Dirty old men singing about war and clouds (Black And White - Stranglers)

Member Name: dave27

Product:	Black And White - Stranglers
Date:	28/02/03 (242 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A couple of decent tracks

Disadvantages: Mostly crap

I remember well waiting with baited breath for the release of The Stranglers' third album back in 1978. I was a committed fan back then and looked forward to some new material after the first two albums which had been drawn almost entirely from their sterling live sets.

Unfortunately I was pretty ill at the time having had an appalling reaction to some penicillin after having had an abscess dealt with by the dentist and so had a very strange experience when I came to finally play the thing.

Black And White, after the masterpiece of Rattus Norvegicus and the patchy mess of No More Heroes, was the dirty old men's shot at stretching their wings into some more musically challenging vistas. Unfortunately, they could not leave behind the nastiness of their subject matter and offered more cheap shots, attempting to right the balance with the addition of a male stripper to their live performances.

They had always been fairly unpleasant chaps subject to heavy criticism for their misogynistic attitudes, and a few experiments with anti-war themes and global undercurrents couldn't hide their sleazier feelings, although they showed a nice touch of self-deprecation with the cod(piece) reggae shambles of Nice'n'Sleazy.

Nevertheless, Black And White definitely represented a significant step forward from their first releases and the band showed that there was much more to them than the subterranean iron spring of Jean Jacques Burnel's bass lines and the sub-Manzarek keyboard doodlings of Dave Greenfield. Jet Black?s surly battering of his drums was as rock solid as it had always been, and Hugh Cornwell's guitar and vocals led affairs wirily, while Burnel and Greenfield still punched their weight.

The band was now a mature and rounded unit, and the music was somehow much more clinical and probing than it had been earlier, with the grungy, grinding riffs replaced by spiralling flights of fancy. Some of the or
iginal individuality and inspiration that had run through the first two albums remained, but there was nothing here to match the glittering prizes of Hanging Around or Grip, but then we would have been in for a rare treat indeed if there had been. There was a lighter, more airy sound, less ground in the sewer and grime, and setting its gaze on higher ground. The preoccupation with women as sex objects was replaced with obsession with international conflict and globetrotting, although some of the new subject matter was surprisingly naïve and shallow. For such apparently learned old (new) farts, it was shocking that they were so content to be depicted as a bunch of moronic tramps whose minds rarely rose above the level of the groin.

I have to say that the penicillin had meant that my mind was similarly rooted in affairs within my pant region, but that was not a matter of choice, while The Stranglers' focus was entirely at their own volition. They were better than this and could have soared to new heights if they had so chosen, but strangely they seemed unprepared to venture far outside their limited comfort zone and surprisingly complacent. That was perhaps the word which most characterised The Stranglers after their initial burst of activity - the smug whiff of complacency was everywhere, dominating everything they did. You dare not utter a word of criticism, constructive or otherwise, in their company for fear of having a fearsome bass guitar inserted somewhere particularly unpleasant, apparently a trick the band were quite keen on in the presence of their notorious bunch of groupies. These guys were not a pleasant bunch and didn't mind who knew the fact.

Guttural snarls and glares were the stock in trade of The Stranglers, and you always got the impression they were chortling unpleasantly up their collective, frayed sleeves at us, pitying us and our tiny little lives. There was little hint of either humanity or sympathy in their l
atest offering, as they dropped happily into the third person rather than the first person commentary which had permeated their first two sets. They were now observers of humanity rather than part of it. The detachment somehow made it far easier for them to spit out their insults and venom.

Odd then that they should spend so many minutes of the album pondering on the qualities of clouds, like they had imbibed one too many joints. "Hello clouds, hello sky" seemed oddly out of keeping when thinking about such spiteful old warmongers. Still, that's The Stranglers, brimming over with surprises and moments of finesse. NOT!!


Tank, the fearsome opening track, was the sort of ham fisted and clumsy denuciation of war that any third former would have been proud to have penned. Subtlety and irony were never qualities which the band ever really cherished and unfettered cheap sarcasm was more regularly the chief weapon in their locker. Tank was just rank, bowed down with callous rage and pedestrian lack of charm.

However, at least they could do rage and contempt with a fair degree of sincerity. The same could not be said of The Stranglers' feel for reggae. Nice'n'Sleazy may have been a boisterous and enthusiastic hit single, but the band never moved beyond the bare mechanics of the off beat skank. Burnel's bass burns with arrogant contempt for the genre and makes you wonder why they ever bothered. The track has a certain perverse attraction and is executed with a fair amount of gusto, but just oozes embarrassment and forced amusement. Still, parody of parodies is the stuff of academics, and the black pants and overcoats were always worn with mock relish. Could they be taking the rise out of their own macho appeal? I doubt it. Still, for its brazen lack of self-consciousness you have to admire the band's gall.

Outside Tokyo was slighter and more romantic, although only by the grim standards
of The Stranglers. Ferchrissakes, you could even half accuse Cornwell of trying to croon, rather than bark. It's light and airy and totally sweet. (Sorry, just trying to piss Hughie off.) Still, it is poetic and almost soothing, a blessed relief in the Land of 1000 Tramps.

The jazz blurt sax blasts of Lora Logic, formerly of X Ray Spex at least made the sound of Hey! (Rise of the Robots) distinctive, if not overly attractive. The targets are all too easy, lame ducks without the ability to raise a cry of protest, and it's a mighty good job, because the thrusts are hardly rapier like. In fact, it's more rusty blunderbuss than epee in the locker of the Angry Old Men. Bemoaning the dominance of automata was pretty old hat even in the early 70's, never mind at the tail end of the decade. Still, more robust opponents might have made our heroes look slightly less dominant. Bullies don't like being defied, remember.

Sweden was back in the sunnier climes hinted at in Outside Tokyo and all the better for it, although it's still eerily sinister to hear Cornwell absent mindedly breathing "Cumulonimbus goes by." Clearly a hint of times to come and the soothing tones of Golden Brown.

Then with the extravagant Toiler On The Sea, The Stranglers finally hit upon their perfect new sound. Mainly instrumental and surprisingly atmospheric, Toiler caught the band flying off into almost uncharted territories in the way they had hinted at in the closing sections of Rattus Norvegicus. The Stranglers were closet jazz freaks and the cat was out of the bag. The track rambled on and on about nothing in particular, but dripped with gravitas.

It was a shame then that it was all downhill from that moment on with the bloodthirsty and turgid waltz of Curfew, Threatened, In The Shadows, Do You Wanna, Death And Night And Blood and Enough Time, dubbed the black side of the original LP. They were dumber than dumb and obn
oxiously ignorant songs, hardly worthy of the time.

CD releases of the album variously contain a selection of the following: Mean To Me, Shut Up, Sveridge, Old Codger and Tits, but it was only the night club jazz version of Bacharach and David's Walk On By (a memorable hit single for Dionne Warwick) which remained in the memory. It showed what the band could do if they had a decent tune to work with and demonstrated potential future directions which they went on to exploit with some finesse. Cornwell's guitar and singing were inspired and lifted the band to whole new levels of achievement. It was a shame that they could not find other work to match that and Toiler On The Sea. If they had they may well have been able to produce a half way decent album. As it was, Black And White was like the noise of an incontinent tramp farting when you knew he could coax a gorgeous trumpet solo out of his blistered old lips.

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