Fine Young Cannibals

When Dave Wakeling and Ranking Roger split from the rest of the English Beat to form General Public, guitarist Andy Cox and bassist Dave Steele originally advertised on MTV for a new lead singer for the Beat. When that didnt pan out, Cox and Steele hooked up with the unique vocalist Roland Gift and the trio formed the Fine Young Cannibals, issuing their self-titled debut album in 1985. Along the lines of early Everything But the Girl (the two groups share a producer, Robin Millar) with a heavier Motown influence, the songs on Fine Young Cannibals are uniformly strong. The singles Johnny Come Home (a plea to a runaway that sounds like the Beats ska stripped down to its tense and obsessive essentials) and Blue (one of the more oblique and successful anti-Margaret Thatcher tracks of its era) are terrific, but album tracks like the casually devastating Funny How Love Is and the manic Like a Stranger (which incongruously ends with a female chorus shrieking Youve been too long in an institution! repeatedly while Gift tries out his Otis Redding impression) are even better. The albums highlight, though, is a reworking of Suspicious Minds (with backing vocals by Jimmy Somerville) that, while it doesnt replace Elvis version, certainly takes the song into an interesting new direction. Although often overlooked in the wake of their massively successful follow-up, The Raw and the Cooked, Fine Young Cannibals is a powerful and satisfying debut. ~ Stewart Mason