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Tours are one of the better-remembered British new wave bands that never released an album. They issued a few 1979 singles and signed to Virgin Records, but almost immediately dissolved, not even making it into the 1980s. This disc is a loving reconstruction of what might have been, surrounding four songs from 1979 singles with no less than 14 previously unreleased recordings from the same year. Their material was very much in the new wave thread that almost bisected punk and power pop, with Derek Hammond's lengthy and loving liner notes drawing apt comparisons to the Undertones, Buzzcocks, an ...read more
Tours are one of the better-remembered British new wave bands that never released an album. They issued a few 1979 singles and signed to Virgin Records, but almost immediately dissolved, not even making it into the 1980s. This disc is a loving reconstruction of what might have been, surrounding four songs from 1979 singles with no less than 14 previously unreleased recordings from the same year. Their material was very much in the new wave thread that almost bisected punk and power pop, with Derek Hammond's lengthy and loving liner notes drawing apt comparisons to the Undertones, Buzzcocks, and Ramones. However, Tours were rather more power pop-inclined than any of those acts, and you could also peg them as a somewhat punkier Eddie & the Hot Rods. That sort of attack is best exemplified by the single that leads off this collection, "Language School," a big favorite of famed U.K. radio DJ John Peel. As far as this being a great lost album, well...it's all right, but like many bands that draw obvious comparisons to more famous acts, it doesn't sound as original as the 1970s work of any of the aforementioned groups. It also suffers a little from a sameness to many of the tracks, with a consistency that might please power pop heads but prove kind of limiting for others. If you do like the straight-ahead guitar-based attack and anthemic tone of much such music of the era, it's certainly executed with energy and more ringing guitar tones than is the norm for the genre. « hide |
Similar Bands: Buzzcocks, AWARDS Contributors: SlothcoreSam,
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