Interestingly-named Manchester band Working For A Nuclear Free City haven’t produced a conventional double album here. What Businessmen & Ghosts really consists of is the entirety of the band’s self-titled début album, the majority of the Rocket EP, and also new material. At a whopping 29 tracks and almost an hour and 45 minutes long, this is a comprehensive rather than bite-sized introduction to the band’s music.
Like the vaguely similar project that was Use Your Illusion, the 1991 kind-of double album by Guns N’ Roses, Businessmen & Ghosts is very much a mixed bag rather than a coherent, focused album. In fact, this lack of focus and inconsistency in terms of style and quality is the main gripe that emerges from the album. When WFANFC are at their best though, they’re very good. At times “Innocence” sounds like the soundtrack to a hip 70s muscle car or blaxploitation film – all cool beats and funky wicky-wah guitars. This is a band that can convey such cool, when they set their mind to it.
When looking for those high points, the second disc is where you’re most like to have success. The band’s hazy, heavily synthesized sound works best when the vocals aren’t too overbearing and when the tracks are energetic enough to get the blood pumping. Tracks like “Eighty Eight”, “Donkey” and “Innocence” are largely instrumental pieces which gradually build to thrilling, propulsive climaxes – they’re a world away from some of the first disc’s pointless excesses, like the tedious opening track “224th Day” (yes, another self-indulgent instrumental opener - just what the world needs right now) and the turgid “Dead Fingers Talking”. Then again, excess is what we tend to expect from double albums, and WFANFC don’t disappoint. Or rather, they do – besides “224th Day” there are other largely redundant tracks like “Pretty Police State” and “The Tree”. If some of these were culled, this could be a much more streamlined album that would be easier to listen to and would have a much more consistently high quality. As it is, Businessmen & Ghosts is a curiously patchwork affair – for every pulsing barnstormer there is a half-baked ambient piece or stodgy filler-esque contribution.
For the more exciting of its tracks, this is an album definitely worth hearing – but be prepared to feel inclined to skip at least several of the songs here.
69%
Links
Working For A Nuclear Free City [myspace] [official site]
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