Diesel Park West - 'Shakespeare Alabama' (EMI) Released 08/08/05

If there is one reason why lost masterworks from the 1980’s are unlikely to ever have music buffs in a frenzy similar to that caused by contact with their counterparts from the earlier decades, it’s laid out in all its fearsome din in the opening bars of this re-release of Diesel Park West’s 1989 debut. The slick production values of the golden era of greed, all unappealingly sharp, bright metallic echo and drum sounds that resemble someone keeping the beat on wet cardboard boxes, have, to put it mildly, not aged quite as well as their more organic predecessors.

Venture past the oddly unnatural sound that evokes disturbing images of mullets, shoulder-pads and yuppies yelling down mobiles phones the size of a hefty brick, however, and there’s an awful lot to admire here. Opener ‘Like Princes Do’, which could be seen either as an passionate and still unfortunately topical riposte to the selfish money-grabbing of its era or a desperate pledge to break out of the indie ghetto, something the Leicester five-piece never quite managed despite acres of gushing column inches, might initially sound distressingly like something to shake your fist to from Bruce Springsteen’s pumped-up stadium nadir, but the passion and sheer energy with which the tune, heralded by a particularly convincing performance from singer John Butler, bursts forth from the speakers goes all the way back to irony-free exuberance of ‘Born to Run’.    

It’s by no means the last of the winning tunes here. In fact, the first six songs on the album are so strong in their rare combination of substantial compositional complexity, unashamedly lowbrow catchiness and muscular classic rock thrills it’s quite puzzling that the band never made it beyond the commercially measly status as the critics’ darling. Of the highlights, ‘Out of Nowhere’ has a chorus huge enough to fill even the most gigantic of enormodomes while ‘When The Hoodoo Comes’ is infectiousness distilled to four flawless minutes. Pick of the bunch, however, is ‘The Waking Hour’, an embarrassment of hooks that travels from the thumbing staccato verses to yet another rousing chorus before taking a surprising but highly effective de-tour to a dramatic, string-soaked breakdown. ‘Jackie’s Still Sad’ and ‘Here I Stand’ ease off the anthemic qualities in abundance elsewhere with potent results, while a handful of the eight bonus tracks offer insight to the band’s sturdy sound and the excellent interplay of guitarists Rick Willson and Rich Barton sans the distractions of excess studio gloss.

In other words, 'Shakespeare Alabama' is a corker, but whether Diesel Park West manage to bridge the gap between critical acclaim and mainstream acceptance on this second attempt is doubtful. Apart from originating from the wrong end of the 1980’s as far as what’s fashionable in music at the moment is concerned and containing odious emissions from an era that decent drum sounds forgot, its undiluted passion and unwavering belief in the purifying powers of rock, most frequently paraded via manly all-together-now bellowing in the king-size choruses, might make it something of a musty relic for ears more accustomed to the knowing wink of irony.