When Orgies Go Bad
This Brooklyn based outfit were created from the splinters of two bands, one in Detroit and one in New York although if you were thinking the happy accident that created Glassrock was an explosion of lights, bangs and whistles in some Frankenstein's Monster-esque chaos, you'd be completely wrong.
Despite the initial hints of entropy on opener Better Than Me, the band are very tightly structured. Glassrock are more thoughtful, the sort of band that just wants to cuddle and won't even cop a feel after a date. Despite hints of the Doors (the guitar work on Ourselves and Each Other) and singer Kathy Leisen's Karen O vocals (most prevalent on the excellent Wine), there isn't anything lazy or derivative on this. It's just a bit lethargic...well, it isn't completely slow but you wouldn't call it pacy.
Baby expresses itself in a unique way, preferring to allow the sound to shine through, although throughout there seems to be a yearning to kick it forward and drop the subtlety. Glassrock do what they do without really moving mountains and an occasional change of pace would have been better. That indecisiveness is highlighted by the middle of the LP. Tracks six and seven are two parts of the same song, with the latter being a little bit louder and is all the better for it. If I was playing A&R man, I'd be pushing them to emphasise the join and slam them together into one track, bypassing the schizophrenia.
The standout track is Runaway where the underwater vocal effects and guitar work make for a real lounge musak hit, if your living room was an opium den. It's a real stoners' paradise of a song without getting too Cheech and Chong, maintaining it's clarity through the albums' trademark of understated guitar work. It's followed by Wasted which has a little more urgency and builds before falling off the cliff perfectly.
In all though, "Baby Baby Baby" should have been a lot more than the sum of its parts. It's slow and anonymous in many places and it probably won't go into your regular music player rotation. Don't get me wrong, there are definite bright spots but the overriding feeling is impotence and going soft at this musical orgy between two American bands is probably the worst outcome.