Fidelity

Like many entries in the Durutti Column's discography, Fidelity features ten separate tracks that have hardly any aesthetic resemblance to one another. Vini Reilly's positive musical attitude permeates each track, however, allowing the diverse songs to function together nicely. The almost aggressive drum work on Fidelity's opening title track starts everything off with an undeniable rock twist that transforms toward the record's end into an eclectic, postmodern work of art, complete with nifty dance and ambient moments on "Sanko" and "Grace," respectively. An acoustic jazz guitar/trumpet duo (appropriately titled "G and T") gets sandwiched in the middle of so much synthetic opera, rock, trance, and just about every other musical form that has even so much as tickled Reilly's ears. Fidelity contains no hit singles, but it's hard to imagine that such a constrained pop design could ever interest the prolific Reilly -- a composer/performer of amazing imagination and dexterity. ~ Vincent Jeffries