The Boomtown Rats: In The Long Grass - 1984
With Bob Geldof’s life about to change forever, this virtually forgotten-about release proved to be The Boomtown Rats’ swansong. They just didn’t matter anymore, no matter how much the media tried to talk them up during Live Aid “Bob is out there on stage, doing what he does best - leading The Boomtown Rats”. It didn’t wash, because he clearly could do other things better, and he duly did just that. This album was destined for obscurity.
The opener, Dave, however, is a bit of a slow-burning undiscovered new wave gem. The Rats now had to cope with the loss of keyboardist Johnny Fingers, who had joined Gerry Cott in leaving, so tracks like Over and Over were driven by synthesisers and programmed percussion, depriving them of some of the vitality much of their music used to revel in. It is still an acceptable track, though, as is the very late seventies Rats-esque single Drag Me Down, featuring a catchy "de-de-de-de" vocal bit. This would have been fine in 1979, but somehow by 1984 it sounded a bit out of time. I can't help but like it, despite that, and I liked it at the time. Amidst all the Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet I felt that my old new favourites were back - I was a shameless nostalgist, even at 24-25.
The pounding, vaguely U2-ish (83-84 era) A Hold Of Me is an underrated number too. Tracks like this and its predecessors on this album would have been far better than some of the poor stuff that appeared on A Tonic For The Troops, The Fine Art Of Surfacing and particularly Mondo Bongo. Another Sad Story is a serving of Thompson Twins-style mid-eighties pop while Tonight mines that very typically early/mid-eighties seam of brass-enhanced mid-pace white reggae. On his coincidentally-titled Tonight album from the same year, even David Bowie was doing stuff very much like this.
Hard Times has the group going all synth drums and Spandau Ballet once more, merged with Geldof's Springsteen-esque street drama influences. It is a track that definitely has its appeal. At times, there was something sadly uplifting about Geldof's voice, and that comes over loud and clear here. Lucky also has a bit of white reggae in its groove but as with most of the Rats' output, though, it reminds me of something by somebody else, that I currently can't put my finger on - Geldof was such a musical magpie.
Icicle In The Sun is back to eighties pop and the album closes with the frantic, synthy early Talking Heads-ish post punker Up Or Down. The odd thing is, I have found that I enjoy listening to the Rats' final two albums more than I do the ones from the classic period.
