The Boss Tuneage retro series that’s doing the rounds at the moment serves as a good education for those of us who are a little too young to have caught this stuff the firs time around, and obviously to those who might have just missed it, but some are definitely more relevant than others. Hot on the heels of the Can’t Decide collection is Pre Marital Predicament. This combination of Sofa Head‘s first two albums has been recently remastered ready for this release. And, to be honest, it’s a bit hit and miss. It ticks all the boxes in the credibility stakes, and some tracks are nicely melodic to the point of hypnosis – track 14 ‘Break’ being a case in point here. The vocals are a frequent weak point – the male ones sound just harsh enough, but not enough to be out of place on a record which, by and large, is relatively melodic; it’s the female ones which are not quite there. They fade into obscurity and you find yourself not even wanting to listen to them as their quixotic style is certainly a hindrance rather, in my eyes, rather than a display of any artistic flair; they’re just not overtly suited to the instrumental style at all. To credit the band, the instrumental work around the vocals is pretty good, and certainly makes you sit up and take note of the simple yet effective song construction.
After thinking about this for a while, I’ve come to the conclusion that this record isn’t actually as bad as I’m thinking it is my mind. Whenever the backing male vocals are dominant, such as 4/5ths of the way through track 3 ‘One for the road’ I find myself really enjoying it. It just sounds right. And then the piercingly annoying female ones cut back in. This might sound a little harsh, especially as they’re used to better-than-average effect on a few tracks such as 4 and 5, but overall they’re detrimental to the release I’m afraid.
Certainly not an avoidance marker, consider this review a filtration of potential audience. If you appreciate mainly high, harsh female punk vocals then by all means give this record a try and potentially add a mark onto my score, but if you don’t then I doubt this member of Boss Tuneage’s retro series is the one for your garage.
Boss Tuneage
Spud