The Rejects- Quiet Storm
(Heavy Metal Records, 1984)
Current Gemm
price: $4.00- $14.00
Price Sascha paid: $ 3.99 at Mystery Train
Records, Cambridge, (RIP) in 1987
Worth: About twice that.
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A
good example of how tastes change. When I first brought this record it was
virtually all I could do not to break it over my knee. The line up on back
stated "Mickey Geggus, Jefferson Turner, and Keith
Warrington", i.e., three of four Cockney Rejects. By then I knew
that the band had shifted their focus from punk to a more hard rock
approach, but nothing prepared me for this. But I'm not seventeen anymore.
In fact, I'm not even twenty-four anymore, either. So, the last time I
pulled this out and blew the dust off of it, I liked it well enough to have
it transferred to CD.
Properly speaking, you really couldn't even call this a heavy metal record.
It's more along the lines of early '70's British blues-rock. Think of Led
Zep's quieter moments blown up to album length, with a little bit of the
pomp of Queen and some Deep Purple thrown in, and you'd be
halfway there. I say "halfway" because this is even mellower than a lot of
the material from those bands.
According to the guy who runs the excellent
CockneyRejects.net--and
also the only other guy in the world who likes this record--this slab was
never even meant to be released. It was strictly something the band did for
kicks.
There
isn't a duff number on "Quiet Storm" if you like this sort of
material, which I do. There's a nice bombastic intro with "It Ain't
Nothing", followed by a swaggering "I Saw the Light"-these are
the only tracks with even a whiff of the old Rejects bluster to them.
"Back To The Start", my favorite off this record, finds vocalist
Jeff in a reflective, almost weepy mood, echoed by some great female
vocals. (Supplied by one "Gitika" who also sang on their next salvo,
"Lethal". Sounds exotic, let's see a photo, fellas). "I Can't
Forget" is in a similar vein. Side Two is even more restrained, complete
with violin on the title track. "Fourth Summer" is basically a
tasteful cribbing of "Bron Yr Aur Stomp", whilst "Feeling My Way",
"Leave It" and "Jog On" round out the album in fine form. "Jog
On" even ventures into something approaching funk. While this record is
startling on first listen to any old Cockney Rejects fan, it all
makes sense in the larger historical context. It's unlikely that a guitarist
as accomplished as Geggus was still listening religiously to his
Ramones albums, and the same could undoubtedly be said of the rest of
the group. Within their own circle, big changes were afoot. Good old Gary
Bushell--discover of Iron Maiden, and Oi! (so he claims),
"Sounds" scribe, and an early and ardent Rejects supporter
said that this record was "so laid back it could have been bottled as
Valium". Then again, Bushell is no stranger to chameleon-like changes
of his own, whether it's politics or music, so I guess he should have been
able to appreciate this volte-face from the band. (After spending much of
the early 1980's criticizing Britain's top tabloid, "The Sun", and
touting second wave punk, Bushell then packed his bags and went to
work for the paper, distancing himself from the punk scene he had flogged in
"Sounds" ).The band's first producer Jimmy Pursey from Sham
69 was cutting singles with Peter Gabriel by the time "Quiet
Storm" came out, so the Rejects were far from alone in to forging a new
path for themselves. And as I have noted elsewhere, the Cockney Rejects
were a band that never constrained themselves strictly to punk.
A few minor questions remain: first off, where the hell was towering bass
thumper Vince Riordan on this one? (A man who has the dubious
distinction of being one of the first people to inspire me to get tattooed).
He was back on board for 1990's "Lethal" (which was a rip snorting
return to the assaultive prole metal of "The Wild Ones"), but nowhere
to be found here. And I've also heard this record referred to as "Rock
The Wild Side", a far cooler name then "Quiet Storm". So which is
it?
2003 has seen a make-shift line up of the Cockney Rejects return with
what Geggus calls "mature punk metal fusion", aided and abetted by
members of Leatherface and Red Alert. It's decent enough for
what it is, but personally I think it would be even better if they picked up
where this one or even "Lethal" had left off. Perhaps we'll see that
once this punk nostalgia trip finally wears off…
- Sascha G.
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