Nov 29, 2017

RhoDeo 1748 Aetix

Hello,

Today's artists are one of England's more subtly original goth rock groups, that were initially branded as worshipful Joy Division acolytes, but came up with enough distinct variations to break free of their main influence. Their foundation always remained icy, droning post-punk, replete with sludgy, murky guitars and mumbled Ian Curtis-style vocals. However, as the Lorries evolved, they gradually sprinkled in elements of industrial dance, early rave music, and spaghetti Western soundtracks, as well as liberal doses of inventive, acid-tinged guitar work. .....N'Joy

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Taking their name from a British tongue twister, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry were formed in Leeds in late 1981 by guitarist/songwriter Chris Reed and vocalist Mark Sweeney, along with bassist Steve Smith and drummer Mick Brown (who would later join The Mission). Sweeney left the band in late 1981 and Reed permanently took over as vocalist, with Martin Fagan joining as a second guitarist. The group's sound, featuring a numbing guitar drone, powerfully throbbing bass, pounding drum machine, and Reed's cavernous vocal tones, caused the Lorries (as their fans came to call them) to be quickly lumped into the then-developing gothic rock scene by pop journalists, although the band themselves denied they were ever associated with goth and preferred to cite Wire as an influence, and said they "were primarily inspired by MC5."

In 1982, the Lorries' manager Dave Hall provided independent record label Red Rhino with a cassette of the group's demos. Impressed by the quality of the songs, Red Rhino label head "Tony K" (Tony Kostrzewa)[4] signed the band and immediately released "Beating My Head" unchanged from the demo as the band's debut single. The song made a strong appearance on the influential NME independent record chart. Fagan and Smith soon departed the band, to be replaced by Dave Wolfenden and Paul Southern respectively. Afterwards, bassist Southern was replaced by Leon Phillips. While numerous additional personnel changes would occur in the history of the band, Wolfenden became a mainstay and a frequent songwriting partner of Reed's during the band's most productive period. In 1983 and 1984, the band released several more singles (including "He's Read" and "Monkeys On Juice", which reached No. 9 on the NME indie chart[6]). John Peel was an early supporter, and the band recorded two radio sessions for him in March and November 1983 (released on CD in 2014 as BBC Sessions 1983 - 1984, part of the band's 3-CD compilation See the Fire).

In 1985, the band's debut album, Talk about the Weather, was released and peaked at No. 3 on the NME independent albums chart. The album, which most fans consider to be the band's best, received generally positive reviews and sold extremely well for a small label offering. "Hollow Eyes", a single taken from the album, attained good sales as well, as did follow-up non-LP singles "Chance" and "Spinning Round", the latter of which is generally felt to be the Lorries's strongest song.

The band released one more album on Red Rhino (Paint Your Wagon, which reached No. 3 on the NME indie chart in 1986, a single ("Cut Down") and a four track EP ("Crawling Mantra", utilizing the one-time band name change to "The Lorries"), before signing to Situation Two, an offshoot of Beggars Banquet Records. In 1986, Reed and Wolfenden regrouped with a new rhythm section of bassist Leon Phillips and drummer Chris Oldroyd. They were in place for the Lorries' second LP, Paint Your Wagon, which drew on imagery of the old American West and featured another indie hit in "Walking on Your Hands." Following one more non-LP single that year, "Cut Down," the band temporarily adopted its longtime nickname of the Lorries, and issued one single, 1987's "Crawling Mantra," under that moniker before reverting back to the original form. Later in 1987, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry signed a major-label deal with Situation Two, a subsidiary of RCA affiliate Beggars Banquet. They debuted in 1988 with the LP Nothing Wrong, which spun off the single "Only Dreaming (Wide Awake)."

On their second major-label album, 1989's Blow, the Lorries flirted with the sound and visual style of England's emerging rave culture, resulting in their clearest, most spacious production to date. There was more turnover in the rhythm section; drummer Oldroyd was replaced by Mark Chillington prior to the recording of the album, and bassist Phillips departed before the supporting tour, with his spot permanently filled by Gary Weight. Chillington, in turn, left during the tour, and George Schulz came onboard in his stead. The Lorries subsequently parted ways with Beggars Banquet and released their fifth LP, Blasting Off -- with several songwriting contributions from Weight -- in 1991, on the small Sparkhead label. The album didn't appear in the U.S. for another three years, until Relapse finally picked it up. By that time, faced with diminishing returns, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry had disbanded.

In 2003, Reed revived the name Red Lorry Yellow Lorry and released four new songs in 2004, available via internet download only on the band’s website. The band toured frequently in the UK during 2004 and 2005, but although journalist Mick Mercer wrote in 2014 that "new material is on its way", no additional Red Lorry Yellow Lorry music has subsequently been released. In 2005, the band released Thunder in the Black Cave, a live DVD recorded in Belgium during their 2004 European tour. In 2006, Reed released an acoustic-based album, Minimal Animal, under the name 'Chris Reed Unit'.

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The Lorries' first full album kicks off with the grinding title track -- steady, not punishing, but still aggressive beats, slashing guitar, Chris Reed's abrupt but not shouted vocals. In retrospect the band actually make a great case for being the slightly more romantic Big Black instead of just being the Sisters/Joy Division, Pt. 2 with this song, and keeping that in mind, Talk About the Weather has more going on for it than meets the eye. There's certainly more than a little ghost-of-Andrew Eldritch in the arrangements, not to mention Ennio Morricone (thus trumping the Fields of the Nephilim's own twist on that influence by a couple of years), but Reed's lyrics and singing definitely show the Ian Curtis touch more in their emotional roil as opposed to Hammer horror. As a result, compared to the Sex Gang Children or the like, the Lorries come across more straightforwardly, their music here sounding often brusque. The album's downside is that the basic sound doesn't really change much, but when it's on, as with the title track, it's very much on. "Hollow Eyes" is another one of the winners, taking the high-speed, nervous post-punk approach and adding on a great, simple, but effective chorus to the spiralling riffs and the hollow bass lope, while the sudden shift in velocity on "Strange Dreams" shows a great sense of drama. "Sometimes" ranks up there as well for being the secret winner -- it's the closest the album gets to a quiet and tender love song, which it really isn't per se. But Reed's singing aims at a warmer approach here on the chorus, as does the music, and there's definitely a tangled emotional interplay that comes through, love and hate in a few words.



 Red Lorry Yellow Lorry - Talk About The Weather (flac  384mb)

01 Talk About The Weather 4:04
02 Hand On Heart 3:46
03 Feel A Piece 2:40
04 Hollow Eyes 3:37
05 This Today 3:20
06 Sometimes 3:01
07 Strange Dream 3:13
08 Happy 3:22
Bonus Tracks
09 Beating My Head 3:21
10 I'm Still Waiting 4:01
11 Take It All 2:54
12 Happy (Single Version) 3:37
13 He's Read 2:57
14 See The Fire 2:31
15 Monkeys On Juice 3:11
16 Push 3:01
17 Silence 2:28
18 Hollow Eyes (12" Version) 3:42
19 Russia 3:11

Red Lorry Yellow Lorry - Talk About The Weather   (ogg   152mb)

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The semi-Ennio Morricone touches and twangs on the band's earlier work get a little more foregrounded on the Lorries' second album, but then that had more than a little to do with the cover art and font style -- pure Old West (as filtered through TV and movies). Again, the Fields of the Nephilim may have made it more famous, but the Lorries probably had more outright fun (of a sort) with it in the end. Though that said, "Shout at the Sky" has Chris Reed sounding exactly like the Fields' Carl McCoy, which if intentional might not have been the wisest way to go. Trappings aside, Paint Your Wagon is another fine album and actually probably a better one in the end, with a bit more energy in the arrangements. Reed's guitar playing, supplemented by David Wolfenden, shows a touch more intricacy and flair this time around -- not a major leap forward but he often creates some inspired, epic, work, as on "Last Train" or the slow grind conclusion "Blitz." "Head All Fire" and "Save My Soul" are sharp examples of how Reed and company can rework what were already established approaches into something new and thrilling. "Which Side" goes that step even a bit further thanks to the use of the old "which side are you on" trope -- Billy Bragg did it one way, Reed aims for something a bit more in his echoed milieu. Even some of the semi-filler tracks like the instrumental "Mescal Dance" have enough spikiness to carry the day.



Red Lorry Yellow Lorry - Paint Your Wagon (flac 288mb)

01 Walking On Your Hands 2:44
02 Jipp 3:00
03 Last Train 2:23
04 Head All Fire 2:41
05 Mescal Dance 2:43
06 Paint Your Wagon 2:40
07 Shout At The Sky 3:09
08 Which Side 2:11
09 Tear Me Up 2:31
10 Save My Soul 2:48
11 Blitz 3:45
12 Hold Yourself Down 2:42
13 Generation 3:19
14 Spinning Round 2:53
15 Chance 5:19

Red Lorry Yellow Lorry - Paint Your Wagon   (ogg  110mb)

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On Nothing Wrong, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry glides through track after numbing track of quasi-industrial post-punk, once again smacking heartily of Joy Division. The relentless guitar and vocal drones create a claustrophobic feel, and Chris Reed's constant mumbling is among the most incoherent in all of rock. There's an especially shoddy feel on lesser tracks like "World Around" and the surprisingly dull title track. These many drawbacks completely overshadow stronger songs like the reckless "She Said" and "Only Dreaming (Wide Awake)," with its spacious arrangement and almost intelligible melody. In the end, many of the disc's facets that could be considered pop/rock hindrances are admired by fans of Red Lorry Yellow Lorry. In fact, Nothing Wrong is a bit of a fan favorite. From the casual listener's perspective, however, this 1988 release probably won't contend with the Cure, Joy Division, or many other notable post-punk/goth artists of the '80s.



 Red Lorry Yellow Lorry - Nothing Wrong   (flac 250mb)

01 Nothing Wrong 2:38
02 Hands Off Me 2:32
03 Big Stick 2:39
04 She Said 2:50
05 Sayonara 3:30
06 World Around 2:19
07 Hard - Away 2:40
08 Only Dreaming 3:04
09 Do You Understand? 2:20
10 Never Know 3:28
11 Pushing On 2:49
12 You Only Get What You Pay For 3:04
13 Another Side 2:32
14 Calling 2:43
15 Open Up 3:40

Red Lorry Yellow Lorry - Nothing Wrong     (ogg  96mb)

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Lorry fans might've approached this record with trepidation after taking a gander at the neo-rave artwork of Blow. Had they done a 180 degree head spin, opting to give up their early, Factory-like doom in favor of peace and happiness? Not a chance, as Blow is another 45-minute bummer. The LP does, however, show a band progressing musically. The Lorries' muddled sound is all but done away with, and the band doesn't play on top of each other as much as they had in the past. Chris Reed's vocals rarely reach above a detached, half-awake state, and there's not a great deal of tempo variation throughout. It seems they were more desperate than ever to shed their Joy Division comparisons. They're still gloomy, doomy, and a little murky, but they're not quite as exciting or immediate as they were in their earlier days. Nonetheless, those who dread their fruitless part-time employment at Cinnabon -- the ones who wish they'd been born in the 17th century, anyway -- will surely find solace in Blow.



Red Lorry Yellow Lorry - Blow (flac  284mb)
 
01 Happy To See Me 3:15
02 Temptation 3:07
03 Shine A Light 3:10
04 Too Many Colors 3:38
05 Heaven 4:13
06 Gift That Shines 3:56
07 In A World 3:50
08 You Are Everything 4:01
09 West Wakes Up 4:18
10 It Was Wrong 3:10
11 Blow 4:33
12 Heaven (Acoustic Version) 3:46

Red Lorry Yellow Lorry - Blow   (ogg   104mb)

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Cherry Red's The Singles: 1982-1987 is a thorough double-disc set that chronologically compiles the ten A-sides (and their B-sides) released by Red Lorry Yellow Lorry before they left Red Rhino to sign with RCA. The inclusion of the 16 B-sides isn't something that only die-hard fans should rejoice about, as they are often just as strong as the A-sides and obviously stronger than a fair portion of the band's proper album material. While Red Lorry Yellow Lorry never wrote chirpy pop songs, it is rather surprising that their sound, as unrelentingly murky as it was, wasn't able to achieve more chart success in the U.K. The compilation also stands as a testament to a band who never placated the mainstream, all the while avoiding the derisive jokes that most goth rock bands were entitled to.



Red Lorry Yellow Lorry - The Singles (82-87) (flac  507mb)

01 Beating My Head 3:16
02 I'm Still Waiting 3:58
03 Take It All Away 2:50
04 Happy 3:40
05 He's Read 2:59
06 See The Fire 2:30
07 Monkey's On Juice 3:13
08 Push 3:03
09 Silence 2:29
10 Hollow Eyes 3:03
11 Feel A Piece 2:39
12 Chance 5:19
13 Generation 3:07
14 Spinning Round 2:50
15 Spinning Round (Crash Mix) 2:54
16 Hold Yourself Down 2:23
17 Walking On Your Hands 2:40
18 Which Side 2:05
19 Jipp (Instrumental Mix) 2:58
20 Cut Down 3:47
21 Running Fever 2:28
22 Pushed Me 2:18
23 Crawling Mantra 2:40
24 Hang Man 3:15
25 All The Same 2:55
26 Shout At The Sky 3:04

Red Lorry Yellow Lorry - The Singles   (ogg  205mb)

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Aetix is always a nice surprise, thanks!

AJ said...

Thanks for the RLYL downloads. Talk About The Weather (FLAC) link is being redirected.