The Plimsouls – “Everywhere At Once” (Geffen GHS 400) May 1983
The Plimsouls | Everywhere At Once | (Geffen) 1983 | Meanwhile The Plimsouls, the male counterpart of The Go-Gos. Just one listen to ‘We Got The Beat’ unmasks The Bangles‘ stale replication of 1966 flower pop, so ‘Everywhere At Once’ makes a mockery of everything from Three O’Clock to The Fleshtones.
Stranded by the tide that went out after “My Sharona”, with one awful LP on Planet, The Plimsouls have waited a long time to set a record straight. This is it, one of the few satisfying records I’ve heard all year.
“Subterranean Jungle” looks like a pile of rat droppings. Even covering such obviously treatable gems as Mouse and the Traps‘ “Lie, Beg, Borrow And Steal” and The Equals‘ “My Life Ain’t Easy”, The Plimsouls bring more energy and joy to the genre than The Fleshtones – bound up in their fanzine classicism – have ever done.
‘Everywhere At Once’ is the album The Fleshtones always wanted to make but couldn’t, couldn’t because they don’t have the simple suss to write a hook-driven beauty of a song like “A Million Miles Away”, a cult radio hitthat should have outsold “Billie Jean”.
The Plimsouls | Everywhere At Once | (Geffen) 1983
Much credit must go to producer Jeff Eyrich, who has given The Plimsouls the sound Peter Case‘s songs and voice have always deserved. “Million Miles” is wall-of-sound Byrds with one of power pop’s most fabulously addictive choruses.
The other standouts are the ballads “Inch By Inch” and “The Oldest Story In The World”. “Inch By Inch”, co-written by Case’s one-time companion Charlotte Caffey, opens like “Don’t Fear The Reaper” (which as Tony Blackburn once perceptively remarked, sounds like The Byrds) and fills out into a haunting, desperate love song.
“The Oldest Story” is a distant cousin of The Saints’ “Story Of Love”; I’d be surprised if Case hadn’t worked out the larynx of Chris Bailey at some point in his life. The album gets a domestic release 1 August. (NME, 02/07/83)
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