Concrete Blonde - Walking In London CDs • Vinyl Records • LPs • Music Albums

runs as a theme through Walking in London. "Ghost of a Texas Ladies' Man" opens the album with the story of a dead man who seduces the song's protagonist. James Mankey's guitar snarls and screeches, pushing the tune into overdrive before grinding it to a halt. On the slow, steamy title cut, Napolitano sings in a sinister moan: "I'm either going insane/Or I'm a human wire/Receiving a signal/Desire." Songs like "Les Coeurs Jumeaux" and "Why Don't You See Me" are beautiful ballads that invoke wanton memories. Atmospheric numbers like "City Screaming" reveal a longing for innocence – with acid-guitar washouts by Mankey. In "Someday?," a soul workout that echoes Ray Davies's "Stop Your Sobbing." Napolitano reflects: "But it's a place in time/When the years behind are piled up high/But never mind/It's time to crash and burn or fly." Only "I Wanna Be Your Friend Again" fails, because of a monotonous, heavily sampled rhythmic structure. The album closes with "It's a Man's World," which is sultry and seductive in its spare arrangement, full of a confused and exploding passion.

A mature, consistent statement, Walking in London deserves to further Concrete Blonde's reputation – and expand its audience. (RS 627)

THOM JUREK