Certain General - Invisible New York

A fairly good EP spread across two immeasurably long discs

The grand narrative of New York punk is quite easy to follow. The Bowery guttersnipes following in the wake of The Ramones, Television, Talking Heads, Blondie and the like came first and quickly spiralled out of the musical ghetto to claim international success. The next set were more experimental, from the spasmodic punk funk of ESG to the atonal, white no wave of such avant-garde pioneers as Sonic Youth.

Certain General have proclaimed themselves the missing link between both these waves for some time now, much to general indifference (except for, bizarrely, in France). Easy Action is at hand to remedy what they see as unjust unconcern. However, this exhaustive compilation of singles, live tracks and demos reveals them to be a bit of a second-rate goth band with neither the chops of Television or the bracing intensity of Sonic Youth. It’s not to say that there aren’t good songs (culled mainly from their standout album, November’s Heat), such as Maximum G, but they possess none of Talking Heads’ taut lyricism or the The Voidoids’s raging bluster. In fact, most in their favour was the exoticism of their obscurity, and now they don’t even have that.

2 stars 2 stars

Easy Action | EARS 015 (2-CD)

Reviewed by John Doran
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