Customer Reviews

Advantage

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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If you have not heard Clock Dva , this is a great c.d to start
with. A brilliant mix of rock/jazz/ blues/feedback.
Sadly after this album in 1983, the band split, but if only they
had made more !
Definitely one for anyone's collection.

This 1983 Clock DVA album is very much like another reviwer described it, much like King Crimson and I would say Roxy Music, even the Police of the early eighties but with an industrial and fairly dark edge. The opening song Tortured Heroine is a brilliantly written and very mood inspireing song already setting this album up to take you elsewhere. The mix of jazz and the use of trumpet, saxaphone even piano add to Clock DVA's enigmatic lure. Clock DVA would later go on to create its better known works like "Man Amplified" and "Buried Dreams" that were easily acountable as a main influence of so many later industrial bands.

Advantage is a challenging album. Takeing the listener to many places in an almost dream like rythems. ADI Newton's cathartic yet intense, near monotone vocals have a lure all their own too. If you are a fan of Clock DVA you might like to hear bands like Phallus Dei to hear Clock DVA's influence in extreme action and then resupplied with a vaster darkness.

With the first notes Adie Newton takes you on a journey to a dark, tragic and harsh, yet somehow comforting world. It is the next step Ian Curtis (Joy Division) hasn't been able to take.

This album got Clock DVA into the alternative 'mainstream'. Interesting songs with jazzy influences. Sounds like Adi Newton is an adept of film noir. Very popular in underground Australia and the Netherlands. Can't believe this album wasn't a superhit at the time. Well...it was, in the alternative scene from people who took the effort to get into non-mainstream music. Catchy tunes, and appealing dark songs. Get your Advantage.

tortured heroine....beautiful losers...breakdown...black suit...all these song titles taken out of Clock DVA's advantage, are reminiscent of the so called "film noir" genre, and like the masterpieces of this movie kind, this album is timeless.
the music, somewhat different from the "Thirst album", is more accesible than earlier clock dva works, and is played by very talented musicians: it presents a wide pannel of different atmospheres... from the ultra speed funk (black suits) which will shake your body , to the sinister jazzy mood (dark encounter), passing thru the catchy "beautiful losers", Advantage reinvented the concept of alternative music in the early eighties. Unfortunately, adi Newton split the band for the second time , during the concert tour , intended to promote this album.
He came back later with a new mold of Clock DVA,this time doing completely electronic music, but to me,they lost this way their real originality.
Go for "Advantage", try also to find the long time lost vinyls of the same period: " High Holy disco mass", "Sons of Sons","Don't", "the voice that speaks from within"....all these songs go together with "advantage" but were never issued on a proper CD (only one track of the EP "Sons of sons" appears on the CD issue of Advantage)
New music like this will not be heard before a long time...

Industrial rock so to speak. A mixture of tangerine dream, pink floyd and king crimson with solid electronic percussions and lot of (industrial) rythm. A must.