Label: MAM
Year of Release: 1981
You'll remember (possibly) that back in 2018 we covered a group called The Messengers. Consisting of Colin King and Danny Mitchell, they were close associates of Ultravox, supporting them on tour and having their recordings produced by Midge Ure.
Prior to that group's activities, King and Mitchell were members of Modern Man, who were discovered by Ure playing at a venue on Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow. He offered to produce their LP "Concrete Scheme" which should by rights have made the group hot property, but any possibility of exposure was stifled by them signing to MAM. The label had been a strong player in the seventies thanks to its endless parade of Gilbert O'Sullivan smashes, but by 1981 was gasping for air and being distributed by the chaotic PRT. None of the singles they issued - either this, "All The Little Idiots", "Body Music" or "Things Could Be Better" - charted, and the group quickly shattered under the pressure.
"War Drums" was their final 45, and shows a confident, strident group who avoid a lot of the weaker, more pretentious elements of the dominant early eighties synth pop sound and instead wallop a track out which sounds like early Spandau Ballet if they'd all been given amphetamines and forced to join the army. The group are caught standing at the crossroads of the fading New Wave sound and the promise of the new electronic future, and it's an interesting few minutes.
Sadly, we all know what happened next, but it's not necessarily all bad news. The Messengers released a new LP "It's Been Twenty Years, Let's Try Turning Up The Volume" in 2004, Danny Mitchell co-wrote the number one single "If I Was" with Midge Ure in 1985, and the pair continue to work together.
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1 comment:
Listening to it in the here and now the A side is very pretentious, but back in the day this fitted right in with everything else. The B side though I had to stop playing. Really full of itself.
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