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The Trouser Press Guide to '90s Rock
By Ira A. Robbins
The following is an entry in "The Trouser Press Guide to '90s Rock".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
Wake The Neighbors (Rave On) 1987
Redux (Rave On) 1991
Shinola (Rave On) 1995
Fistfight at Ocean Beach (Rave On) 2000
Old Cons (Rave On) 2003
A local fixture in New London, Connecticut, the Reducers soak up influences-Chuck Berry, Anglo-pop, glam, roots rock, punk and more-and reconfigure them into punchy, catchy tunes fed by blazing guitars at speedy tempos. On the politely energetic debut, the everybody-sings-everybody-writes quartet offers social critique and consumer culture in the worshipful "Black Plastic Shoes," the bitter "Life in the Neighborhood," and the politically paranoid "Scared of Cops." The title track of the better produced Let's Go! is a great traveling number with a catchy, urgent chorus; the rest of the LP is enthusiastic and lyrically acute. Over a churning R&B vamp on "Bums I Used to Know," the band chides itself for this "honky imitation of the blues."Redux contains all of those songs and two dozen (!) more in a substantial one-disc career summary. Shinola finds the reliable Reducers -conviction, enthusiasm and middlebrow craft unflagging more than a decade after self-releasing their first album-pretty much where they began. In light of the youthful aspirations of "Let's Go!," the abiding ambition of "Real Gone"-and adult version of the same runaway dream-is truly poignant. Otherwise, the band-Peter Detmold (guitar), Hugh Birdsall (guitar), Tom Trombley (drums) and Steve Kaika (bass)-is increasingly a collection of its individual impulses.: sizzling boogie ("Don't Make Me Mad" is proof that a little spice can invigorated even the hoariest rock leftover), old-school power-pop ("Some Other Time"), an obsession with violence ("The Witness," "The Power of the Gun") and a variation on British roots rock ("Medium Cool"). Flashes of such vintage influences as Wreckless Eric, 999, The Records, Cheap Trick and the Clash mark these guys as record collectors tied to a lost era, but the album's real sign of time passing is "Baby, You're Gonna Lose," a badly sung acoustic harmony warning addressed to a wayward teenager. Staring into the eye of the generation gap, the parental protagonist remonstrates, "If you keep it up girl you could wind up on the end of a gun," admitting, in the next breath, "Don't know what to do because I'd be the same if I was you."
Old Cons, cover-illustrated with five pairs of grungey Chuck Taylors, is a nifty 25th-anniversary document of the band's fandom and faith. The 14 songs, cleanly recorded at various gigs and rehearsals between 1981 and 2001, favor the late-'70s Stiff Records post-pub roster (drawing from Tenpole Tudor, Nick Lowe, Larry Wallis and Wreckless Eric) and lyrics about topics other than amour. But this snappy jukebox also digs back further, to the '50s (Santo and Johnny's "Sleepwalk") and '60s (Chan Romero's "Hippy Hippy Shake," first popularized by the Swingin' Bluejeans; Wilson Pickett's "Ninety Nine and a Half [Won't Do]"). Other than a clumsy and incongruous "Mack the Knife," the Reducers do their forbears ‹ and, in the process, themselves ‹ proud with care, enthusiasm and empathy. Ira Robbins