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 Level 42 - True Colours [Polydor - 1983]Honestly, I'm not one to romanticise the eighties. In many ways it sucked big time, but you can't discard an entire era and I have the proof right here. People may claim it was a horrible time for music but here I like to inform about a band that made their best material in the period. Hitmachine in Europe, virtually unknown in the US. A strange breed of jazz fusion and catchy pop in which the balance over the years shifted from the first to the second. Most people remember them from somewhat cheesy songs like Lessons In Love. Solid pop but maybe a bit too light given what their best album True Colours promised.Since 1979 the band had already established a career with a hitsong (Love Games) and a bunch of solid albums under their belt. They managed to make a mix of jazz-funk/fusion with a strong pop sensibility. In 1983 they managed to both maintain what they had but break it open in a wholly new and even more unique direction on their album True Colours. An album which happens to be the first LP that I started eyeballing as an objet desir when I was in the recordstore with my dad. It took a while until I managed to get it from the library and it actually still stands as a great album.The hitsingle Hot Water was good, but the rest of the album is so much better and very much transcending popmusic as such. The anthemic The Chant Has Begun opens the album with a blast, with an impressive bassline and a lot of power. With Kansas City Milkman clouds start hovering over the music. Mysterious keyboardsounds and a ghostly part where spooky backwards effects create a less pleasant feeling than one would expect from a pop record (although in the eighties things tended to sound a bit darker, even in the hitparade), let alone a fusion record. The fusion always shone through; obviously in the basswork of Mark King, but also very much in the other instrumentalists, in particular in the beautiful drumwork by Phil Gould. And may I add that the drums sound like a well-tuned kit instead of a bunch of samples? Inventive yet always in service of the song, to shut up the 'wanker'-yelling crowd. True Believers for instance features great musicianship, sorely missed in today's popular culture. The band also started to include a bit more influences like the African-tinged Kouyate. The 'magnum opus' of this album is A Floating Life. Powerful with massive build (hear that drumroll!) into a beautiful guitarsolo, brooding with impending doom.After this album the band started to get a bit light, and when the brothers Gould left, it became a hit 'n' miss affair, sadly. On True Colours, at the brink of stardom, everything came together though: creativeness and the means to put it on wax (as it was back then). Now available on perspex and aluminium, with added bonustracks and a second CD featuring the much slicker album World Machine I recommend to review the possible prejudices against this band, because this is a wonderful popalbum. They don't make 'em like this anymore. Sounds like old folks' talk, and it is, but it's true. 
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|  | | Level 42 - True Colours | Honestly, I'm not one to romanticise the eighties. In many ways it sucked big time, but you can't discard an entire era and I have the proof right here. Peop...
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| | | Cliff Twemlow On Severin - Mancun... | One of last year’s real big surprises in the world of Blu-ray box sets was Bloody Legend: The Complete Twemlow Collection, as it was a wholly entertain...
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