Positive Touch

Alternative Press - "...They poked fun at things that needed to be laughed at, and reduced the pains of growth to the lowest common denominators..." Alternative Press (10/94, p.114) - "...They poked fun at things that needed to be laughed at, and reduced the pains of growth to the lowest common denominators..."

Though the Undertones are best known for their earlier, punkier material, the Irish band's third album, POSITIVE TOUCH, is their artistic high-water mark. While their first two albums combined 1970s punk with witty lyrics and a slightly '60s-influenced pop sensibility, the stylistic rulebook was thrown out for POSITIVE TOUCH. Song structures gleefully venture into the non-idiomatic: honky-tonk piano and punchy horns pop up in the arrangements, and singer Feargal Sharkey--he of the unmistakeable vibrato--proves he's capable of mellow crooning as well as urgent yelping. The lyrics take a step up as well; where much of the band's previous work was concerned with rock & roll verities like love, sex, and teen-style angst, there's a subtle but undeniable sociopolitical bent to a number of the tunes here. Follow-up album THE SIN OF PRIDE would venture a touch too far towards pop slickness, but POSITIVE TOUCH struck the perfect balance between guts and sophistication.|