Red Rider - As Far As Siam

Red Rider again? The album WITH Lunatic Fringe? Ok, blame Canada, i guess. With a name like As Far As Siam, it's not going to be amazing. Obviously it will be undeniably 80s, but if Neruda was what they made after their one fluke hit, then there's no reason to expect the album that random one hit came from to be consistent... 

... and my goodness that's a bit too much country for a Canadian rock band. But, i expected it to suck, so it's a tiny bit better than i expected. Here's the thing, you honestly had no idea that Lunatic Fringe was about the appalling wave of anti-semitism that resurged in the 70s. Knowing that kind of makes the concept of "cowboys in Hong Kong" seem a little ironic. Not ironic in the Alanis Morissette coincidental ennui sense, or the Celine Dion "ironical" sense, but in the Iggy Pop/David Bowie China Girl sense. Luckily, the rest of the album is terrible enough to render that tumor completely benign. Terrible album, throw it on the "recalibrate my rifle scope" pile. 

I don't think i'm being unfair when i say these songs are playlist filler. Each on its own is generically fine, but they don't add up to an album, especially not a "war" album (either they're named after that particular horsewoman of the apocolypse, or they misspelled Daisy's flagship BB gun to avoid trademark infringement). Believe me i've tried, but i can't find a consistent frame of reference for all of it, it's just stereotypical stuff. 

If you fell down the escalator here at Bottle of Beef and handed me the demos for this album I'd probably say "you guys are great, why are you doing such a shitty job of assembling an album? Lemme hear all the stuff you thought was bad and then maybe we'll talk." It's not even AOR, because that would imply you were trying to make a coherent album. Remember what i said about Uriah Heep coincidentally being their own concept? Yeah, that doesn't apply here because they are clearly lost at sea as to what kind of band they actually are, just flailing at anybody's style to see what sticks on the Canadian airwaves. 

I don't necessarily hate it, i still like most of the music, it's just not a good album. Somebody must have said something similar to "shape up or ship out" because Neruda is muuuuch better. Can't win 'em all, i suppose. 

While we're up here though, we might as well check out what everybody says is Prism's worst album....