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A criticism levelled at many current pop acts is a tendency to look over
their shoulders, maybe two, three decades into the past. While this may be
valid it's also true to say that many of these bands do it extremely well,
and to their number can be added The Dead 60s.
The Liverpool quartet are
signed to the same label as The Coral, but that's pretty much where
the similarity ends. In fact the two bands are like chalk and cheese, the
Coral's more pastoral take on pop countered by the Dead 60s preoccupation
with the Specials and The Jam, boosted by various ghostly
sound effects.
From the outset it's clear they don't intend to hang around, and indeed
the whole album seems to be over before it began. Whilst that's great on
the big single - Riot Radio is an exercise in constriction - other tracks
suffer from being cut off too early, among them Nationwide and A Different
Age, which doesn't even make two minutes.
What The Dead 60s do possess in abundance is a good strong melody in
each song, usually complete with sound effects, good humour and a barrage
of guitars in any bridge passage that cares to use them. And in Matt
McManamon they have a characterful singer who sounds not unlike Ian
McCulloch, with a slightly nasal tone.
The refreshingly basic, no frills approach works well on Ghostfaced
Killer, which would be even more effective if it wasn't a devotional to the
Specials Ghost Town. Listening to this I was given the picture of a
ghoulish vehicle hurtling through the night, with the guitar effects
suitably macabre. The 60s make use of this technique once too often
unfortunately, despite its effectiveness.
The album's brevity and abundance of tunes are a mostly winning
combination however, and when you add the wistfulness of a track like We
Get Low, where Matt sings, "I was looking back for home", there's a real
feeling of getting beneath the surface.
The grubby bassline of Train To
Nowhere presents a gentler side to the band, Charlie Turner's bass
revealing itself as a crucial part of their make-up. So it proves in the
dubby excursions the band make, and in the funny reference to Batman that
provides the main melodic material for Loaded Gun. Bass is the place once
again for Soul Survivor, one of the album's choice tracks.
To sum up, an act worth checking out for some energetic, high spirited
pop. The '60s may be dead, but as this record proves, the '70s and '80s are
anything but.
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