| CD REVIEW Radio Silence |
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Band : Radio Silence This is the solo outing of singer Alistair Gordon, native of Manchester in the UK (do not confuse with the American Hardcore band by the same name), but with quite a rep in the US! He’s worked with many successful bands (did backing vocals on albums by Eric Clapton, Kevin Kennedy, Labi Siffre, The Choir Boys, The Who…), songwriters and film producers. After recording his debut album with Scott & Batische (on the Polydor label), he joined Zu Zu Sharks (with Richard Darbyshire of Living In A Box, and Gary Tibbs of Adam And The Ants and Roxy Music fame). They issued an album through EMI (1983), toured Britain & Europe, and reached #1 in the singles charts in Spain. Gordon then released two solo singles for EMI UK, and signed a solo deal with Atlantic in New York. During recordings in the US, he collaborated with Foreigner’s Mick Jones, and co-wrote 3 songs with Average White Band’s Alan Gorrie. In the late ‘80s Gordon was invited to join the Tony Banks (of Genesis) band Bank Statement, recording an album released through Virgin in 1989. In the ‘90s he worked with artist Newton, co-producing much of the material on the latter’s album (including the worldwide hit single “Sometimes When We Touch”, which went up to #30 in the UK and went gold in Australia with a top notation at #2). Which brings us to Radio Silence and the successful self-titled debut album of 1997 (available through Escape Music), which had contributions by drummers Paul Burgess & Dave Hassel with Richard Close and Steve Pigot playing the keyboards...and was described at the time as a blend between Foreigner and Mike & The Mechanix. Gordon then started collaborating quite closely with singer/ keyboardist Paul Young of Sad Café and Mike And The Mechanix fame (don’t confuse with the solo artist by the same name) whom died in 2000. However, Gordon did include a collaboration song of theirs on his 2nd Radio Silence album Sirens (also available through Escape Music), released in 2001 (and said to be “…a huge leap forward in Pop-based Rock…”). Guest performances this time around came from Pokerface & The Distance guitarist Kenny Kaos, Heartland guitarist Steve Morris, The Distance bassist Dave Hopia, drummer Frank Baker, and again keyboardists Richard Close & Steve Pigot. To record Whose Skin Are You Under Now? (a line of the very fine track “Mosquito”) Gordon travelled all the way to record with (co-)producer Martin Kronlund (Gypsy Rose guitarist; also plays with White Wold & Dogface, and on this album he plays both guitar and bass). Additional musicians were Mats Olausson (bass & keyboards; has played with –among others – Yngwie Malmsteen, Baltimoore, Kamelot, Silver Mountain, Ark, Tykoon, The Reign Of Terror, etc), and Imre Daun (drums; has played with Alien, still active with White Wolf, Gypsy Rose, Kharma, etc). The result are 12 very nice songs (2 of which were actually reecorded in the UK, and not in Sweden) in which the ballad factor is rather high (more Rockin’ tracks are album opener “Hand To Mouth”, “Something Going On”, and “Shotgun Love”; the ballad factor being the highest in the songs “When The Lights Go Down” and “One Day At A Time”; other tracks have a Poppy – and very catchy – feel, the infectuous “Mosquito” spanning the crown). Gordon has a truly warm voice with a touch of hoarseness, in which he’s capable to put some nice variety, which is something of a rare thing in these days of aggressive music! I found no Myspace page (nor anything at last.fm or purevolume.com), and no individual website either (oops, and at the last moment I finally dó find Gordon to have a website: alistairgordon.com, through which he also does his Radio Silence promotion), but you can listen to samples of all the album tracks at (www.) nehrecords.com/shop/RadioWhose.htm. Enough to find out whether this respected singer’s style IS something for you, or not! Personally, I like, I like a lot…but not enough to nominate the album into my year-lists! A memorable album nevertheless!!! I’m not sure where I stand about the album closing acoustic (well, there’s some keyboards as well) cover of The Beatles’ “Hide Your Love Away”… 90/100 Tony. |
