Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Who gobbed?, May 27, 2004
This live album from the late seventies, showcases these old men of Punk at their best. I bought this album first in the early eighties and played it to death. It and SLF's Hanx are probably the best live albums I've ever heard.There's only one of their expected hit songs (Grip) on this record which is refreshing for a live album (which usually are only greatest hits albums). The songs which are here show the stranglers at their darkest and most menacing best. The mellower stranglers are good but not as good as their darker side. So if you're in a bad mood and want to vent some anger put this on, it works everytime for me.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Laddism at its Finest, May 8, 2007
Strong, muscular live album from a time when this much-maligned groups output was pretty much indispensable. The versions are good, but vastly insuperior to their studio counterparts, as is the case with all live albums.
I remember seeing the Stranglers in Manchester, sometime in the 80's and they had a brass section and girlie backing-singers, embarrassing to be sure, but this collection is a purer bred animal, leaner and certainly more aggressive.
I was never sure why the Stranglers always appeared so angry when it seemed to me they didn't have much to be angry about. Sell-out tours, top-ten records and much wine, women and drugs - what a rotten life! Lets drown some journalists!
Perhaps the proliferation at the time of punky young good-lookers like Idol or October made the Stranglers feel old, swarthy and resentful but it also made them determined to keep these little chancers in their place. This they undoubtedly did.
The first four studio Stranglers albums are superb then the wheels came off. This is good. How many of the original 'class of 77' released FOUR classic lps? Not many (Even the Clash only managed three). This was a mighty rock music indeed, and its' been kinda misplaced in the rock history sense.
By that I mean they don't seem to be celebrated anything like some of the (mostly lesser) talents of the time, and yet, four classic lps!
Never the darlings of the media, perhaps a bit TOO out there sometimes, always( often tiresomely) the roguish pranksters, the lads, they must have been a tv schedulers (and an EMI execs) worst nightmare!
You couldn't book 'em for TOTP or anything else for that matter. Interviews a PR disaster, European concerts ending in riots with members of the group doing bird, racism, drug busts, strippers...great fun of course, but all in all, a wee bit of a waste?
It's a reasonable assumption that they bored themselves with it all and perhaps sub-consciously, deliberately self-destructed. Witness the apparent inexplicable slide between the excellent 'the Raven' and the pitiful 'Meninblack', and then give an explanation as to why. Gradual decline is one thing, but that's a precipice.
Still, fair do's - four classic lps!
If I'd been asked to review this when it came out I probably would've attacked it mercilessly. Drawing powerful comparisons with HM and being deeply suspicious of its financial motives but time and nostalgia has tempered my hostility. The songs are great (tho the bitchin' 'Bitching' is AWOL), the production's good and it does give a sharp suggestion of what a Stranglers show was like all those long, short, mad years ago.
Of its kind and of its time. Live albums eh?
3 1/2 stars
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great sound, raw energy, good tunes, September 27, 2004
This captures three different periods from Strangler's 77-79. There's a few tunes from Black and White but most of the first part of the album is their more raw punky tunes. Grip is great and very fast. I enjoyed this though ultimately I think I enjoy the studio versions better. However here they show that they are good players and performers as well as being able to put together classic studio material. A must for fans of the classic Stranglers.
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by The Stranglers 
