Monocled Alchemist

LP Reviewed in Sounds, 15th September, 1979

“A Different Kind Of Tension” (UA UAG 30260)***

Buzzcocks | A Different Kind Of Tension | (United Artists) 1979 | ONE OF the major disappointments of the new-wave dawning has been Buzzcocks‘ relative failure to reach anywhere beyond the initial, high standard of ‘Spiral Scratch’.

Devoto‘s departure witnessed a band struggling to its feet and merely consolidating its past with a patchy, shaky debut album and initial flurry of singles that flattered to deceive, achieving something of a peak with the inexorable ‘What Do I Get’ but overall doing little else than confirming Buzzcocks in their current position of Established Hit Singles Band, without the enigmatic classicism of, say, an Undertones or a Jam.

‘Love Bites’ was testament to Buzzcocks’ growing dependence upon the 45 form. As a second album it crumbled in your hands and was pertinent only in the sense that it revealed increasing gulfs between the songwriting styles of Shelley and Diggle.

More and more Buzzcocks have proved a mixed-up, shook-up band, settling for the easy way out, irritating by now and then aspiring for and apparently showing faith in more difficult methods. Creativity and product-pushing have been toyed with so much and so irrationally that, increasingly, Buzzcocks’ songs have been undermined with a kind of schizophrenia.

Shelley is dabbling

‘Everybody’s Happy Nowadays’ is the most obvious example, the song being caught-up in its own ambiguity to the extent where the listener feels that perhaps Shelley is merely dabbling with ambivalence (or being eaten-up by it) rather than seriously realising it.

Singing ‘Everybody’s Happy Nowadays’, Shelley sounded on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and the handing-over of songwriting responsibilities to Diggle on the directionless, ungainly ‘Harmony In My Head’ seemed to clearly signify that Buzzcocks’ central, creative force was thoroughly exhausted and empty, of ideas.

‘A Different Kind Of Tension’ is mammoth evidence of Buzzcocks’ and in particular Shelley’s own personal self-alienation. It is the best Buzzcocks’ album because it is honest and self-critical, but even at that it falls sadly short of what it might have been and what is needed.

Buzzcocks | A Different Kind Of Tension | (United Artists) 1979

At best it signifies a period of transition and at worst it proves a weak and spineless collection of songs unworthy of B-side status. It’s disappointing because all the indications were that ‘A Different Kind Of Tension’ was to be an intense examination of Buzzcocks’ personal disillusionment, clearing away the tinny fluff of recent singles in favour of some substantial, meaningful direction.

What we have instead is an uneven album of half-formed, half-realised statements that in the process of attempting to draw some meaning from current Buzzcocks’ dilemmas merely highlight weaknesses in both Shelley and Diggle’s songwriting.

Strangely enough, there is little actual tension in the record. Indeed, the whole thing sounds rushed and messy. Part of the problem is the production, ironically enough in this would-be ‘different’ atmosphere a hoary old Buzzcocks’ shortcoming.

Martin Rushent‘s formularised Buzzcocks’ sound I’ve always considered too velvety smooth and all-round complete for the band: there’s rarely enough edge or bite in the sound, everything is up and down, along and across, far too much in focus to allow any range or scope.

plaintive love chants

Shelley’s plaintive love chants have never stood a chance in Rushent’s synthetic, unfeeling treatments. The problem is made even more serious on this third album because here more than ever Shelley’s more unspectacular, more low-key introspections need sympathetic handling.

The best song on the first side, for instance, ‘Raison D’Etre’ is of essence a moody, reflective statement, and Rushent’s samey, heavy-handed pap production lends the song’s meaning no help at all.

It’s the nature of the songs, however, that proves the main problem. The first side is split between straight Diggle and Shelly three-minute compositions.

Shelley’s opening ‘Paradise’ is typically urgent, no frills Buzzcocks, the lyrics trading on the ‘Everybody’s Happy’ technique of barely tongue-in-cheek, bare ambivalence as they ask, “Why are things so nice? – Is this the place they call Paradise?”

Buzzcocks | A Different Kind Of Tension | (United Artists) 1979

A good, if vague, opening that’s backed-up by Diggle’s heavy, peculiarly dated rock writing in the form of ‘Sitting At Home’ which wins through care of a neat, fast guitar figure.

‘You Say You Don’t Love Me’ is standard twee Shelley romanticism that’s spoiled by a too obvious middle guitar break that suddenly makes the whole song smack of self-parody.

Diggle’s ensuing brace of vigorous rockers, ‘You Know You Can’t Help It’ and ‘Mad Mad July’ are perhaps the album’s weakest links.

Just as Shelley is stepping into self-examination they suddenly switch the album back to simplistic, battering HM (a la Status Quo’s ‘Dog Of Two Heads’ at that) parading lyrics as clumsy as “Sex is known as a screw – a bloody silly thing to do – but anyway we’re all – gonna do it cos its great”, which is plain embarrassing.

side two

Side two reverts to Shelley’s attempted self-scrutiny. ‘I Don’t Know What To Do With My Life’ is the strongest Buzzcocks-type song on the album, meaning it’s deadpan and flat, but infectious to a point.

Money’ and the anthem, adjoining ‘Hollow Inside’ is the album’s highpoint in a way, the music at last boasting a kind of atmosphere, though again the lyrics are less than adept; “You are a stranger – but I’m even stranger – what can we do” Enough to make Devoto (even) roll in his double gatefold sleeve over at Virgin.

The title track and ‘I Believe’ close the album in neo-grandiose fashion, with much atmospheric keyboards that come across ELO style, synthetic and numbing.

‘I Believe’ is in terms of the closing chant of “There is no love in this world”, terribly literal, sceptical and final. Shelley sings of the small, nice things in life; “I believe in the things I’ve never had – I believe in my mum and my dad” rounding off with a look to the inevitability of his failures and his problems.

trailing their contemporaries

There is little dignity here, though a great deal of honesty. You can’t but help feeling it’s a relinquishing of responsibilities. It’s an uninspiring ending to an uninspiring album, unhappily fitting Buzzcocks into the no-man’s land between successful product and creative failure, leaving them trailing ignominiously behind their contemporaries (Fall, Clash, Jam, Slits et al) and the new hopefuls.

Shelley has always dabbled in a tragic-romantic sphere, but it’s an evil irony that’s depicted that role on ‘A Different Kind Of Tension’ in all too real and convincing a light. Real feelings, real standards, real tears and real life can be hard. Perhaps Peter Shelley is learning . . . (Dave McCullogh)