Originally released by Dave Kitson's quality indie label Red Flame in 1982, THE ROOM'S debut album has been re-issued with predictable attention to detail by LTM and still sounds like a hip and stark adjunct to the cool alternative sounds that came outta the feverish post-punk Liverpool scene which of course also gave us the Teardrop Explodes, Echo &The Bunnymen and the magnificent Wild Swans.
To this writer's ears, The Room's legacy deserves to be held in similar esteem, and while "Indoor Fireworks" may not quite scale the rich'n'dizzy heights the band would achieve with their swansong masterpiece "In Evil Hour", it's still a fine record and one overdue lashings of critical re-appraisal.
Unlike the melodic, neo-psychedelic warmth of "In Evil Hour", "Indoor Fireworks" is a brittle and frazzled affair. Dave Jackson's trademark indie croon is already established, but the band themselves sound like they're mainlining on nervous energy throughout. Robyn Odlum's guitar is nervy and echo-ey, Becky Stringer's bass is the heartbeat and carries metronomic melody aplenty and drummer Clive Thomas drives them along, performing tom-heavy percussive miracles seemingly at will.
And the results still sound pretty heady and intoxicating. Tracks like "Escalator" and "Chatshows" are frenetic, scurrying and abrasive and seem to vanish as quickly as they've appeared; "This Party Stinks" is brief and atmospheric and "Conversation"'s discofied amphetamine energy wouldn't have been out of place on the Rough Trade shops wonderful "Post-Punk 01" collection.
Elsewhere, they're equally effective when they slow things down and give the songs a chance to breathe. Opener "No Dream" is deep, expansive and drags a lysergic undertow in its' wake, while "Heat Haze" is jagged, filmic and vivid with Thomas's drumming only just south of heavenly. The album also concludes in fine style with the cavernous and creepy "In Sickness And In Health", but it's with "Things Have Learnt To Walk That Ought To Crawl" that the whole band pull it together and deliver one of their finest performances. A long-time John Peel fave at the time, the song was released as a single at the time and remains a sublime calling card over two decades later.
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This being an LTM release, we're also treated to an impressive selection of B-sides and live tracks to join up the dots. There are several gems lurking here too, not least the insistent and propulsive "Dream Of Flying", "The Whole World Sings" which introduces Peter Baker's angelic keyboards for the first time and "Waiting Room" - part of the band's very first double A-side single - which is considerably weirder and atonal than the edgy indie sound the band would soon forge in their own image. It's nonetheless an intriguing signpost and worthy of rediscovery.
To round up, we get six tracks recorded live in Vancouver with Beefheart sideman (and current Charlotte Hatherley producer) Eric Drew Feldman adding some spacy textural keyboards. The recording is rather basic and perfunctory, but still catches the small club excitement of the event nicely after the fact and features wicked versions of "Heat Haze" and "Escalator" en route to culminating in a ferocious six-minute workout of "In Sickness And In Health." It's a nice appendage and demonstrates The Room were a viscerally powerful live act in their heyday as well.
Actually, at a time when young pups of all varieties from The Futureheads through to the likes of The Departure are dipping into the bag of post-punk shapes to fashion something (allegedly) new, The Room's nigh-on perfectly formed back catalogue is sounding all the more timely. "Indoor Fireworks" remains vulnerable, zingy and intelligent and was criminally overlooked at the time. All credit to LTM for once again reminding us of this tremendous band's relevance.
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