The 1957 Tail-Fin Fiasco are nostalgia merchants, a throwback to a time when pop-rock music was handmade, there are more than one or two chord changes in the songs and lyrics didn’t lack for imagination. Readers of this space might already know about the TFF, and you might also even recall my comparing them to XTC, Squeeze, 10CC, Elvis Costello and the Attractions and mid-period Steely Dan.
Those influences and more are all expertly present for their latest long-player, Don’t Go Anywhere, where principal members and songwriters David Myers (music) and Malcolm Moore (lyrics) got themselves possessed by the souls of sharp pop songwriters like Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding, and proceeded to make this album accordingly.
There’s plenty of that XTC kind of rock where melodic strains are blasted through a punk/new wave filter, with many twists to keep the plot from getting too familiar and tongues staying planted in cheeks. The backbeat of “Reno’s Electric Stairs” combined with the chirpy organ is a rocker with a touch of soul that you can dance the Twist to. “Here All Week” and “The Son of Mrs. Queenie Brown” boasts good chorus harmonies and agilely splits difference between XTC and Steely Dan.
“J Is For Genius” (video above) is easy to imagine as a vintage sitcom theme song (and almost as short), sticking inside your cranium in all the best ways. “Banana Beer and Other Cults” continues with the sunny new wave vibe, even campier than “Genius.”
You can never be quite sure of what’s lurking around the corner in a 1957 Tail-Fin Fiasco song. “Horses & Courses” breaks into a rhumba for the chorus and “Silverback” has a nice rock groove with a circus music bridge tossed in the beginning, middle and end. Because, why not?
Sometimes, the boys from Essex will dabble in a certain style for the entire song, and for any style Myers and Moore choose to tackle, they seem to know their way around. Best Bitters” is a pleasant, mid-tempo blue-eyed soul that some folks today have dubbed “yacht rock.” “1909 GTC” hearkens back to the turn of the 20th century lyrically but the music says ’70s reggae-pop.’ Meanwhile, “Heligan Begin Again” is straight-up four-on-the-floor funk.
The 1957 Tail-Fin Fiasco sticks to their winning formula for music in making another record that’s anything but formulaic. Don’t Go Anywhere is available now via Bandcamp
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- [Ahmed] – ‘Wood Blues’ (2024) - December 31, 2024
