Bridge of spies --- T'Pau --- 1987 (Siren)
How can you be a Star Trek fan and not like a band who take their name from one of the characters? So I was already leaning towards liking, or hoping to like T'Pau, and when I heard their debut single, “Heart and soul”, I knew that I was going to like them. Naturally, when their debut album was released I bought it, and though it's not perfect from start to finish, it's more than a worthy first effort, and I was impressed with the quality throughout.
It opens with the aforementioned “Heart and soul”, which you probably already know as it was a big hit single on both sides of the pond. It starts off with a chunky bass, nice keyboard and a sort of double-vocal, one low and kind of chanting which continues on a track independent of the main vocal, which comes in soon after, both taken by singer Carol Decker, and the song becomes a mid-paced rocker, very commercial, and not surprising that it was a hit, as it's very catchy and memorable. It leads into “I will be with you”, the first ballad on the album, with digital piano and nice guitars, the double-vocal not repeated again as Decker settles into “normal” singing.
She has a strong, distinctive voice, and it was both her voice and her image that characterised T'pau and allowed them to keep something of a stranglehold on the charts in the latter part of the eighties, gaining a total of five hit singles --- of which this was one --- from this album, an impressive feat. In my opinon a vastly inferior song to “Heart and soul”, it was third track “China in your hand” which made it to number one, and for which now T'Pau are best remembered. It's a good song, but it just doesn't strike a chord with me. The pizzicato-string keyboards, deep piano and mostly restrained guitar take, I feel, from the style of T'Pau's music, and though it's a cleverly constructed song and was their biggest hit, I just don't like it. Probably the only one who doesn't, but so it goes. Nice sax solo at the end, all right.
“Friends like these” is more uptempo, but to be honest doesn't restore the confidence engendered by the first two tracks, with its almost reggae/calypso beat, and “Sex talk” keeps up the fast rhythm for a real brass-driven rocker with some great keyboard arpeggios, and the guitarists Ronnie Rogers and Taj Wyzgowski get to finally let loose! Ooh yeah! The title track follows, and although there's only one real standout track for me, it being the opener, I must say this comes damn close.
In fact the longest track on the album (I know: here he goes again!) “Bridge of spies” is a great little tune, built on a perfect little guitar riff with some really impassioned singing from Decker, a great hook, pure AOR magic. Really impressive guitar solos from one, or other, or both, of the axemen. Drumbeats are very military-style, suits the melody very well. Nice false ending, a minute before the actual one, and a lovely instrumental ending that almost fades but instead ends abruptly and bursts into “Monkey house”. Now, I could have done without that. I thought the song was finishing well, and it was a bit jarring to have the sudden shout of “Oh yeah!” at the end, then rushing without a pause into the next track. Not how I would have preferred it.
For what it is, “Monkey house” is a good rocker, down and dirty as the band lets loose, with some inspired guitar work, and Carol at her most raunchy, but I still wouldn't consider it one of the better tracks on the album. That, however, cannot be said for the next one, the beautiful ballad “Valentine”, which firmly re-establishes T'Pau as a band of class and craft, and made a great single. With its gentle guitar intro and Carol's gentle, soulful voice this was always going to become a classic. The guitar gets unleashed further into the song, pulling off a sublime solo, and Decker's voice becomes stronger and more strident as the song proceeds.
“Thank you for goodbye” is another good one, halfway between a ballad and an uptempo rocker, with some very effective keyboards and again nice sax breaks, with a feel of Las Vegas nightclubs about it, somehow, and the album finishes strongly with “You give up”, a raunchy, boppy uptempo rocker with a keyboard riff that's right out of Springsteen's “Glory days” from “Born in the USA”. Naughty, naughty! Great closer though.
I say closer, but in fact it's not the final track, as there is a reprise of “China in your hand”, but it's barely worth mentioning, just fifty-two seconds of the sax outro from the track itself: why it's included I have no idea, and for me it takes from the strong closing of the album, and would have been better left off.
T'Pau never again reached the heights they scaled with their debut album. People got bored, forgot them, looked elsewhere. Times were changing, music was changing, and it was kind of hard to fit Carol Decker and her cohorts into any real pigeonhole, so people seem to have stopped trying, and in so doing, stopped caring. They released two more albums after this, but neither were very successful, and they split in 1988, which is a pity, as for a moment there, they shone like diamonds in the sun. But I guess in the end, the bridge of spies is something that can only be crossed once.
TRACKLISTING
1. Heart and soul
2. I will be with you
3. China in your hand
4. Friends like these
5. Sex talk
6. Bridge of spies
7. Monkey house
8. Valentine
9. Thank you for goodbye
10. You give up
11. China in your hand (reprise)