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Futuristic Dragon LP TRACK LISTING Pris 150 kr. Bestilling og betaling Verner Brems | Eskebæk 10 |
A s latter-day T. Rex albums go, Futuristic Dragon represents a return to form -- if you agree that the T. Rex of Electric Warrior and The Slider was Bolans most appealing shape. Producer Tony Visconti is back to put the gilding on this fast-fading lily, and Bolan obliges by adopting his trademark cocky swagger, punctuated by fanciful pirouettes of put-upon glamour. Jupiter Liar, New York City (which had cracked the UK Top 20 half a year earlier), My Little Baby and Sunset Boulevard are covered in the candy coating T. Rex fans so love to lick. Thats not to say the disco experiment has been abandoned - in fact, the single Dreamy Lady was credited to the T. Rex Disco Party - but Visconti creates the illusions of old by using a mad gelding chorus (who prove a fair facsimile for Flo & Eddie) and pumping up a song like Dawn Storm into the orchestra-laced epics of yore. The heavier tracks, where Bolan shifts from dreamy to seamy, are just as good. Calling All Destroyers, Ride My Wheels (where Bolan warns Ive got some punk / to lay on you) and Casual Agent are rare examples of the band flourishing outside of their usual comfort zone. This is important (or would have been, had Bolan lived longer), since the psychedelic glam rock of the mid 70s was quickly fading; Mott was folding, Bowie was changing, Reed had returned to urban decadence, and T. Rex would have quickly found itself extinct playing to the meager faithful who hadnt come unglued from glam. Futuristic Dragon is a better balance between the past and the present than Zinc Alloy or Bolans Zip Gun. As it turned out, it would be one of the last guilty pleasures that Bolan would give us. |