Man of colours --- Icehouse --- 1987 (Chrysalis)
Their most successful album by far, “Man of colours” netted Australian band Icehouse no less than five hit singles, and it's again one of those albums you can play all the way through without having to skip over any tracks. Its success made Icehouse something of a hot property in the late eighties, but sadly as often happens, they had their day and then faded away. Their last proper release was in 1995, and since then it's just been a few greatest hits compilations. But this was the zenith of their catalogue, and it's chock-full of hits and great tracks.
“Crazy”, the opener, is also the first time I heard of them when it hit the charts. It's a great pop song, starting off with Robert Kretschmer's iconic guitar riff, then driven on keyboards and guitar, with the gravelly voice of Iva Davies carrying the whole thing. The follow-up, “Electric blue”, in contrast starts off with keyboard arpeggios, courtesy of Simon Lloyd, which accompany the song through its run. It sounds a little close to Eric Carmen's “Hungry eyes” for these ears though, especially the run up to the chrous. A little lightweight after the power of “Crazy”, but then “Nothing too serious” ups the ante, with a fast rocker, plenty of guitar with brass getting in on the act too, a real toe-tapper, before the title track brings everything back about four gears, an atmospheric, eerie, ambient track which really demonstrates the versatilily of this band. Davies' vocal is low and subdued, introspective and haunted as well as haunting. There's a lot of programmed keyboard on this track, used very well as the band build the backdrop to the song.
“Heartbreak kid” takes us to the Old West, for a tale about love and jealousy, revenge and murder, keyboards again playing a central role, and great lyric with a warning:
”Only takes a single bullet/ To bring the fastest trigger down/ Only takes a pretty woman/ To put a good man in the ground.” Great guitar solo at the end, then we're into “Kingdom”, a great little pop song that moves along at a decent pace, and “My obsession”, another single, ticks the same boxes, with poppy keyboard and piano and Davies on top form. It's in some ways a slower version of “Crazy”, but different enough to stand as a separate song in its own right.
A great drum solo opens “Anybody's war”, driven along on sharp guitar and at a faster pace than about any other track on the album to date, keys adding great backup, while the album finishes on the superlative “Sunrise”, a powerful indictment of the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings, with ominous piano and screeching guitar.
”You'll never see the faces of the fishermen/ But you may see their shadows/ Burned against the wall/ And in the temple grounds/ New bamboo grows again/ As if the heat of the flame /Had left no trace at all” Davies really lets himself go on the vocal on this one, giving vent to the horrors and pain of a nation as he cries
”And there's a light in the eastern sky ... sunrise/ And there's no place a man can hide, the sunrise/ Well, it buries the night, a brave new sunrise/ With a sweep of the sword, a blood red sunrise.” Serious, emotional, thought-provoking stuff, and a great way to end the album.
I've not heard any of Icehouse's prior work, or indeed anything post this, but I can definitely recommend this as an album you'll listen to, again and again. They may not have been Australia's biggest or most successful export, but for a short time there, at the tail-end of the eighties, you weren't cool unless you had this album in your collection. It's time to be cool again.
TRACKLISTING
1. Crazy
2. Electric blue
3. Nothing too serious
4. Man of colours
5. Heartbreak Kid
6. Kingdom
7. My obsession
8. Girl in the moon
9. Anybody's war
10. Sunrise