Artist......: Flop
Album.......: Whenever You're Ready
Source......: CD
Label.......: Sony 550 Music / Frontier
Genre.......: Rock
Tracks......: 17
Bitrate.....: 994 kbps avg
Playtime....: 00:44:33 (335.MB)
Rls date....: 2021-05-10
Store date..: 1993-09-21
Encoder.....: FLAC 1.3.1
Url.........: http://www.frontierrecords-flop.bandcamp.com/
01 A. Wylie 2:30
02 Regrets 3:14
03 Julie Francavilla 2:09
04 Pluto 3:03
05 En Route To The Unified Field Theory 4:20
06 A Fixed Point 2:58
07 A Popular Donkey 0:22
08 The Great Valediction 1:51
09 Mendel's White Trash Laboratory 2:31
10 Z2 + C 1:50
11 Sorry Henry Maartens 2:41
12 Night Of The Hunter 1:45
13 Port Angeles 2:35
14 Eat 2:04
15 Woolworth 2:38
16 Parts I & II 4:07
17 Need Retrograde Orbit 3:55
For the follow-up to the previous year's debut Flop and the Fall of the
Mopsqueezer!, Seattle's Flop enlists sensational '70s punk-era producer
Martin Rushent -- who did 99 percent of Buzzcocks' original works, as well
as early Stranglers, 999, Generation X, and so on -- for what seems like a
perfect marriage. But, in fact, Kurt Bloch's work on the first album sounds
heavier. Without emasculating them, it seems Rushent has polished up the
rougher surfaces and given the vocals more prominence in the mix (a common
major-label malady, though it's not so bad here), making them seem bigger
(more Pistols-ish in places) and more friendly if less mean. So it takes a
few plays to get used to the subtle change, but it's worth it.
Guitarist/leader and onetime Fastbacks drummer Rusty Willoughby's singing
on the more amiable pop tunes makes Flop sound like a squeaky-clean cross
between the Records, Cheap Trick, and the Bay City Rollers, crossing this
otherwise punk-oriented, two-guitar barrage into more maudlin power pop
territory (and on the more sassy numbers such as "En Route to the Unified
Field Theory" and "A Fixed Point," they flirt with glam-ish camp); even
then it's thick and zesty, and the band can't help but blasting out the
next track. Each song takes pains to depart from its predecessor, altering
the tempos, rhythms, swings, and feels (hooray for the lost art of
variety!). While the late-'70s Buzzcocks remain the ultimate pairing of
punk's wall-of-guitar onslaught and unbelievably catchy hooks, this hookup
of their old producer and these Pac Northwest mavericks "produces"
favorable results.