Laughing HOUSE. 3/8/88 Sir Colin Campbell /Live Review/ S. A. Lane
This Impressive trio oozed mountains of competence in a tight and aggressive twelve-song set, playing music that incorporates trademarks of the Clash, occasional touches of Killing Joke and the vaguest bow towards U2 in some of the guitar lines. many of the songs are accusing and political, such as "Taken For Fools" in which a statement is made about Aborigines being kicked in the teeth by 'their' government.
Musically, Laughing House are professional, playing well-structured songs which, when lacking in melody, are adequately compensated for with rhythmic stops and kick-starts and raw punch. In my opinion, their only downfall is a tendency to over-indulge in the thuggish 'oh-oh-oh' backing vocals. If these were reduced in favour of more lyric harmonies (those used worked well), the finishing touch would be put to otherwise perfect material.
My favourite songs were the 'Lesson', with It's excellent melody, harmonies and the use of interweaving vocal lines, and their last number ' Do Your Worst' which erupted with an earthquake of an intro, ploughed a mean furrow and exited with a fortress of noise headed by a howling guitar which left your senses reeling. Apart from aggression, one of the band's main strengths lies in their attention-grabbing intro's. In 'Joking' ("a song about door-to-door salesmen"!), the guitar weaves an interesting mesh of picked notes over a walking drum beat and on 'See It In Your Eyes', a song with a good melodic hook of a chorus, the intro is best described as frantic!
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