ACCIDENT

Who would've thought that John Greaves' R.I.O approach could survive in the 80's ?? Well it did, and quite effectively, too. What we have here is a number of tunes, some of them quite catchy, all penned by Greaves and his dear friend Peter Blegvad, with a kind of 'New Wave' bent to them and full of clever experimentation, not unlike Hammill's albums from the same period. The Late Great Pip Pyle seems to man mostly the Simmons electric drum-kit, whilst ex-Weidorje drummer Kirt Rust handles the acoustic drums on several tracks, and various other big name musicians appear sporadically throughout ; Pascale Son (pretty female vocals) ex- Cos, Yochk'o Seffer on Sax (ex- Zao), Geoffrey Richardson, pizzicato Viola (ex- nearly everything else...) etc. Some interesting and amusing lyrics with unusual subject matter, kind of abstract and unclear at times. The low point of the album is 'Sad Emission' with it's DX7 'bells' patch and corny lyrics, complete with a very catchy melody and chorus, but a very weak song. Among the better tracks, some of which are very strange - Photography, Milk and Wax all display a strong R.I.O style with the then modern sound and the title track is a killer !! No extravagant Bass playing here, though. The track 'The Rose Sob' is weird, and has been performed by National Health live in 1979. Hopefully this review gets at least someone curious about this obscure release, I'm certainly not disappointed - closer to 4 stars than a three.