BRIEFS

Rip It Up, Issue 63, 1 October 1982, Page 24

BRIEFS

Holly and the Italians Holly Beth Vincent (Virgin) A second album from one of the smarter women working within the conventional pop framework. Holly Beth Vincent, the album and the woman, mix vague nostalgic 50s elements with contemporary bite and

imagination. 'Honalu' a good song punctuated by John Gatchell's incisive trumpet playing, then there's an effective reinterpretation of Stills' 'For What It's Worth'. The best songs though are of the love bites mould, namely 'Samurai and Courtesan' and 'Unoriginal Sin'. Not an essential album but don't be in a hurry to overlook it.GK Santana, Shango (CBS) Santana offers few surprises these days. In fact, the old Latin percussion, poppy vocals, flash guitar solo formula is sounding pretty stale. Carlos' guitar continues' to be the band's reason for being, but mostly he sounds as if he is re-running his best ideas. Alexander Ligertwood remains one of rock's least charming vocalists, so attention must focus on Santana's instrumental work and, sadly, that arouses only a flicker of interest. KW Various Artists The INDI-CompiIASIAN Album (Virgin) I'm an unashamed fan of Harrison's experiments with Indian music (Beatles and Wonderwall Music), plus the Stones' and various Yank popsicledelic bands' dabblings, but most of this British/Eastern seriopop leaves me cold. It appears to be hastily thrust together by Virgin after Monsoon's chart success and the first of their two songs is one of the four tracks on it that I can get close to enjoying. It's all too clean, too polite, too serious. Maybe you need to be Indian.CK Bob Dylan/The Band Before The Flood (CBS) , Recorded on a 1974 American tour, this double album was originally on the Asylum label before Dylan returned to CBS. Dylan drastically even perversely reworks his classic songs. In a solo setting it sometimes works, often doesn't. For their part, the Band on their own sound rather stiff. But it's the other half of th . u um, Sides One and Four, which is the real meat. Here Dylan drives the Band, and vice versa, until songs such as 'Most Likely You Go Your Way', 'All Along The Watchtower' (in sound, a tribute to Hendrix), and 'Highway 61 Revisited' become the music of the tempest. Ripsnorting rock 'n' roll from the eye of the hurricane. KW