THE PARTY'S OVER

This debut album is probably one of the least proggy albums in the Archives. Yes, this is 'New Romantic' synth pop of the early 80's, comparable to bands like Ultravox, ABC or early Simple Minds. They did have a sound of their own within the genre, though surely it would be less so if they wouldn't have had the personal voice of Mark Hollis, but unfortunately their gradual progress to be something else, leading all the way to Post-Rock pioneer albums of Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock (1988, 1990) didn't quite start here yet. The sound is outdated in a typical manner for the era; flat, hollow and plastic.

The mood of the album is in minor key (the later term shoegazing fits well), and if we exclude the uptempo single songs 'Talk Talk' or 'Today', some songs do have an atmosphere not so radically different of TALK TALK's better output, but the realization of those - admittedly few - good ideas is not very succesful. Why they chose to play rather typical-sounding synth pop, did they want so much to be part of the musical fashion of the day, following in the steps of Duran Duran etc? Also the band photos of those times suggest that they did.

I had this vinyl in '87 for a short time (it was my third purchase of TALK TALK) and haven't been missing it at all. At least a couple of songs I have forgotten completely, but there's one song I've happily conquered back (from a compilation) that was my favourite from this album already then: 'Have You Heard the News?' It has a sad, strong mood and even the sneaking synth melody works effectively. But the whole album hasn't sood the test of time that well. Unless you really want to have each of their albums (there are not so many after all) you can safely ignore this one.