“Eighties, I’m living in the eighties”
So sang Killing Joke who were at the time living in the..erm..eighties. As are RED LIGHT GO, the only difference being the fact that this five-piece have a sound even more reminiscent of that time than anything Killing Joke managed 20 years ago: which is some going considering the musical fads and fashions since then. Even The Killers, Franz Ferdinands and The Braverys of this world retain some kind of foothold in the Zeitgeist of the 21st Century. Don’t they?
Formed around the writing partnership of Tom Hammond and Andy Madison RED LIGHT GO are a tribute band to a period in time rather than to actual songs from the era they adore. Opening track ‘Was It You?’, a melange of Haircut 100, China Crisis and Howard Jones, contains an addictive synth-led melody line that has me double-checking I’ve not accidentally placed ‘Architecture and Morality’ in the CD drive. ‘Don’t Tango’ is far more mid-Atlantic in structure and tone harking back to the more stadium oriented sound of bands such as Wang Chung and Flock of Seagulls.
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The two live tracks are unsurprisingly raw and direct in their sound, lacking the gloss that a studio brings. ‘Elvis’ could be Sigue Sigue Sputnik and Billy Idol starting an impromptu jam down some boozer while ‘Take The Picture’ opens like The Killer’s ‘Somebody Told Me’ before devolving into a fairly mundane song, only lifted by the band’s penchant for quick synthesiser breaks.
‘Was It You?’ is a good pop song but its total replication of Brit pop circa 81-82-83-84 (as some other band once sang) casts it in the mould of a novelty hit rather than a credible re-evaluation: still, it is very catchy.
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