1991 12 21 Electronic NME Review
WE WERE ONLY BEING BORING
ELECTRONIC
GLASGOW BARROWLANDS
WHAT IS more important - music or love? Ask the couple who wander into the Celtic FC-obsessed pub before the gig. She’s wearing the Smiths shirt. He’s got the New Order one. Is this a cultural coupling of titanic proportions, or just a marriage of convenience? The jury has left the building.
So the crowd screams a screechy scream every time Barney Albrecht indulges in a spot of ravey wiggling. So the crowd crows further when Johnny Marr gives out nonchalant homeboy-style flicks of the wrist. So the boy looked at Johnny, and then at Barney, and then at their four knob-twiddling mates and wondered, well, are the Gods taking the piss, or what?
The kids want Electronic. Wide-eyed with wonder and desperate to dance, they need Electronic to plug the vacuum the Mozzer, Revenge, The Other Two and the bloke in the Buzzcocks have all failed to fill, In spite of the occasional thrill. The fact that The Smiths have as much to do with Electronic as neanderthal man has with, erm, electronics, is no discouragement: In a world where so often bands have the songs and all the personality of a dead dingo, Electronic have turned the tables and transformed prattling about with synthesisers into a posey art form.
Man's contribution is restricted to the sporadic shimmer of guitar and short-lived wah-wah workout: the remainder of the time is spent concentrating on his keyboard, which is frankly akin to watching George Best competing in the Crown Bowls Indoor Championship. Sure, Goliath bummed out against Daveyboy, but we can only take globe-quaking incongruity so far before innocent brains start imploding. Boom! There goes one now.
During a chunky, almost venomous new song, which should be called ’Disappointed’, Marr spreads his wings further by partaking in some blood-clotting harmonising with Barney, but even this vocal travesty struggles to lower itself to the level of the image of a man playing pretend slap bass on a hand-held keyboard. Naffo! Zero points!
But hang on - sartorial catastrophes aren’t the be all and end all, right? When Electronic work (if that's the appropriate word in this sweat-free environment) up a head of steam they can inflict the kind of pleasantries upon casual observers that warrant, oooh, nods of appreciation, if not tentative twitches in the toe regions. ‘Idiot Country’ and ’Get The Message’ fit the streamlined bill immaculately, aiming for the stratospherical heights of glacial pop perfection on a jet pack of icy sophistication. Probably. The aforementioned could-be-called ’Disappointed’ is a dead ringer for a great Top Five single, and for the most part Electronic swan through the proceedings without making anyone hanker after a cabaret appearance from any passing Pet Shop Boy. Good.
Against that, one suspects there is infinitely mere barrel-scraping than bona fide ground-breaking going on here. Whither the passion, the guts, the flippin' drama, ANYTHING to convince us that Electronic is something more than a half-arsed hobbyhorse for a couple of precocious talents who can't be buggered to attempt to transcend their own historical heights? OK, so it’s a tall order. In fact, as tall orders go that one really is a Kilimanjaro amongst mountain ranges. But a minute quantity of fevered determination wouldn’t go amiss, particularly during their less visionary moments when the electro twins are about as evocative as a dose of bromide. Electronic for the troops? You bet.
To put things into some sort of perspective, the final, flamboyant synthetic flurry of the evening may as well be New Order's’The Perfect Kiss' without Hook's bassline, like a flash of lust from the past dragged out and dressed up in the Emperor's new ravey clothes.
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