| Cruelly denied the Number One slot when an administrative cock-up at the UK chart returns office credited thousands of album sales to The Police, 1979's The Raven--now re-issued with bonus tracks--found tuneful toughnuts The Stranglers striding purposefully away from the faltering punk scene with a renewed artistic agenda and a head full of hard drugs. A new direction and an overhauled musical vocabulary (gone was the growly bass and the organ, in came futuristic keyboard sounds, odd time signatures, intricate arrangements and extended instrumental passages) The Raven--as perennially acknowledged by the band's large and dutifully black-garbed cult following--is The Stranglers magnum opus. From the epic title-track--a questing, valorous Norse saga adorned by Dave Greenfield's wuthering Artic synths and sung in breathless fashion by JJ Burnel--to the quirky prog-rock science of "Genetix" (on which former biochemist Hugh Cornwell got to show-off his knowledge of pioneering 19th-century Austrian geneticist Gregor Mendel). The Raven was--and remains--enthrallingly fresh, musically daring and downright ominous. Paranoia abounds--there's the grimly pretty (but rather hypocritical) anti-heroin lament "Don't Bring Harry" and the helium-inhaling vocal freakinessof "Meninblack", a portentous slab of psychedelic lethargy detailing the existence of a black-suited extraterrestrial mafia. But there's pop too--"Duchess" (a Top 20 UK hit later covered by My Life Story) and the doleful "Baroque Bordello", a song almost compassionate and empathic compared to the leerier lyricisations of old but also featuring a keyboard intro which seemed to be cribbed from--of all things--"Inchworm" from the Danny Kaye film Hans Christian Anderson. Blame the drugs? Whatever reason, The Raven is The Stranglers' finest achievement. --Kevin Maidment |
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