Neath Guardian & Port Talbot Guardian

25 April 1985

Note: This newspaper had two editions, Neath Guardian and Port Talbot Guardian, which were published in adjacent districts on the same day. They featured a lot of the same content, and this review was in both.

What’s new

Record reviews with Paul Lewis and Trevor Roberts

Albums:

STRAWBERRY SWITCHBLADE

Strawberry Swtchblade

(Korova)

Great name, Strawberry Switchblade, and they look good too. But they don’t sound so great!

That sound is OK, a bit like Marianne Faithful [sic] or Francoise Hardy back in the 60s. But the songs all sound the same, as if they had been written to a formula.

Now sweetness is alright, but too much of it gets sickly, and that’s where this album falls down. It needs some variety – like a couple of raunhy rock numbers – to spice it up.

Full marks though to the arranger/producer. With inventive keyboard and percussion he has managed to keep that album listenable.

-T.R.

It’s notable that the same column reviewed Working Week’s album Working Nights, mentioning guitarists Simon Booth – he’d been in the expanded 5-piece Strawberry Switchblade line-up in late 1983 and early 1984. They’d actually recorded what they thought were the first two tracks for the Strawberry Switchblade album before the format was abandoned and electro producer David Motion began again from scratch.

We’re grateful to the generous people at Zounds Abound for finding us this article. They do such a brilliant job of trawling vintage newspapers for music articles that people want to read today. They’re raising funds and awareness for Teenage Cancer Trust in memory of their son Noah. You can read about Noah, the care the Trust enabled him to have, and make a donation here.