This is not promising. An album that looks like that and was released in 1980? Sigh. Without addressing the kind of music I'm sure to hear going forward, what the hell is up with this album cover? It looks like a still from a music video shown on a tube TV, paused by a cheap VCR, and taken on a Polaroid. They probably could have achieved the same effect by snapping a live picture of Adam (I'm guessing it's Adam) with Vaseline smeared on the camera lens.
"Dog Eat Dog" is an absolute mess of jumbled vocal overdubs and a rambling beat that feels like it never gets started. The aptly named "Antmusic" tells me this whole album is likely to be a total mess of various 80s noises. I don't know if I have the stamina to talk about another 80s album today or any other day. The 1,001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die list is weighed down with too much of this shit. How hard is it to figure out most of these 80s artists were just copying each other right down to their stupid eyeshadow?
Kings Of The Wild Frontier has hit upon the idea of making the backing instruments really quiet and washed out while the multiple layers of 80s-esque vocals are brought right up front with a tinge of reverb. And when I say they hit upon this idea, they probably weren't the first to do it, but they apparently thought it was so brilliant they refused to deviate from this sound.
"Press Darlings" and "Ants Invasion" make me wonder if Adam And The Ants thought they were a punk band. The former in particular feels like a scathing rebuke of celebrities who cater to and are therefore fawned over by the mainstream media. In spite of the self-serving title, "Ants Invasion" does feature solid dark bass and guitar interplay more typical of contemporary punk. But the music is much too self-indulgent and glamorous to be punk.
Blah, I don't know. I clearly have far too critical an ear to tell you whether or not 80s music is any good or not. Adam And The Ants have made an album that stands with the rest, wherever that is. 2 stars.
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