Vanity pressed hooky eighties rock from who knows where
Label: Arena
Year of Release: 1986
There's a simplistic tendency to assume that between 1976-86, most DIY or vanity pressed singles were the work of awkward spiky types desperate for John Peel or early evening Radio One airplay. In reality, life continued much as it did before punk, and the majority of self-financed releases were from acts either wanting to sell records directly to the audiences they played to (social club and holiday camp performers, for example) or bands believing that having something immortalised in wax in local shops might get more attention than a bog-standard demo tape. Have I said this on the blog before? I've a feeling, readers, that I may have done. Forgive me.
Anyway, in common with many of the DIY releases of the day, this one came and went without leaving a strong mark in the media. I have no idea who Arena were, where they came from, or what they went on to do next, but this record has steadily become a moderately sought-after curiosity.
Both sides reveal an accomplished group of performers and some surprisingly slick production given the self-financed nature of the release. None-more-mid-80s squeaky keyboards mix with powerful, boyish vocals, and some hair-metal styled guitar work. The group sound as if they're going for the sweet spot between mainstream pop and hard rock, in common with other bands of the era like Europe. There's a pop suss here that isn't quite powerful enough to have got the attention of record labels - "You Call This Love" sounds more like a convincing follow-up to a hit single rather than the big hit itself - but indicates that better things might have been ahead.
