tracks on LP: Jimmie Jones / Spiders / Isolated Case / Civic Hall / Live At The Marquee / Daylight Titans / Johnny’s In Love (Again) / Can’t Talk Anymore / Lenina / Silver Machines / Magnets
Record label: Liberty LBG 30324
Producer: Dave Tickle
Released: 03/81
Purchased: 03/10/81
The Vapors | Magnets | Liberty | 1980 | Despite the power of the playing, this album suffers from the lack of variety. All the imagination has gone into the music, leaving little for the words. The Vapors haven’t had the opportunity to establish as a group personality in this country, though they’ve done better in other parts of the globe.
Since “Turning Japanese” they haven’t built up a bedrock of solid hits. And the latest single “Spiders” hasn’t done anything to help the situation. The band wanted to try something a bit different, but they’d have been wiser to wait until a bit later in their chart career before they stuck their necks out. The music isn’t bad, but the songs are too long and the lyrics abysmal.
Except for one track, all the songs are credited to Dave Fenton, the singer. He needs to sit down and take the weight off his conscience. His lyrics don’t often rise above lonely fifth form poetry. And as he doesn’t seem able or willing to vary his singing style, he lays a patina of sameness over the whole album. He has a pronounced southern English way of singing “day” as “di” – a style that was used a lot in the sixties.
One song (of his) stands out – and God knows why the record company didn’t bash him over the head and push out “Jimmie Jones” as the single while he was unconscious. It’s a classic pop song and cert chart material. By delaying its release as a single, they’ve only delayed their success in the UK. No doubt it’ll get there in the end though.
Fortunately, it’s possible to enjoy most of the album without getting too tied up with the quality of the words. The title track “Magnets” manages to pull out of the mould by beginning acoustically and leading into an echoey vocal.
From there, they build the layers of bass and drums into a chunky platform of sound, almost but not quite getting to a heavy metal level. But the song is too tight and controlled to get that far and it turned out quite impressively. It marks a determined and successful push away from their usual style.
Throughout, the playing is snappy and efficient, which goes a long way to offset the indulgence elsewhere. The album is a big step forward from the last album ‘New Clear Days’, but not really a big step for mankind. However, it was enjoyable and in places as clever as “Turning Japanese”. It can only mean they are capable of doing even better and the music points to a more productive future.
“Jimmie Jones”, with it’s excellent catchline chorus should go a long way to establishing the band in their own country and giving them more of a Jam-type live following. There aren’t that many really good pop bands that fly the flag: The Vapors have the opportunity and ability to corner their market. *** (Record Mirror, 14/03/81)
The Vapors | Magnets | Liberty | 1980
YOU HAVEN’T heard anything of The Vapors since their neat, catchy “Turning Japanese” single, because they’ve been churning out the kind of stuff which is on this album.
There may be some nifty guitar breaks and occasional hooks, but mostly a messy lack of conviction prevails – from the inferior Jam of “Jimmie Jones” to the cluttered, lyrically awkward pop of “Daylight Titans” and “Lenina”.
If Split Enz producer David Tickle has been brought in to lend the band’s British beat group mentality a more expansive, cosmopolitan feel, then the fuller rock sound which might have been expected never materialised.
Instead, the title track (an Americanised epic of disillusionment with it’s talk of “Kennedy’s children” as a hard magnet-eyed Blank Generation) comes over as whimpering weirdness rather than universally marketable hard rock.
Cuts like “Spiders”, dealing with paranoia and other modern diseases, suffers a similar fate, made even worse by the cure (play in a band!) which is prescribed in “Live At The Marquee”: “But we’re all alive at the Marquee”.
Dead on this album though: The Vapors need a rest, a rethink and a resurrection. (NME, 28/03/81)
The Vapors | Magnets | Liberty | 1980
A strange album title for such an unattractive group. At their best, The Vapors sound like The Jam minus the inspiration and at their worst they come across as a totally ordinary rock group.
Either way this is hardly an album to transform them into overnight stars. The whole affair is pretty unmemorable – still, they can always reminisce about “Turning Japanese” and the time they were on TOTPs. (4 out of 10) (Smash Hits, April 1981)
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