FUGAZI

Fugazi, the "difficult" second album and one that the band fully acknolodges that they had major problems in the writing of the materiel. But having said that this record deffinatly shows that their hard work was not invane.

Only a year after their excellent (and probably one of the best ever) debut album came this and the first big change to notice is the departure of the only remaining founding member Mick Pointer, to be replaced by first Andy Warby, then John Martyr, then Jonathan Mover and finally (and permanently) Ian Mosely. The next big change to be noticed is that this album overall has a much darker atmosphere to it than Script... ever did. This is accompanied by the change in the subject matter of Fish's lyrics. No longer is he singing about the indavidual but telling us his paranoid fears of comitment in a couple (or band?).

The opener of this album is the strange, Islamic music inspired Assassing ( even Fish doesnt remember where the g comes from) witch quickly turns to the fast paced, keyboard led kind of play previously heard on Garden Party but the lyrics are aimed quite clearly at the constant chanfe in personell during the bands early years though Mick's departer would have been the main focus of the song. Punch & Judy is the first sign of his paranoia but the song was originally intended to satisfy EMI's demand for a hit single witch is obvious from its short duration time. As a single it was never going to work with the complex and morose lyrics not to mention the clear intention of murder at the end of the song. Jigsaw is were Ian Mosely makes himself known to the listner (the first 2 songs were recorded with Mover at the kit) and you can certanly here the difference. His style of play is more technical than Pointers but with more feeling than Mover, just what the band needed.

From Jigsaw onwords the dark atmosphere grows to encompass the music as well as the lyrics. The other thing about Jigsaw that makes it noticable is that Rothery gives one of his greatest performences here, something that he has only matched on rare occasions before or since. At Emerald Lies we are now well and truly mired into Fish's lyrics of failed relationships. Emerald Lies is about confronting the lover you believe to be cheating, though there seems to be no evidence for it. The amazing thing is the way that the music meanders and changes so completely and effectivly in just 4 short minutes.

She Chamelion is probably the weakest song on the album, though I cant put my finger on why exactly. Anyone that has sene an '80's Sci-Fi or horror film though will get the sense of de ja vu from Mark Kelly's Keyboards. Incubus covers pritty much the same ground as Punch & Judy but much more thurouly and without suggesting murder, whilst adding some very impressive musical pasages that fits the lyrics perfectly. Though Fish's lyrics seem to cover the same thing in the songs, each one brings something different to what he is doing and aproaches the subject matter from a different direction each time. However by the end of Incubus you are left wishing that he would cover something new.

This is accomplished on the albums tittle track, of witch Fugazi means F**ked up in Japanese. From here you can probably work out what this song is about, yet Fish's lyrics cover it brilliantly, first refering to every day life followed by international pollatics. The lyrics are accentuated by the build up of the music that starts slow and quite but really kicks off for the second part of the song. I have to say, though, I am no fan of the drum role that fade's out the song and album.

On the 2 disc version the song of note is Cinderella Search witch clearly shows the calming of Fish and the direction that the band was starting to head into. Most of the rest are demos that sound rather hollow compared to the full versions on the album and Three Boats Down From The Candy, a mediocre song that featerd on Market Squaer Heroes and Script.... 2 disc remastered edition.

Overall a very good album but not a masterpiece. The studio album alone is definatly a 4 star work, because though the lyrics lack much diversaty in the subject matter as I would have liked, he aproaches it in many ways and the music works wonderfully on each song. The two disc version is not really worth getting due to the poor quality of what is on the second disc.