a suspended ceiling. There are also maiiv more valuable tips. Send $4.95 in cash, cheque or monev order no stamps please to Carpentrv Corner, The Leader-Post.

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