Top 100 Albums - #13: The Road To Hell (1989)

Chris Rea makes his third and final chart appearance with The Road To Hell, widely considered to be his masterpiece.
After first tasting success with Shamrock Diaries (1985, #91), Rea composed a series of albums which brought him success both critically and commercially. The immediate follow-up, On The Beach (1986), consolidated the chilled-out sound and added a brighter, more continental flavour. Rea's guitar playing was steadily improving, becoming smoother and silkier while retaining something in the way of its blues roots. This new style reared its head on Dancing With Strangers (1987), which produced no real hit singles but continued Rea's run of acclaim. After winding up the tour to support Dancing With Strangers, Rea was quiet through most of 1988, save for the release of a singles compilation, New Light Through Old Windows, and a Christmas single, 'Driving Home For Christmas', which peaked at #53 on the UK chart.

'The Road To Hell (Part 1)' is a complete unknown compared to its brother, but don't think that it's a bad track as a result. For the first 90 seconds or so, your head is filled with the sounds of a long, dreary motorway journey home: the rhythmic screech of the wipers on the windscreen, the pelt of the rain onto the glass and roof, the dark clouds rumbling in the distance, and the radio blaring out more bad news. The piano sat underneath it winds whimsically along, making the situation all the more frustrating. Then, all of a sudden, this mood music is replaced by dark synthesiser chords courtesy of Kevin Leach, and Rea rumbles his opening lines like a jealous God, mourning His lost people in such a manner that it sends shivers down your spine.

After such an atmospheric start, 'The Road To Hell (Part 2)' seems like pure pop. It's a lot more catchy, for certain, and the bluesy riffs tumbling out of Rea's guitar do walk the line between crass and cultured very gingerly. But in all, this is deservedly recognised as one of his finest songs. It may have be written about the M25 (which isn't exactly glamourous), but like all the best songs you can read so much more into it than that. From another angle it's a pathos-ridden, burning commentary on 1980s materialism, or an Everyman-esque religious allegory. It's presented in a language and form that is readily understandable, but which also rewards deeper study. And while it has been hopelessly overplayed since its release, it remains a snappy little charmer to get your grey cells going as much as your feet.

The religious (or at least moral) element of Rea's work is continued in 'You Must Be Evil'. If you weren't convinced of the previous song's credentials, this is more openly savage. It narrows the focus from a general indictment of modern man to a well-aimed strike against the cynical nature of television. Don't think, however, that it's a list of prudish criticisms from a member of The Mary Whitehouse League. Rea is attacking the sensationalist nature of the medium, rather than specific events. Again, it's not the most in-depth stuff at first glance, but like a lot of Rea's songs there is a hidden, bluesy depth to them that can only be discovered after a long car journey with them playing on a loop. Musically, look out for a lovelye bit of bass in the final chorus from Eoghan O'Neill.

'Texas' shifts the focus from drizzle-filled Britain to America - or at least, it seems to. The lyrics are a fond exposition of the Lone Star State from a guy longing to escape there, longing to experience the desolation and simplicity (Warm winds blowing/ Heat and blue sky/ And a road that goes forever). It's a song of dreams and frustrations at the mundane nature of life, underscored by Leach's shimering keyboards and snappy drumming from Martin Ditcham. In the second half, Rea's Fender soars into life just briefly and transports you into that laid-back dream, completely at ease. Before long you are in the Deep South, surrounded by hints of the foot-stomping blues Rea would finally produce on Dancing Down The Stony Road (2002).

'Looking For A Rainbow' is where the album starts to fall apart. It's nearly twice as long as the previous track, at 8:05, which means that the pop hooks and punchy nature of the last three songs will be difficult to sustain. Rea reverts instead to the rain and schmaltzy piano (courtesy of Max Middleton) and slowly allows you to sink into a vat of wallpaper paste. Even when the percussion comes in, it never sounds genuine or engaging enough to stir you from your slumber. In short, it's just too long.

Both the next two track fail to drag this record out of the mid-album dip. 'Your Warm And Tender Love' has such a treacly title that is almost impossible to swallow. It begins somewhere between a Simple Minds ballad and an offcut from Queen's Made In Heaven (1995), neither of which seem immediately diserable. This is cloyed and clichéd through and through, never letting itself be anything more than a humdrum, middle-of-the-road love song, and that's annoying. 'Daytona' tries harder, restoring the themes of both America (the racetrack) and cars (the Ferrari of the same name). The tempo is faster, the production crisper and the piano returns to add the melody. But it's still not brilliant, with flat lyrics and no sense of direction. Even the presence of the car at the end (which actually sounds nothing like a Daytona) can't get your pulse going.

You may be tempted to switch off now, but don't. Because 'That's What They Always Say' is an absolute belter. Perhaps that's the wrong word, because this is still a slow, and quiet song. Nevertheless, it has a hugely catchy chorus and a serious of smooth verses which wash over you and make you smile. More than that, though, you can feel the whole band playing tighter and enjoying themselves as a result. No single instrument is allowed to overstay its welcome, so that even Rea's flirtings on the guitar are perfectly balanced between satisfying your initial expections and leaving you wanting more. And for the first time in a long while, you realise what a great singer Rea is. He's unconventional, he's earthy and he pulls no punches on this brilliant song.

'I Just Wanna Be With You' could easily fall into the same trap as 'Your Warm And Tender Love'. The title doesn't do it any favours, that's for sure, but a shared fate is avoided by a series of very clever touches Rea injects into the mix. The percussion is more amusing, or at least tongue-in-cheek, including the apposite cowbell that arrives early on. The guitar riffs are more subdued, and are complimented very nicely by the Hammond Organ sound emanating from the keyboards. Even the slightly dodgy female vocals can't rock this boat.

'Tell Me There's A Heaven' is the ideal closer for the album, invoking the imagery of the title and keeping the focus on the individual. This could have been a terrible song, either by being sanctimonious and preachy, or by being so sugary that it ended up as a must-sing on weepy karaoke nights. But thanks to Rea, it's neither: it's just a heart-swelling, tear-jerking, laid-back emotional masterpiece. Even with the stock strings and overblown piano, it's very hard not to like this song, or be moved by it. The lyrics fit perfectly around the piano part, so that the two are perfectly interwined. Their content appeals to that wish in most or all of us for a better world to the one we have now, whether it be a literal, Christian heaven or an earthly one we make for ourselves. This is a splendid way to round off, and should be accorded pride of place in Rea's catalogue.

The Road To Hell has been hailed as a "modern masterpiece", and on the whole it thoroughly deserves that title.¹ It may not be the deepest or most meaningful piece of rock on first impression: Rea's reputation as a middle-of-the-road schmaltz mercant is palatable if you don't dig any deeper. If, on the other hand, you look behind the pop-ish veil, you open up an album flowing with ambiguity and playfulness, an album that gives few answers and invites you to explore. It will take a while to go from liking this album as a catchy set of songs to liking it as a political statement, but give it enough time and that change will come. And while the classic 'mid-album dip' is quite noticeably severe, deep down they are not dreadful songs, merely below-par ones. In the final analysis, The Road To Hell is without a shadow of a doubt the finest album Rea has ever made, and if ever likely to make if his recent forages into blues are anything to go buy. Shamrock Diaries and The Blue Café (1998, #50) were passable pop; this is proper album rock.

4.10 out of 5

References
¹ John Floyd, 'The Road To Hell', http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:tneb97w7krht~T1. Accessed on January 16 2009.

Top 100 Albums - #50: The Blue Café (1998)

Chris Rea kicks off the second half of our chart with The Blue Café, his second of three entries. After the success of The Road To Hell (1989), Rea sought to consolidate the sound that had made him a transatlantic superstar. Both Auberge (1991) and God's Great Banana Skin (1992) sought to replicate the dark, rocky sound; however, while Auberge barely deviated from the dark formula and subject matter of The Road To Hell, God's Great Banana Skin was a lighter, more pop-oriented effort that divided the critics. The following year Espresso Logic (1993) continued his foray into pop, just as had done with dance in the mid-1980s, and while it produced two hits singles it was not as well received. The next five years saw Rea in ill health, with no new material beyond a soundtrack album, La Passione (1996), and a greatest hits compilation in 1994.

'Square Peg, Round Hole' kicks us off, and already we noticed a return to the classic blues guitar sound. But here it is backed by very modern, electronic drums - it's like he borrowed the rhythm section from Mike + The Mechanics. This is the first time that Rea has brought these two divergent versions of himself together, proving that blues and pop can easily go to get. In reality, this is a proper 1990s rocker, replete with echoey power chords, powerful and just a little bit of shredding. It's a very, very good start.

Mind you, 'Miss Your Kiss' isn't all that bad either. It begins with a five-note distorted riff which drills into your brain, earworming its way in until you form a symbiotic relationship with it. Rea's gravelly baritone, contrary to expectations, hardly seems to clash with his studio-synthesised background noise. The lyrics may be basic - I miss your kiss/ I miss your touch/ Can't get used to it baby/ I miss you so much - but they more than work. Listening to this you feel like you are cruising through America at sunset in an open-top Ferrari - and it's a brilliant feeling.

So far the album has buoyed us up, made us feel good about ourselves. But now things take a dark turn and Rea reveals why he is among the best at what he does, and why The Road To Hell was as good as was said. 'Shadows Of The Big Man' has Rea's creepy voice all over it, a voice which slowly tears you limb from limb while you stand and take it all in. The keyboard parts are perfectly balanced, one low and sinister, the other high and edgy. It's a proper atmospheric rock song, right out of its time but without any of the slushy trappings.

'Where Do We Go From Here?' is an indictment of the consumer culture, set against a muzak-esque backing track. The lyrics successfully depict people being alienated from each other and obsessed with possessions. Lines like They're 34, they're 45/ They're so obsessed with the car they drive/ "Where do they go?" she said,/ "Where do we go from here?" have a subtle bite to them, which might take a few spins to come out but at least they are not preachy. Look out also for the silky smooth bass guitar in the middle section.

'Since I Found You' returns to the feel-good formula, having spent the last two tracks trying to shock us out of our nightmarish stuppor. This is a classic love song, complete with harmonious piano, ride cymbals and bright, melodic chord progressions. Some may call this cloyed or clichéd, but look closer and you'll realise that is isn't. And unlike his work pre-Shamrock Diaries (1985, #91), his voice is not the only get-out-of-jail-free card. His guitar work, which has a lot more slide on it, is guaranteed to bring a smile to your face and a nod to your head.

So far, then, Rea has presented us with four very good and one great examples of pop rock without pretentions, slush or nonsense wrapped up with it. 'Thinking Of You' is another four-star song; it may not have the direction of the other five, but it features the same glorious slide guitar (on what sounds like a Fender Stratocaster - and judging from the album cover, probably is). It's a similar story on 'As Long As I Have Your Love'. Here we have some very attractive bass work, some interesting percussion and, as always, Rea's throaty tones. All create a very nice feel despite being relatively insubstantive tracks.

'Anyone Quite Like You' is quite brooding, with its prominent and slide guitar. But before you can catch your breath, it transforms into a deep-hearted pop song with electric drums and synthesisers. The rhythms are bluesy despite the melody having a quite rocky feel to them, it's almost edgy in a controlled sense of the word. The first real sense of error only comes with 'Sweet Summer Day'. This does sound fake and hollow, not just in the drum parts at the start, but the guitar feels lazy. It's like airport music, being played on Spinal Tap's amps. Compared to all that has gone before, it's rubbish.

Despite the obvious blues touches on 'Stick By You', don't be fooled - this is just as guilty. The lyrics are even weaker than usual, and Rea's delivery gives the impression that he not only doesn't care, but that he doesn't care to try. The licks are short and tepid, reminscent of the crap that graced the charts in this period. This is definitely one to avoid, skip over or record over.

'I'm Still Holding On' is a (very welcome) return to form. The guitar is understated, with the electric howling in the background while the acoustic plucks the rhythm part away. The drums are suave, and the cymbal crashes add a jazzy, sophisticated feel to things. Most importantly of all, Rea is putting some effort into the vocals and the lyrics. It's another long-driving song, albeit with a less transatlantic feel to it. If only the title track, the closer, were as good. Instead, it's a continental-style guitar workout, with vocals from the 1940s and guitar work straight out of a tacky Spanish restaurant. It's a poor way to end the album - very poor instead.

The Blue Café is one of Rea's best and most consistent efforts, taking a song structure and sustaining its best features throughout, in the absence of any lyrical concept. Rea's critics will seize upon this and claim that this is Rea in a holding pattern, maufacturing pop rock songs that exist only to replicate his early commercial success. They may have a point which its successor, The Road To Hell Part 2 (1999), but this album is very different. In the first two thirds at least, it's vibrant, it's relaxing, it's compelling - every that Rea can be and is at his best. Things definitely turn sour towards the end, and indeed the album could have done with being a bit shorter, both in the number of song and the song lengths themselves. But overall this is a fine effort from Rea which will stand the test of time.

3.83 out of 5

Top 100 Albums - #91: Shamrock Diaries (1985)

Chris Rea makes his first of three appearances on the chart with the album that began his assaults on the UK chart that culminated four years later in the critical and commercial success of The Road To Hell.

Although Rea had been recording since 1978, nearly all of his previous efforts received mixed reviews and most didn't sell as a result. His début, Whatever Happened To Benny Santini? (1978) - a reference to the nom de guerre the studio tried to make him use - was a middle-of-the-road, ballad-rock album on which the only distinctive feature was Rea's gravelly, weary baritone. His subsequent efforts, from Deltics (1979) to Wired To The Moon (1984) all faired much the same and to this day are quite rare because of Rea's subsequent success. Still recording at a relentless pace - at the rate of an album a year, something very usual in the 21st century - Rea was honing his rock-blues skills which would influence the more successful follow-up On The Beach (1986).

The album starts brightly with 'Steel River', probably a reference to Rea's home town of Middlesborough which he would return to in 'The Road To Hell (Part 2)'. The problem with this, to get straight to the point, is that it's too long, the female vocalists don't really fit and it's not as faithful to Rea's blues roots as some of the numbers. It's an average number designed for an American audience, which is rather stupid since Rea's real source of fame lay in the UK and to a lesser extent Europe. Much better is 'Stainsby Girls'. Though this is not a blues song, it features heavily bluesy guitar, along with some good mid-80s drumming. It's a middle-of-the-road love song which Rea's vocals transform into a pretty decent number with a catchy chorus.

'Chisel Hill' turns things down a bit with a subdued e-piano riff, but the quality is sustained, if not bettered. This is a simple, heartfelt guitar ballad, the sort of thing you'd listen to on a cool evening or driving in an open-top car in the summer countryside. Rea's guitar work is sensitive and combines swellingly with both piano and vocals to produce a sure-fire, laid-back winner. 'Josephine', however, returns to the old mistakes. Opening like Iona's 'View Of The Islands', this song about his eldest daughter can't make up its mind as to whether it's a blues song, a folk song, or a ballad. Rea doesn't seem too sure either, which puts a damper on the whole thing.

'One Golden Rule' establishes the feel of the rest of the album. It's softly spoken at first, before building and swelling to a classic 80s pop rock climax. The echoing refrain One golden rule/ One golden rule/ I hear you say/ One golden rule sees Rea get the female vocalists right, and the instrumental section in the middle third is very well-timed and not too showy. The final verse contains some of his best lyrics of this period:

They can teach you to swim, they don't speak of the danger
They tell you the truth, but they never say why
But you're on ice that is thin, and they tell you it's winter
With our one golden rule - the truth is a lie

'All Summer Long' has a reputation as one of Rea's 'summer anthems' which he seems intrinsically able to craft (cf. 'On The Beach'). And it's fairly easy to say why. The unusual rhythm have an almost calypso influence, the lyrics are simplistic and subdued, and are in most cases littered with enough summer jargon to disguise their relative inanity. This is, in fact, a good effort for Rea regardless of its time, as is the more bluesy 'Stone'. Again, this is blues not in the 12-bar sense, but in the use of guitar effects and repeating choruses. Lines like Without your love I'm just a stone may seem clichéd to you and me, but (a) in the 1980s this didn't matter; and (b) it isn't enough to impinge on the overall quality of the song.

The title track is one of the weakest on the album. It starts in the same way as 'Steel River', with a few bars of piano before Rea's voice kicks in. But there is no vocal or rhythmic hook here, and for all the decent sax parts thrown in for good measure, this feels both humdrum and a little bland, like Rea is rambling through a book of poetry. There is certaintly no indication of the meaning of the title, which makes it a strange choice for the title of the album.

This slip-up is quickly corrected, however, with the best song on the whole album. 'Love Turns To Lies' combines the best of Shamrock Diaries so far - piano intros, bluesy guitars, simple 80s drumming (possibly electronic ones) - and adds the theme of lost love and, for the first time, memorable lyrics. Whereas on previous songs, Rea's drawling voice acted merely as a means to explore the instrumental qualities of his writings, here it takes charge - as it must to deliver such a chorus as this:

What's that you say?
You were going to leave me anyway?
Any fool can see
See what you've done to me
And your love turns to lies

It's a masterpiece of Rea's genre, combining 80s production and musicality - e.g. the use of synthesisers - with distinctive blues-style guitar work and of course, Rea's gravelly delivery. The use of synthesisers would prove influential, as on subsequent records Rea would attempt to synthesise his brand of blues with dance-pop, which produced... interesting results.

It's a shame, then, that having set the bar a little higher, he finishes the album on a downer with the relatively banal 'Hired Gun'. Like 'Steel River', it's way too long - the longest on the album, clocking in at 8:03. The slide guitar is lost because Rea's voice is too subdued and stuck in the low registers to justify its use. Little else can be said since, with these qualities out of place, little can be done to rehabilitate it.

It's easy to see hints of Rea's later work in Shamrock Diaries. It marks the beginning of his coming-of-age as a lyricist; it touches on the dark side of life (e.g. 'Love Turns To Lies') which would form the basis of The Road To Hell; and it marks the start of his dabbling with dance music which would be showcased on albums like The Blue Café (1998). It was the record that got him noticed, and in many cases this record is worth a listen. It is by no means a perfect album; the production is sparse, and many of the songs are formulaic to the point of beginning in the same way (if not the same chords). Nevertheless, it's a good record to dip into now and again, even though it should never be seen as the ultimate example of Rea's abilities.

3.70 out of 5