Living Eyes & More Fun

For those who don't have Radio Birdman's classic second album from 1981, this pairing of it with the More Fun EP -- issued in 1988 as part of a boxed set -- is a great purchase. Living Eyes contained more great Deniz Tek songs, including his homage to home, "I.94," and one of the greatest car songs ever written, "455 SD." But it doesn't stop there. The band's sound may not have been quite as raw on this offering -- a bigger budget saw to this -- but Tek's songs reached an entirely different level of rock & roll poetry. "Eskimo Pie," "Breaks My Heart," "Crying Sun," and "Smith and Wesson Blues" all shine among an album full of pure gold. The guitars still scream, but bringing of Pip Hoyle's organ and piano to the forefront with Tek's and Chris Musuak's six strings was pure magic. Rob Younger is still one of the great unheralded singers in the music's history. The More Fun EP consists of four live tracks, three of which were taken from the band's last Paddington Town Hall show in 1977, years before Living Eyes was released.~ Thom Jurek|