Thirty-odd years after The Up Escalator it’s good to see the combination back as a unit, with Bob Andrews back behind the keyboards (he’d left before Escalator and been replaced by Nicky Hopkins and the E Street Band’s Roy Bittan). Given their circumstances over the intervening decades (Brinsley Schwarz had been working as a luthier in London, while fellow guitarist Martin Belmont was a Yorkshire librarian) you mightn’t be expecting the old fires to burn quite so bright but taste and an understanding of nuance are timeless and one suspects it’s something like learning to ride a bicycle.
Once you know how, the ability doesn’t desert you.
Parker’s lyrics still bite and there’s a hint of the old snarl, though the anger’s tempered by a curmudgeonly resignation, Andrews’ keyboards weave their way through the melodies, the guitars add crunch and the supple rhythm section sets things up just right.
The result is an album that hearkens back to a pretty damn glorious past, delivers a continuation of the old vibe into the present and leaves this long time fan hoping for more of the same in the future.
That may end up being a case of living in hope and dying in frustration but, in the meantime, at least I’ve got Three Chords Good, a reinvigorated interest in past glories and an inclination to catch ip on what I’ve missed in the interim.