Customer Reviews

REDUX

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Imagine yourself standing in a small, crowded neighborhood bar (sort of like the one that Michael J. Fox and Joan Jett played in in the movie "Light Of Day") on a Friday night. You just got paid, the beer is flowing, and the planets have all aligned. The only thing left to happen to complete this perfect evening is for The Reducers to walk on stage, plug into their amps, and crank out their timeless songs of love, lust, lunacy, and LIFE. And that's just what's at the heart of this joyous, life affirming compilation drawn from this garage band extraordinaire's first three independently released LP's. Listen to "Company Man," "Fistfight At The Beach," "Little Punky Hood," or any of the 26 other songs on this album and The Reducers will leave you believing that on any given night, they just might be the best damn band in the world. Exhilarating, essential, and downright exciting.

There just aren't enough bands as good as the Reducers. I've seen them, oh, probably about 80 times over the past way-too-many-to-admit years, and have turned many people on by playing them REDUX.

It's not exactly the hardest thing in the world to do: About ten seconds into the first cut, heads swerve to the stereo, and by the third or fourth cut, amidst comparison points (Flamin Groovies, Dr Feelgood, the Clash, Nick Lowe, the Undertones, any and all pub-and-early-punk-rock), I'm promising to lend the CD out as long as they PROMISE to treat it like a lady. By the middle of the CD (when "Let's Go" and "Fistfight" show up) one more soul swears by a fact that I've sworn by for a few decades...

The Reducers are as good as rock and roll gets.

That's all there is to say about this CD if you love rock and roll at all. There have been many times I have stood, shaking to the sound of this band, and thought that the Reducers were the best band I've ever seen. Other times, I BELIEVE it.

As Lou Reed put it, "You can't beat two guitars, bass, and drum," and what drumming, what bass playing, and what guitars! You'll never hear better rock and roll, and you'll seldom hear as good. BUY THIS RECORD!

I put my children up for adoption so I'd never have to miss a show

This is it. Without the major label backing of the british bands of the era, and without the critical huzzah's of bands like the Shoes, the Scruffs, etc., these 4 guys from New London were simply one of the best rock and roll bands of the early eighties. Not really punk, more post-New Wave, they remind one of the great lost British bands that appeared on Stiff like Wreckless Eric and Tenpole Tudor (check the cover's album for those references.) What they were more than anything was one of the greatest bar bands of all time, that's where I saw them along with on my college campus. I saw them right when it seemed like they might break. They didn't which is where this comes in. At their worst, they're a fun guitar rock band from a time when that had been subsumed by synths, punk, post-punk whatever. At their best, especially on tunes like Better Homes and Gardens and the phenomenal Let's Go, they were sublime. Long live the Reducers.

Living in NYC, I got turned on to The Reducers in the mid-80s when WLIR used play the explosive "Let's Go." Screw Good Charlotte - "Let's Go" is a true anthem, right up there with "London Calling, Ghost Town, Radio Radio," and "What's So Funny `Bout Peace, Love and Understanding?" I recently convinced a friend to buy Redux; and when we put it on his stereo and cranked up the volume, he looked at me with widened eyes and said, "This rocks!" Thus has been the comment of anyone who has ever heard The Reducers. Indispensable for starting off mix tapes with a kick and a bang. And oh yeah, they were the first band to write an excellent pop-rock song called "Closing Time."

Living in NYC, I got turned on to The Reducers in the mid-80s when WLIR used play the explosive "Let's Go." Screw Good Charlotte - "Let's Go" is a true anthem, right up there with "London Calling, Ghost Town, Radio Radio," and "What's So Funny `Bout Peace, Love and Understanding?" I recently convinced a friend to buy Redux; and when we put it on his stereo and cranked up the volume, he looked at me with widened eyes and said, "This rocks!" Thus has been the comment of anyone who has ever heard The Reducers. Indispensable for starting off mix tapes with a kick and a bang. And oh yeah, they were the first band to write an excellent pop-rock song called "Closing Time."

They are right - New London hardly ever does rock. The Reducers, however, do - in a big way.

I spent a couple of years living in Connecticut and was introduced to the Reducers during the time I spent there. I now live in Italy and have found the Reducers to be as appreciated in Europe as they are in that sleepy college town of New London, Connecticut. I work as an event planner in Milan and have found that by playing the Reducers Redux album LOUDLY - my crews start working with renewed energy and my models bop around like they've actually eaten something. Hooray for the Reducers - cheaper than Prozac. Truly an international band.

The Reducers are God. OK, they're a bunch of not quite young guys from a backwater (literally) college town in Connecticut, but they still rule. If you like punky bluesy uptempo clever heartfelt music, buy this CD and wear it out. This is desert island material. I once gave it to a not-at-all-highly-placed music industry source who declared, "If these guys could sing, they'd be really big." I hadn't noticed they couldn't sing. Redux includes many of their most wonderful songs, though of course you'll eventually want to hunt up the original vinyl albums the CD is drawn from for the other gems, and the photo of the Hygenic Restaurant.