A fixture on the Paisley Underground scene of the early 80s, this gets the quasi-quintessence of the Velvet Underground. Since they’d rather risk attitude than sound, the Syndicate fail for lack of fire, and the record campaigns for somebody else’s wider triumph: The nettle-drones are as affected as the Lou Reed-ing of the singer. Such parochialism must be judged on the V.U.’s terms alone. That titanic band was all about character, nuance and the (urban) cult of personality — a confluent world-view. The D.S. never gain past redundancy (if they did, would they be even half as interesting?), and, at their best, they forge a kind of overtaxed recall out of mere textural tendencies, which they come to secondhand. More P.U. than V.U., there’s just no gall to the groove.
Rating: B-
