LP Reviewed in NME, 29th March, 1980
The Purple Hearts | Beat That! | (Fiction) 1980 | ALONG WITH their labelmates The Chords, Romford’s Purple Hearts formed one half of the two-pronged spearhead which heralded the birth of last year’s mod movement in London clubs like the Moonlight and Wellington.
Now, no more than 12 months on, the same two bands still stand head and shoulders above the flotsam as the best things to come out of the whole shebang.
Both bands, through a mixture of circumstance and intent, have waited until now to play their trump cards. The Chords released their best song earlier this year in the ‘Maybe Tomorrow’ single and now the Hearts have come of age with this, their debut album.
The Purple Hearts have always upheld the punkier end of modbeat and ‘Beat That!’, despite a few flaws, confirms them as one of the few mod bands to actually cut it on rock ‘n’ roll terms.
The Purple Hearts | Beat That! | (Fiction) 1980
Of the nine originals on the album, all but one come from the pens of vocalist Rob Manton, cocky and engaging, and guitarist Simon Stebbing, a teen wonderkid with a perfect sense of musical dynamics.
Like The Undertones, they run the gamut of classic teen themes from the stupid marriage syndrome in ‘Beat That!’ to the archetypal mixed-up juvenile reject in ‘Jimmy‘, ‘Frustration‘ and, best of all, ‘Can’t Stay Here‘:
“Don’t you feel like a long-playing record every time you make a move? Don’t you feel like the needle’s got stuck in the groove?”
Maybe a bit too cute, but corny in the best tradition of the trash aesthetic. Two of the better things on ‘Beat That!’ are the covers, Wilson Pickett‘s ‘If You Need Me’ and David Bowie‘s ‘Can’t Help Thinking ‘Bout Me’.
The Pickett song is done as a plaintive, bluesy ballad even though Manton’s occasionally flat voice hasn’t quite the range to do it full justice, while the Bowie cover is an energetic obscurity from the remote days of David Jones And The Lower Third.
The Purple Hearts | Beat That! | (Fiction) 1980
Most unusual track, however, is broody bassist Jeff Shadbolt’s ‘Slay It With Flowers‘, a dense dirge complete with near-indecipherable lyrics. But like about 50 percent of the Manton-Stebbing stuff, it lacks attack.
Part of the problem, surprisingly, lies in Chris Parry‘s production. Parry was the man behind all the early Jam singles and his tin-wall of sound technique is usually an impressive hallmark but the production on ‘Beat That!’ is murky and indistinct.
The Purple Hearts’ sound is a potent pot-pourri of The Monkees, The Yardbirds, the Pistols and The Clash. It is almost great pop, and it would be a mighty shame if the Hearts fail to reach that plane in the future because of a lack of crispness in their own songwriting and a touch of the lurgies at the mixing desk. (Adrian Thrills)
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