The Cretonnes - Snap! Snap! (1981)
"Oowh I can't feeeel your emptyyy heart" - This is the main refrain Mark Goldenberg sings on the chorus of Empty Heart, the first song on 'Snap! Snap!' and also apparently the only song that ever got this band much traction. It fucking rules. The chorus is just so huge - a great chord progression with a killer minor key guitar melody echoing and responding to Goldenberg's full throated plaintive yelp. Like many of the songs on this album, the subject of Empty Heart is unrequited or broken love, loneliness, doubt - or, you know...girls.
Empty Heart really works because of its bite - it's a dirty indictment, more than a little bit mean and you can tell the dude means it. I Can't Get Over You, the final song on the first side uses similar ingredients but is not quite as effective. Girls! Girls! Girls!, the second best song of the second side, again features a great chorus where the silly sounding subject is given depth and dirt by way of some tight and excellent art rock riffs. The titular, instrumental Snap! Snap! follows and is pretty cool - something like Gang of Four jamming with Elvis Costello with nobody singing. Mood Vertigo, the final track on the album, closes strongly and is easily the song that gets closest to the bad ass appeal of Empty Heart.
'Snap! Snap!' is solid, no doubt, but on the whole a bit soft for me. It works best when the band plays with urgency - when the inevitable girl problems of the lyric don't just seem unpleasant but rather like a festering, infected sore of the heart. That sentence alone should put in perspective the world the Cretones walk through. A little sappy, a lot of new wave skinny tie ethos, a fat dollop of power pop and, at its best, some really excellent 80s rock with the requisite art, honesty, riffs and cool.