Terminal Tower: An Archival Collection

Pere Ubu | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 2, 1998)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Fontana Geffen
• ASIN: B000007OSW
• In-Print Editions: Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #21,415 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #80 in Music > Alternative Rock > Hardcore & Punk > American Punk

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good Introduction, February 22, 2001

By 

daibhidh "daibhidh" (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Terminal Tower: An Archival Collection (Audio CD)

Pere Ubu are a great band. Truly. They are also out in the lunatic fringe of sound that probably would turn off listeners who prefer more conventional stuff.

That said, this album is a good cross-section of their early work (1975-80) and is a nice way for people to get a sense of Pere Ubu without diving headlong into "The Modern Dance" or "Dub Housing." The tracks they have on this one are more accessible to a casual listener, which is good and bad (good in that it gets people to listen to them, bad in that they don't entirely do the band justice).

My favorite tracks on this are (of course) the haunting "30 Seconds Over Tokyo," "Final Solution," and "Heart of Darkness." I like "Cloud 149" and "My Dark Ages" as well, but not as much as these first three tracks. Earlier version of later works "Untitled" (later the much-superior "The Modern Dance") and "Humor Me" are interesting snapshots of the band, which is always in transition, anyway.

"The Book Is On The Table" is fun, but seems sort of self-consciously so, which weakens its impact, given what Pere Ubu is capable of. The reggae beat of "Heaven" (coupled with the lurking Ubu feedback buzz, surfacing rhythmically like a shark) is entertaining.

Anyway, if you want to hear for yourself what all the noise about Pere Ubu is about, but are leery of getting more than your feet wet, then this is worth your time. If you find you like it, then definitely go for "The Modern Dance" and "Dub Housing" and you'll never look back.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Rock and Roll Cleveland!, April 9, 2001

By 

David L. Mccabe "[e-mail]" (El Cerrito, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Terminal Tower: An Archival Collection (Audio CD)

I've never been a big fan of Pere Ubu, but always enjoyed the musical style of their earlier work. The songs tended to be more guitar-orientated with traditional song structures, albeit twisted in unusual ways, which created a sound that most suited their brilliant label for their music: "avante-garage". One of the key factors in the development of this sound was the late talented guitarist/disaster area Peter Laughner (he died of alcoholism at 24) who's main influences were the Velvet Underground and early Captain Beefheart along with the standard blues rock. He played on the first several singles before being kicked out of the band due to his unreliability. Laughner's imaginative guitar playing could range from a tight coiled scratchy sound (the verses for "Heart of Darkness") to thick psychedelic/heavy metal leads (the ending of "Final Solution") and this mixed well with the bands intelligent use of synthesizer. The synthesizer rarely played notes or chords but instead provided unusual aural coloring ambience. A sound suited as a reflection of the background noise of our Industrial age, or Technological age, or whatever the hell we are living in. "Heart of Darkness" starts things out with some of the bitterest lyrics imaginable, and "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo" continues on into a surreal nightmare with a bizarre dissonant instrumental break. On "Final Solution", things began to lighten up with its rather amusing lyrics (no, the song has nothing to do with the Third Reich). The album covers a wide emotional range; the terrific and catchy "Heaven" is positively sunny. The last few songs signal a movement towards Ubu's later sound. "The Book Is On The Table" is a mildly amusing sonic experiment. On the last two songs, the song structures and synthesizer sounds become more comical and David Thomas' vocal becomes more hyperactive and histrionic. Not really "my thing". "Not Happy", ironically, sounds like listening to bubble gum music (The Ohio Express?) on laughing gas. However, one of the essential cuts, as another reviewer here has mentioned, is the live 1978 version of "Humor Me". The song is for the now departed, from both the band and life, Laughner. The studio version on their "Modern Dance" album is fine, but a little too restrained. On this cut, one can hear Thomas and the rest of the band's rage and pain bellow up at having had to watch their pal self-destruct. This scathing exorcism will bring to mind Horace Walpole's famous quote: " Life is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel".

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great introduction., October 16, 2001

By 

Barry Offwhite (Antarctica) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Terminal Tower: An Archival Collection (Audio CD)

I'd always been curious about Pere Ubu. I'd always heard them namedropped along with bands such as Mission Of Burma and Gang Of Four, and I was well acquainted with Claw Hammer's amazing version of the Ubu classic "Final Solution," but it took me years to finally pick up one of their releases, due to their long, varied, and wildly inconsistent back catalog.

Fortunately, "Terminal Tower" captures Ubu in their earliest, best stages, what I like to refer as "the Pink Floyd that doesn't suck." The first three songs show Pere Ubu as a brilliantly skewed rock band. "Heart Of Darkness" is Mission Of Burma a half-decade earlier, "30 Seconds Over Tokyo" is a slow, methodical song that unravels over the course of six-and-a-half minutes, with a haunting paranoid vocal softly intoning lyrics about suicide bombers that are still chilling 25 years later (especially with the recent events in Afganistan) set to a droning Sabbath-esque fuzz guitar riff. "Final Solution" is a classic, anthemic hard rock song buried under a ton of guitar weirdness. It's not hard to see why bands like Claw Hammer, The Pagans, and Gaunt have all decided to do their own version of this song.

From there the mood lightens a bit, with Pere Ubu doing a few bouncy, yet equally absurd pop tunes. Dave Thomas almost evokes an eccentric, white Wilson Pickett on "Untitled," warbling "The Modern Dance...it goes like this!" Elsewhere "My Dark Ages" is Pere Ubu's claustrophobic take on disco, while "Heaven" could best be decribed as futuristic reggae, almost like Peter Tosh with whooshing spaceship noises in the background.

Here it is, the damaged, manic-depressive sound of Pere Ubu at it's most accessible without sacrificing it's crooked, quirky edge. Thusly, "Terminal Tower" is regarded as one the group's few essential releases, where the strangeness of the arrangements adds to the the greatness of the songs, rather than detracting from them.