N.M.E.
May 5, 1979
The Soft Boys: A Can Of Bees (Two Crabs CLAW 1001)
by Alex Skorecki
Is this some kind of archaic drug reference? I mean, "can-na-bis", huh? They must have been nursing that one since schooldays.
Poor old Soft Boys, victims of that inverted snobbery that sneers at this sort of sixth-form cleverness. The trouble is, they deserve it all.
So sad, because there's some good beefy Rock here. For instance those cunning guitar rhythms on "The Pigworker" -- the Magic Band meets The Stranglers. Best of all is "Cold Turkey", the only non-Robyn Hitchcock composition.
Elsewhere the tricky musical structures fail to entertain, but the real crime is those lyrics. Okay, so Rock is full of spurious "meaning", but this rubbish -- yeeuk! Just look at the titles: "Leppo And The Jooves", "Wading Through A Ventilator", "Sandra's Having Her Brain Out".
You need style to get away with nonsense like that. They don't have it.
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