Punk Pioneers: The Bush Tetras Rock Again

Beauty Lies (Tim/Kerr) marks the return after a long absence of the NYC-based Bush Tetras, and it's not your fault if you never knew they were gone. Spawned from the late-'70s Lower East Side punk scene, the BT's first incarnation lasted only from '80 to '83, producing just a handful of singles and EPs and nary a full-length disc. But their raggedy funky brand of bad attitude ("Too Many Creeps" was the name of their first single) was a big hit with the cognoscenti, and they always got a lot of ink -- moved a decent number of units, too, for a small-label arty concept band. It didn't hurt that 3/4 of the quartet were females, which made them pioneers of sorts.

So flash-forward past what feels like several generations but really isn't and you find the group re-formed with their original line-up -- singer Cynthia Sley, guitarist Pat Place, bassist Laura Kennedy, and boy drummer Dee Pop -- to release their first-ever official full-length album. (Last year's Boom in the Night CD on ROIR was a compilation of older EPs and singles.) The big question, natch, is whether they still have the edge they brandished in the olden days of slash and burn. And the answer is, a little yes and a little no. Sley's vocals have actually improved with age, giving her access to a more expressive range. The rhythm section is tighter, and Place is using dissonance more judiciously these days. The result sounds closer to generic hard rock than to the mutated funk that once got Clash drummer Topper Headon interested in producing the group in the studio (back in the early '80s). It's slicker, too.

In other words, Beauty Lies adds up to that bane of the soft-hearted critic, a CD by a band who are only good, not quite great. Live, I've been told, they can still create the noise of things falling apart, but here these former provocateurs make a familiar hard-edged sound. I think they're hip to their limitations (they always were). "Color Green" could fit snugly on a metal rotation list, with its big guitar riff and Sley's snarling "Don't believe in anything 'less it's the color green." But lest one think they're unaware of the essential silliness of the genre they're slipping into, they follow it with a tune titled "Satan Is a Bummer" -- a cautionary tale for morons. Other highlights are a ballad called "The Ballad," which sounds like a spontaneous string of lovesick clichés; Sley's raw-throated vocal on "Mr. Love Song," which as you can guess from the title is as acerbic as hell; and my personal favorite, "World Dub," a nine-and-a-half-minute coda that makes good use of guest Julia Kent's cello, abrupt ambient outbursts, and a droning dub overlay of hypno-cool.

On "Page 18" Sley, using her grungiest yowl, warns, "Time, don't mess with me." Well, it has. Yet it's not their fault they don't stand for what they used to stand for. Nobody else does. And they're still game, making Beauty, polished piece of work that it is, still fun.

-- Richard C. Walls

(The Bush Tetras headline O'Brien's in Allston next Thursday, July 17; call 782-6245. They play the following night, July 18, at Ralph's in Worcester; call 508-753-9543.)