BLOODY TOURISTS

Having been left holding the baby when Godley and Crème departed, the remaining Stewart and Gouldman apparently sank much of their remaining inspiration into "Deceptive bends". As a result, a change of style and a severe dip in musical quality was perhaps inevitable.

"Bloody tourists" is the classic definition of a mixed bag of an album. On the plus side, Eric Stewart has more space to display his vocal prowess, the tasteful ballad "For you and I" being one of the highlights of the album. His "Tokyo" is also a reasonable song, but it is in many ways symptomatic of the album. This John Lennon like composition has surprisingly prosaic lyrics, and a melody which cries out for better production. "Shock on the tube" is a reasonable song, but is little more than an inferior rehash of "I'm Mandy, fly me". "Reds in my bed", co-written by Eric Stewart and drummer Stuart Tosh, is a mid- pace, melodic piece of light pop, and probably the best song on the album.

Unfortunately, the downsides are much more pronounced than the up. The hit single "Dreadlock holiday" is a dreadful cod reggae song, with banal lyrics. The happy holidays music continues on "Take these chains", a song which suffers from weak instrumentation as much as it does a poor melody. "From Rochdale to Ocho Rios" is more of the same too, more's the pity. "The anonymous alcoholic" is a spectacularly unamusing tale of a drunk at an office party. The song's awful lyrics are only surpassed by the poor melody.

The entire album consists of short, pop based songs, there is no attempt whatsoever here to do anything remotely adventurous. The desire to continue to enjoy singles chart success has apparently dominated the song writing completely. That in itself would be perfectly acceptable were it not for the fact that the material is weak, and the performances disappointing.

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