Adam
And The Ants
– Kings
Of The Wild Frontier
CD Album, remastered, 2006
Columbia
It
was goodbye 1970's and hello 1980's with this particular album when
it came out the summer of 1980. At the time it was such an odd new
sound. The mixture of spaghetti western sounds with tribal drumming
was an original concept and is still fresh today. At the time I
really didn't know the sounds or music of Ennio Morricone, except I
slightly knew his work from The
Good, The Bad, and the Ugly but
that was it. And for sure I knew nothing of the Burundi drums. So
hearing Adam And The Ants was totally new to my ears. Listening to
it now there is something very Gene Vincent about it all. Or maybe
its a throw-back to the Rockabilly 50's era. All of that is in the
music of Adam, and like a great magician he mixes the potent powers
of each genre of music and made something new. The beauty of pop is
its ability to borrow from different cultures to hopefully to make a
new soup. The 80's were open to that possibility – especially in
the U.K.
The one-two punch of “Dog Eat
Dog” and “Antmusic” is one of the great openings of an album.
Perfectly paced this is a record that stands as a manifesto as well.
Adam didn't only want to make music but I think he wanted to change
or put his stamp on contemporary culture of the time. And that he
did. And one has to note the importance of Marco Pirroni in its mix.
His rockabilly meets Morricone guitar mix is very much part of the
sound that makes up The Ants. Superb.
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