Fishbone – In Your Face
welcome back to the Skaject folks! this week we return to Fishbone for their first full LP – In Your Face, released in 1986!
god When Problems Arise is an extremely good track. it’s strange and funky and extremely catchy, and i dig it lyrically too – good song. and they follow it up with the incredibly smooth A Selection! another really fun song that i dig. Cholly is… normally not the type of song i enjoy but there’s a certain charm to this song that’s hard to deny, haha. I Wish I Had a Date is an interesting exploration in self-doubt. solid song. A Movement In the Light brings the mellow way up – i dig this track quite a bit too. the vocal performance is really great, and i like the way the bridge builds so nicely on top of the track. Give It Up is a very nice, extremely positive track. this one’s right on the border of becoming a fave, haha. In the Air kinda fulfills the other half of Give It Up, a more serious, still socially conscious track. also p good! Turn the Other Way is a moodier track with a very nice instrumental intro. nice vibe. Knock It’s a bit on the sillier side. Simon Says the Kingpin is another extremely interesting track – the frantic pace of the percussion and beat is extremely cool, and the lyrics are a bit outrageous, but there’s definitely something very good here. Post Cold War Politics is our closer – fittingly it sounds a bit like circus music.
faves – When Problems Arise, A Selection, Simon Says the Kingpin
dislikes –
yeah on the whole i think this is a very good first full outing – a bit more serious instrumentally, and pushing a bit more of the social/political stuff to the back half of the record. it’s a bit of a bummer that the obvious bops are front-loaded and i imagine the more heavy tracks thematically get a bit less attention, but it does make sense, haha. again they’re bringing an absolutely wild range of sounds on this record, and from lyrics to vocals to instrumental performances, they’re bringing their A game for sure – consider me hooked for future records, haha.
as a side note, i highly recommend reading up on the wikipedia page how the vinyl release for this record was packaged – wild use of the format.
In Your Face – 7/10
next week, we’ll be checking back in with Laurel Aitken with Laurel Aitken Meets Floyd Lloyd & the Potato 5.
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