Customer Reviews

Streets of Fire

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This is an enjoyable follow-up to "The Wild Places", but before anyone pays the rather exhorbitant import price, please be aware that, for some inexplicable (and unmentioned) reason, the title cut has been edited down from eight to three minutes. When the label corrects this error I'll happily purchase the cd again, but in the meantime, I'm reluctantly returning this copy and seeking out the original vinyl.

Browne's second Sire album (orig. released 1979) returned much of the brooding melodicism of _The Wild Places_, but featured somwhat starker, darker instrumental settings. The taut, punchy "Fauvette" sounds a bit like Dire Straits and features some of Browne's best electric fingerpicking; "She's Just a Fallen Angel" is gorgeous but almost oppressively sad. "American Heartbeat" is the only other really noteworthy song on the album, recalling _Wild Places_ in its cinematic density; silly lyrics though.

Most of the rest of the record is amiable, but minor, showcasing the impressive skills of Browne's late-70's band, especially fretless bassist John Giblin and drummer Simon Phillips (who went on to work with Pete Townshend and others in a studio career that lasted through the 80s). In short, it's a pretty good mood piece that might appeal to, say, late-period Roxy Music fans. Browne cultists probably already have the album; newcomers might want to try tracking down _The Wild Places_ first.

can't really review this impartially; it's long been a record very close to my heart. I bought it for the cover actually, two very different photos front vs. back, figured he was cooler than I knew about. Relative to the pre-new wave stuff i was listening to then, this was a revelation; in retrospect now it's pretty tame, but I still adore it. i find the faster instrumental work very tight, the band moves really well together. the slow dreamy tracks are good to drift off to. hardly worth exorbitant import CD prices, but the vinyl is worth a listen. Duncan Browne was a talented genteel fellow who in a just world would have gone on to a successful career, but he died too young. least you can do is give his tour de force a listen, you might be captivated.