Domino

by

Squeeze

Edit

Squeeze's moment in the pop music sun lasted a few brief years in the late 70s and early 1980s, the era of Power Pop when albums like East Side Story brought fans into contact with one of the most appealing combinations of fresh melodies, driving beats and clever, vivid lyric writing that there is. Comparisons were made by some critics to Lennon/McCartney. Then all the attention went away, and the group continued to do the same thing--in fact to get better and better at it, to less and less acclaim. Somehow, critics would rather turn your attention toward vomitous, trendy archfiends like Marilyn Manson than perform a quality assurance function, which would place this band near the top every year. Excellence is apparently boring--but not to you, hopefully.

Now Squeeze doesn't even have a proper US record label, and this album is on a teeny weeny label, and so it may not get the distribution it needs, nor airplay. Still, don't pass it by. It is as good as their last one, "Ridiculous," and better than the one before "Some Fantastic Place," and yet it is different. They've hired a new rhythm section, and this seems to have recharged their musical interests, so the album has a fresher, sharper edge musically. Guitar playing seems a little more intriguing, the beats a little more unpredictable. It's a fun record, and very danceable, and the melodies and choruses are quite sticky. Best songs are "Bonkers" and the the title track, but it's consistently good throughout, even profound in spots.

We should be grateful that such a high-quality act continues to soldier on without much encouragement -- Squeeze is an excellent role model for your kids.

This will never go down as a classic Squeeze CD, it does have it's charms though.I think that some people dislike this CD and even the later releases from Squeeze due to the fact that they stopped rocking as much and their earlier releases had wild zany moments to them.For the most part their later releases were more whisper than scream.That being said Difford and Tilbrook whisper with the best of them.Domino starts out well with the rocking Play On and Bonkers is typical Squeeze fun and What's wrong with this picture is a great song but after that it loses a little steam for me. Without you here is a great wonderful,beautiful song that I can listen to time and time again without getting tired of it.In my opinion it alone is worth the price of this Cd.These guys have never put out a bad Cd but then again they never returned to quite the level of their pre-break-up days,but Ridiculous and Frank are both 4+ star Cd's and I highly recommend both of them even though it took a few listens to really get into Ridiculous.