404. The Adverts - Crossing the Red Sea with the Adverts (1978)
















Track Listing

1. One Chord Wonders
2. Bored Teenagers
3. New Church
4. One the Roof
5. New Boys
6. Gary Gilmore's Eyes
7. Bombsite Boy
8. No Time to Be 21
9. Safety in Numbers
10. New Day Dawns
11. Drowning Men
12. On Wheels
13. Great British Mistake

Review

This is a great album, the version I am reviewing is only one of the many versions walking around, and this track listing is the one I heard. This is some pretty interesting Punk music, it is at the same time as aggressive as the most aggressive punk, but also strangely more melodic.

It is all based around a really fat guitar sound, which is actually quite melodic in an almost Eno-like Warm Jets way. You know it sounds like warm jets... much like the title song of that Eno album, but it is of course done with a very punk sensibility.

It is perhaps this melodic quality of The Adverts that makes them sound at the same time quite novel and retro, there is almost an element of psychedelia here, it is punk that really transports you to another state of mind. On The Roof has something of the Country Joe And The Fish at the beginning and then moves somewhere near to the 13th Floor Elevators. But it is definitely punk, very very good stuff.

Track Highlights

1. Gary Gilmore's Eyes
2. One Chord Wonders
3. Bored Teenagers
4. On The Roof

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Their first gig was to support Generation X on January 15, 1977 at The Roxy in London; their last was at Slough College on October 27, 1979. "Gary Gilmore's Eyes" reached the UK Top 40 in August 1977. The band are heavily featured in John Robb's book "Punk Rock". After the band split up in 1980, T.V. Smith continued with Tim Cross forming as TV Smith's Explorers, then Cheap, and finally from the 1990s to date performing as a solo artist.


Gary Gilmore's Eyes: