Talk Talk
The Party's Over
1982

1. Talk Talk
2. It's So Serious
3. Today
4. The Party's Over
5. Hate
6. Have You Heard the News?
7. Mirror Man
8. Another World
9. Candy

So, here we have it then; the only full-length album the original Brenner-Harris-Hollis-Webb lineup of Talk Talk would release. I mentioned how in my earlier post Mark Hollis and co would start out by trying their best to get under the skin of the music industry with their earliest releases, and this is where that process began - with the making of such a blatant stab at the mainstream music-buying market. As such, using this album as a reference point to the kind of sounds Talk Talk would eventually get around to before splitting up is about as reliable some bloke's guarantee of quality on a bunch of DVDs he flogged off to for a couple of quid you on some street corner in Camden.

The album kicks off with the band's theme-song Talk Talk, which itself was actually released a little while before this album as the band chose to expand that EP's tracklisting into a full-length LP release. On a fairly hit-and-miss album, this is one of the better moments on show. Even if the synth motifs and fretless bassline date it quite a bit, you've simply gotta cast off any preconceptions you might have about the overall dodginess of 80s pop music and just enjoy a hell of a catchy tune. The following It's So Serious is another very good song like that as well, with another memorable chorus and a very pretty little synth sound to it (again, however dated it may seem).

After the fairly decent opening salvo, the album goes down a bit of a mediocre route, starting with another band-wide songwriting effort by the name of Today, which kinda steps over that very fine line there is between being a charming little slice of the old times and just being a plain uninteresting song. The longest track on the album by a bit of a stretch, the Party's Over has a fairly nice ring to its chorus, but otherwise it's more or less the same story for me. The following Hate improves things ever-so slightly with another good chorus and intriguing, tribal drumbeat underpinning the whole thing, but on the whole it's another song that just isn't that good.

Things pick up again in terms of quality as the album works itself towards its climax, beginning with the definite highlight of the entire album Have You Heard the News, boasting another pretty synth motif (which, as you may have noticed, drags this album down as much as it does it a service) and a good, pumping sort of bassline. It's all very New Order when all's said and done. The same could be said of Mirror Man, as it rolls into view on the back of some Human League-reminiscent synths and an interesting melody. Like Another World after it though, it just doesn't really come together as well as Have You Heard the News, despite not being a bad song at all. Candy puts the lid on the album and, again despite a few drawing points, doesn't really stand up very well by itself.

It's a very inconsistent album on the whole then, and hasn't dated well at all. If most of the songwriting was strong enough to work despite this glaring drawback, that wouldn't matter at all. The simple fact is that it isn't though, at least for me. Even as an 80s pop album this isn't really a very good unit of work, but having said that there are a couple of superb songs to be found here. Overall though, I'd only really recommend this for the completist. Also, as a lot of you well know, it's absolutely not indicative of what was to come from this band in future. Anyway, my 2 cents;

5/10