Red Lorry Yellow Lorry

Talk About the Weather, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry's iron-clad debut, sounds naggingly familiar; it's a thick cold shoulder that you know you've felt before but can't quite place. But then "Hollow Eyes" starts up and, all at once, it hits you: Joy Division. The scraping guitars, tyrannous drum machine and deeply entrenched vocals all bear an unmistakable resemblance to Warsaw and Unknown Pleasures. RLYL knocked the rust off of the old weaponry brandished by groups like Wire, Joy Division and Fad Gadget and made it a threat again. Despite an anti-pop sensibility, some of their material is still deeply catchy, even danceable. Morbid young souls wishing to mince about while remaining ever so cool can count on RLYL for both dancefloor inspiration and a quick remedy for smiles, hilarity, even the occasional spell of optimism. Though the title of Nothing Wrong (1988) is clearly ironic, the album did offer a slight abatement in gloom. Stand-out track "Only Dreaming (Wide Awake)" is as near as they'd ever come to a straight-ahead love song, even if only the Kafkas of this world could have recognized it as such.