Something's gone wrong again
Stargrazer | deep in the heart of Michigan | 03/08/2010
(5 out of 5 stars)
"When the needle drops on the furiously-paced opening song "Paradise," you can tell at once that things are both very good and very bad in the Buzzcocks camp. This was a band beginning to splinter, yet they pulled it together in the studio regardless of tensions and runaway drug and alcohol consumption. Fusing their pop chops with a love of hyperactive krautrock grooves hatched songs like "Sitting Round At Home," "Hollow Inside" and the burning seven-minute closer "I Believe." Shelley's songwriting is at once getting more expansive and more opaque -- several songs are populated with opposing phrases and imagery, a critique of existence and its contradictory nature. This reaches its zenith with the title track, where Shelley trades statements like "save money" with a robotic, synthesized counter-voice that replies with "spend money."
"A Different Kind Of Tension" is not the fractured sonic experience that the band's inner turmoil might lead you to believe, if anything they are at the peak of their melodic powers on songs like "You Say You Don't Love Me" and rhythm workouts like "Raison D'etre," which even takes a short trip into bent-note psychedelia with its longer-than-usual guitar solo.
The sound collage "Radio Nine" ends things on a slightly anticlimactic note after this run of fantastic tracks, but that's a small quibble. It also alludes to two of their biggest non-album singles from this time period, "Everybody's Happy Nowadays" and the existential musing of "Why Can't I Touch It?"
Those two songs are included on this deluxe reissue, which also offers up the "Parts 1-3" singles recorded by Martin Hannett, their final recording as the Shelley-Diggle-Maher-Garvey line-up (a song called "I Look Alone," which is a primer on vocal and guitar hooks and is peppered with handclaps and snare-rolls -- would have been another big hit if it hadn't sunk under news of the band's break-up), a bunch of demos including some previously hard-to-find tracks, and several songs from Peel Sessions.
As a catch-all of all these great studio nuggets, "A Different Kind Of Tension" might be the most revelatory of the three reissues. The bandmates were starting to move in different directions and this tug-of-war of ideas provides some of their most unique and compelling work. The headlong punk rush of their debut, the blissful pop confections of their singles, the "maturing" shown on "Love Bites" -- it all arrives here, on the heavily post-punk influenced, melody driven "difficult third album" by one of rock's least difficult bands to like. Even when they didn't necessarily like each other."
4 stars for the bonus cuts but mastering is off from earlier
P. KRET | Boston, USA | 05/04/2010
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Excepting the bonus cuts, the IRS version is actually superior in clarity though this version has more "bounce". The problem I find with the new remaster is that the treble is muted in the left channel during "Paradise" about 1:30 into the song and stays out for portions of other songs. Can't believe this wasn't noticed. And if the masters have deteriorated surely a combination of the IRS digital version could be merged with the original tapes to make it seamless? shame as it's a real classic."
Track Listings (22) - Disc #1