I really want to give the Monks' Suspended
Animation a passing grade, because, like so many
Canadians who came of age in the early '80s I am a drooling fan of
their truly five-star first album Bad Habits. But honestly: Suspended
Animation hits its marks too rarely for me to recommend it.
As I understand it, in their native
England the Monks never surpassed one-hit wonder status (“Nice
Legs, Shame About The Face”), so John Ford and Richard Hudson
returned to their paying gig in the Strawbs and moved on. Across the
pond in Canada, however, it was another story. Bad Habits attained a
high cult status with its infectious hooks and sly lyrics that kept
the artful balance of ironic observation without falling into easy
parody. When the album went multi-platinum in 1981, management corralled Ford
and Hudson back into the studio for another go as The Monks, exclusive to the
rabid Canadian fans.
Suspended Animation is proof that
sometimes you can only bottle lightning once. With the sole exception
of the album opener, “Don't Want No Reds,” the album's song
titles pretty much give away the game at first pitch. “James
Bondage” “Don't Bother Me — I'm A Christian” and “King Dong”
don't leave much room for the artist to surprise a listener with
ironic insight, never mind clever turns of phrase. As for easy
parody, the Monks often fail here, too, with subject matter that was
never funny to begin with (“Ann Orexia” is a bad idea made worse
by preachy finger-wagging).
There are flashes in the production
that suggest these otherwise accomplished rockers were fishing for something meatier than what they were landing. “Space Fruit”
is a nice reprisal of what “Skylab” first laid down. “Beasts In
Cages” and “Lost In Romance” contain traces of the subtlty we
heard in Bad Habits. But fans of the first album who haven't yet
given this album a spin are best advised to resist the urge, and
re-cue Bad Habits instead. Suspended Animation is for completists
only.
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