Blue Zoo - Two By Two

Four-man UK band Blue Zoo released just one album, Two By Two (1983), produced by Talk Talk's Tim Friese-Greene. It led off with their sole hit single, 1982's "Cry Boy Cry," which peaked at number 13 on the UK chart. It's a great single, too, with a driving rhythm perfectly suited to, say, sports highlights clips, and features the powerful backing vocals of Stevie Lange in the chorus. (Stevie Lange also provided the chorus vocals to Gang Of Four's "I Love A Man In Uniform," and was the lead singer of Night, who were one of the bands featured in the campy Vincent Price horror film The Monster Club.) The other four uptempo tracks (which I will denote with an asterisk in the track listing) on Two By Two are nearly as engaging, impelled forward by a sequenced instrument that sounds like something between a hammer dulcimer and a glockenspiel; perhaps that is the Celeste 8 credited to Matt Flowers? The rest of the album consists of slower ballads, which are generally pleasant and have a few hooks but mostly have trouble coming to life. The full track list is:

1. Cry Boy Cry*
2. John's Lost
3. Far Cry*
4. (You Can) Count On Me*
5. Love Moves In Strange Ways
6. (I Just Can't) Forgive and Forget*
7. I'm Your Man*
8. Open Up
9. Can't Hold Me Down*
10. Something Familiar

Get the vinyl rip here or here.

A Popular History of Signs - Comrades

A Popular History of Signs, led by Andrew Jarman, was an 80s synthpop band that didn't quite fit into any of the standard synthpop categories: not beat-heavy enough to fill dancefloors, too warm and melodic to be lumped in with "minimal wave" bands, and too thinly arranged to take their place with more melodramatic bands like Ultravox. Jarman's vocal style has been compared to David Byrne's, and it's a good comparison, though Jarman's voice is deeper and more wobbly. Jungle Records released the ten-song Comrades album in 1984; there is a thread of socialism running through several of the songs that makes it feel almost like a concept album. The opening track, "Body and Soul", was released as a single, and it is the strongest song on the album, with some nice bass work from Jarman. "Tidy" could pass for a Talking Heads song circa Fear of Music or Remain in Light; "Father and Son" is a touching downtempo ballad; "Comrades" contains echoes of David Bowie's "Heroes" in its melancholy, possibly doomed, optimism. Overall this a stronger album than the Trouser Press Guide gives it credit for. The band members on Comrades are:

• Andrew Jarman: vocals, bass, keyboards, drum programs
• Lindsey Smith: guitar, keyboards, drum programs
• Paul Patient: percussion, pixie phones (?)
• Christeen Isherwood: vocals, ideology

Get the Comrades vinyl rip here or here. Andrew Jarman is still musically active, currently with the band Southern Arts Society.