LP reviewed in Sounds, 1st May, 1982

CHELSEA ‘Evacuate’ (Step Forward SFLP 7)****1/2 CHELSEA USED to suck. Now they’re contenders. The nostalgic will weep with joy, everyone else’ll be content to OD on the scorching prowess of this fine album. The singles ‘Evacuate’ and ‘War Across The Nation’ (both included) provided the first clues of the revelations to come.

Boisterous pop gems both, they set the tone for an album of exploding pop-punk power redolent of the Professionals and second album Rejects and Clash.

For the uninitiated this adds up to sinewy power-guitar detonating all over the shop and glorious raucous choruses that draw you in like Bo Derek working the Reeperbahn. Red-hot hooligan-pop sensibility welds this cranium-crunching combination into irresistible muscle music of the first order.

Against all the odds and much past form ‘Evacuate’ is a joy. The band have never been more confident, the songs never more lively. No hint of the sulks or sluggishness here.

A clean production guarantees an easy flow and though a Total Noise Boy such as Oi would have preferred the guitars even harder in the mix this is a minor niggle next to the gargantuan clout of much of the ten tracks herein.

Chelsea | Evacuate | (Step Forward) 1982

Gene being Gene he sets himself up a couple of times, eg belief has to be well and truly suspended when he sings lines like “Don’t take advantage of my youth”. The poor old sod must be pushing 30, if not 40. But you can forgive these foibles because this whole set’s so convincingly singalongable.

Side Two is the stronger side, kicking off with the mighty ‘War’ and following that through with the slicing guitar slabs and sturdy punchiness of ’40 People’, the controlled power and exploding chorus of ‘Running Free’, the neatly addictive ‘Last Drink’ with its handsome guitar hook, and album-closer ‘Only Thinking’ which balances reflective verses with growling choruses of belting cannonball power.

Chelsea | Evacuate | (Step Forward) 1982

‘Evacuate’ kicks off Side One, chased by ‘How Do You Know’ which definitely could’ve done with more guitar balls, the folky-flavoured raging protest of ‘Cover Up’, and the neato ‘Looks Right’ which nicks the ‘Bodies’ riff but compensates with an awesome of-some chorus.

And that just leaves the album’s one disaster ‘Tribal Song’, a ploddingly dull rhythmic talkover which is as subdued as it is seemingly endless and features Gene annoyingly mumbling into his handbag as it stabs hopelessly for some sort of progressive credibility.

That aside, the album is both the band’s best and a considerable turning point in their long-end up till now pretty fruitless career. Or as Al Lewis (Ed) summed up the situation “not bad for a bit of a bender”. (Garry Bushell)

PEOPLE are beginning to take notice of Chelsea. They are gradually opening their eyes, lending their ears, then snapping their fingers and being pleasantly shocked into belated admiration.

This new album (their third to date) is Chelsea’s first real chance to win their new admirers over completely, and dare I say it wouldn’t be too risky to guess that a lot of people will be won over, and won over pretty convincingly too.

Chelsea rock ‘n’ roll is rough, tough and shining hot. It’s also, without ever compromising, very accessible indeed. Yet ‘Evacuate’ is by no means faultless. One big black mark goes to side one’s closing track ‘Tribal Song’, a number which opens with a dozey rockiest.

“Okay, roll it”, spoken intro, and then drags on and on in a failed attempt at Ruts style subtle sparse atmospherics. With this, the momentum slows to a dragging and unwanted halt.

But I’m overlooking the many delights on the rest of the album, delights like ‘Evacuate’ and ‘War Across The Nation’, those two dynamite Chelsea singles that should have stormed the charts but didn’t as well as the live favourite ‘How Do You Know’, which is worryingly fragile in comparison to it’s original seven inch version, but nevertheless still a stormer.

No smiles about Chelsea putting the ball smack into the back of the net, and no predictable nonsense about their impending promotion to division one, because Chelsea have already reached the first division.

However, as far as the league championship goes, they’ve still a very long way to go. But you never know. ++++ (Record Mirror, May 1982)  

RAGE AND PARANOIA

CHELSEA | Evacuate (Step Forward)

ALTHOUGH NEVER the most touted or acclaimed of London’s original punk combos, Chelsea, maintained only by the determinedly dodgy Gene October through a million line-up changes, have carried on. There’s always been plenty of Gene October stories to snigger over, and I’d guess the band have never been helped by his highly unhip public persona, basically that of slobbery nerd.

But finally, with ‘Evacuate’, Gene and his boys have put together an LP which must prevent them from being snorted at quite so vehemently again. As October told the NME a while back, he still regards himself as a figure of the wild and woolly punk ’cause’.

Yet ‘Evacuate’ shows his group to be, in many ways, beyond the visionless, ritualistic tragedy that so much of Punk has become. The musical style of ‘Evacuate’ is almost entirely Essence of ‘Rope’-era Clash, and, since ‘Tommy Gun’ and ‘Safe European Home’ remain the best examples of post-primitive Clash sound yet recorded, that makes it pretty good.

The title track, a trenchant exploration of social panic, just hurtles past, a surge of funnelled rage. Much of side one deals, indeed, in the usual finger-points and paranoias; both ‘How Do You Know’ and ‘Cover Up’ approach personality, privacy and secrecy to the same uptight, militant soundtrack. But what separates October’s lot from the hordes is his realisation that the best protest music is concerned with capturing shared emotions, not flaunting inadequacies.

The last three tracks on side two show the group in a different light: as punk-educated craftsmen dealing in timeless themes. ‘Running Free’ is a modern young lifestyle hymn, ‘Last Drink’ a contemporary drinker’s blues, and ‘Only Thinking’ is that drink’s touching, contemplative hangover.

These concerns, like the more obviously new-punkoid ones before, are explored and realised with an expressive intelligence and humility which comes from inside the commentator’s world, yet is grimly humanitarian enough to give a damn, and has sufficient suss to look outside itself and beyond. This is a worthy slice of real life with a touch of truth and pride. How nice to be surprised. (Dave Hill: NME, 22/05/82)