Pretty Things
Freeway Madness
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Released well over two months ago, Freeway Madness is probably on its way toward remainder, so get it while you can, and wherever, because it's one helluva fine rock & roll album, equal in every way to the group's obscure underground classic, Parachute, now over three years old. The personnel here are the same as on the last outing—Peter Tolson (lead guitar), Phil May (lead vocals), John Povey (keyboards), Stuart Brooks (bass) and Skip Alan (drums)—with Tolson-May providing the most significant songwriting input. The great brilliance of Freeway Madness, a carefully conceived studio album, is its near-perfect combination of seemingly disparate elements:
Read More neoclassic English white blues, alternating with a Crosby-Stills-Nash-derived acoustic style wonderfully reworked in bracing off-harmonies. The end result is a mixture of visceral raunch and harmonic sophistication that sounds consistently fresh. The glue that makes the whole thing work is the Prettys' elemental melodic strength, apparent to greater or lesser degree on every track. The album's two finest cuts—"Love Is Good" and "Over The Moon"—have the boys singing in unison rock melodies that are comparable in their impact and memorability to "All the Young Dudes" while Tolson riffs between choruses with remarkable freedom, given the songs' tightly-conceived time structures. "Love Is Good" is a mighty anthem to balling on the road. The vocals break back and forth from powerful unison chants to three-part refrains that, though the latter are derived from the conventions of acoustic folk-rock, sound almost R&B in their execution. "Over The Moon" has a similar density and melodic force, complemented by, of all things, a string quartet. For contrasts, "Havana Bound" and "Onion Soup" present two slices of raw blues energy circa 1965. Phil May may not be Mick Jagger, but he's the next best thing, if you want to take a breather from the Stones. "Country Road" and "Peter," on the other hand, present the Prettys at their gentle, but not too gentle, best; and "Religion's Dead" is a supreme example of multiple vocals exploited for dissonance instead of beauty. Of the album's ten cuts, not a single one disappoints. Freeway Madness is a real find. Buy it and play it loud. (RS 143) STEPHEN HOLDEN None of the elements that made The Pretty Things famous after the fact are here (no R&B fueled mod rock, no psychedelic madness). Instead, you get mellow, harmony rich rock circa-1973. Except for the brilliant "Rip-Off Train" this isn't a great album (and "Religious Dead" sadly sounds like a Southern rock act aping Led Zep) but since when in rock is "good" not good enough? |
