Translator
Translator
First time on CD including 2 bonus tracks for the third album from 1985 by this San Francisco alternative band who mixed their love of ’60s Rock and Psychedelia with a Punk edge, creating a unique and influential sound. Features radio favorites like ‘Gravity’ and ‘O Lazarus’. Wounded Bird. 2007.
List Price: $ 13.98
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Through the milk and honey of a broken-promised land,
Translator created a very psychedelic band portrait on their self-titled third album. It was almost as if they locked themselves away with a copy of “Revolver” and emerged with the ten songs here. There’s everything from the driving politics of “Another American Night” (one of my all time favorite Translator songs) to the trippy guitar and fake fade out on “New Song.” This was also a harder sounding album, courtesy of a producer shift from David Kahne to Ed Stasium (Ramones, Talking Heads, Marshall Crenshaw).
The result may be the most consistent sounding of the four Translator albums, and my second favorite personally after “Heartbeats & Triggers.” In addition to the great “Another American Night,” there is one of the band’s most optimistic songs here, “Come With Me.”
“So many people we never will meet,
so many hills we will never climb.
But I will be by you on your dead-end street.
One more last, chance one more time!
Come with me, take my hand
through the milk and honey of a broken promised land.”
There are a couple other sublime moments to be had here, like the giddy “Fall Forever” or climactic finale of “Breathless Agony.” Songs, production, and musicianship all came together on this album, and it remains a terrific CD from an unheralded band. I have been madly waiting for this to appear on CD ever since I saw Translator open for the B-52′s in Lewisburg PA when this album had just come out. You can assist in rectifying this oversight (the album has been out of print for decades and this is the first time it’s been released on CD) by getting this – and other Translator CD’s – now.
PS – The bonus live rave-up of “Dizzy Miss Lizzy” is a hoot.
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|Very fine mid-80s American music,
This album came out in 1985, and I played the heck out of it. I’m very happy that Wounded Bird has reissued all of Translator’s four albums. This one contains some of my favorite songs of theirs: “Fall Forever”, “O Lazarus”, and “Breathless Agony”. If you liked good, guitar-based slightly psychedelic rock in the vein of The dBs, The Call, The Rainmakers, and Let’s Active, then you need to grab this one before it goes out of print again.
One last note: I uploaded the cover art, but Amazon has put the back cover first! Sorry guys…
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