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The New Trouser Press Record Guide
By Ira A. Robbins
The following is an entry in "The New Trouser Press Record Guide".Check out the Trouser Press web site at <http://www.trouserpress.com/>
Reducers
The Reducers (Rave On) 1984
Let's Go (Rave On) 1984
Cruise To Nowhere (Rave On) 1985
Quick - name a great band from Connecticut. Well, you need be stumped no longer. Just keep the Reducers in mind. This New London quartet has absorbed all sorts of styles - from Chuck Berry to Anglo-pop, glam-rock to punk - and returned them all in a solid hybrid of tunes, blazing guitars and speedy tempos. On "The Reducers", they sing of "Black Plastic Shoes," "Better Homes and Gardens" and "Information Overload," painting a picture of alienation in the boonies ("Out of Step"). Polite but energetic, "The Reducers" introduces a band with ideas and spunk.The title track on the better-produced "Let's Go" is a great number about getting out, with a catchy, urgent chorus; the rest of the LP (which includes a raving cover of the beat classic "Hippy Hippy Shake") is equally enthusiastic and has more acute lyrics. (On "Bums I Used to Know" they play a churning R&B vamp while chiding themselves for "this honky imitation of the blues.") The Reducers may not be fashionable - no synthesizers or even cowpunk aspirations - but they have the spirit and the sense to keep changing and working. Their albums have an integrity and sincerity that more than compensates for any lack of stylishness.
The Reducers released a 1988 album with Roger C. Reale, a Connecticut singer and bassist whose 1978 indie LP featured two young sidemen; Hilly Michaels and G.E. Smith.
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