It’s been 37 years since their debut album Can’t Stand The Rezillos – and one of the many great things about their second album is that it pretty much picks up where their first left off. And that’s not because it’s stuck in a time warp, but because it feels as fresh as that debut still feels even now.
There haven’t been many bands that have both a frontman and a frontwoman, like the Rezillos possess in Eugene Reynolds and Fay Fife, but it’s clear that even back when they started, the Rezillos weren’t like every other band in many ways.
Interviewing Eugene Reynolds a couple of weeks back, he told me that the person responsible for getting them signed to Sire Records by Seymour Stein was none other than Sir Elton John. Google the Rezillos and what comes up – repeatedly – is that the band had a vastly different approach to the (affected) nihilism of many of their then contemporaries.
This is a record packed full of punk anthems, right from the opening ‘Take Me To The Groovy Room.’ It’s infectious punk, with a delicious threat of danger; an album that even when you’ve got it on when you’re driving around in the car (as I have many times) makes you want to start pogo-ing – regardless of what other drivers might think. And the songs keep coming over the course of the record –‘She’s The Bad One’, ‘No.1 Boy’ ‘Sorry About Tomorrow’… There are bands who attempt to repeat the same formula and fall flat on their face months later. The Rezillos grin, stick their tongue out and casually rub it in your face that they’ve done it again.
Over the course of these twelve tracks, the Rezillos don’t put a foot wrong. It must take a lot of balls to go out on stage after them.
[Rating:4]
Zero is out now on Metropolis
