Flesh For Lulu

AFTER a terror of an LP with Polydor last year and the mildly interesting 'Blue Sisters Swing' of a few months back. Flesh For Lulu have finally managed to refine and sharpen their blatantly modest skills into a style made more exciting by its ability to caricature a format rather than embue it with any stunning originality.

They joyously tumble into guitar driven sleazeish rock with vocals tinted just so with mid-Atlantic inflexions and lyrics of the ilk: "Your crocodile shoes are leaking and nobody s driving your train". Such words hardly intensify rock music's claim to be a communicative art form but they do display its talent to ridicule itself. A smile spread across my features as I heard that line as (I hope!) one was fixed to the face of the author when he wrote it.

Flesh For Lulu deliver this inward looking humour with unpretentious spirit and gusto. The only dull points are when they lapse for variety into slower paced stuff where heavy handed material gets coupled to an askew sense of dynamics which causes my elbow to nudge the stylus quickly forward. Elsewhere girl singers and brass are employed, mainly with tact, although the latter's sometimes tired riffs spout out rather incongruously within the general hubbub.

Having lain to rest their goth-rock heritage (they're much more Flintstones than Munsters nowadays), it's a shame they can't also bury their past records and the memory of some atrocious live shows.

This would have made a very good debut album.