Suburbs (the) - Love is the Law

Name: The Suburbs 
Album: Love is the Law
Year: 1983
Style: New Wave, College Radio, Art Rock
Similar Bands: Wolfgang Press, Alarm, Bram Tchiakovski, Fad Gadget, Roxy Music
"One-Word" Review: Dark Cowwave
Based Out Of: Minneapolis, MN
Label: PolyGram, Mercury

Cover, Sleeve, Record

Back, Lyrics, Record

Love is the Law (1983)

1. Love is the Law 4:41 (single)
2. Monster Man 3:15
3. Rattle My Bones 3:25
4. Skin 4:22
5. Accept Me Baby 3:46 /
6. Hell A 4:30
7. Perfect Communist 5:05
8. Rainy Day 5:00
9. Crazy Job 5:04

Album Rating (1-10): 8.5

Members & Other Bands:

• Steven Greenberg - Producer, Engineer (Lipps Inc)
• Paul Stark - Producer, Engineer, Recording, Mixing
• Edouard Manet - Cover Painting
• Bruce C Allen - Guitar, Art Direction (Buzzwel) 
• Blaine John Chaney - Beejtar, Vox
• Michael Halliday - Bass 
• Hugo Klaers - Drums (Buzzwell, Creatures of Habit, 
• Chan Poling - Keys Vox (The New Standards, Buzzwell, Lucy Michelle, Replacements, A Few, Bobby Z, Slim Dunlap)
• Scott Snyder - Trumpet (Willie Murphy, Bonnie Raitt, Dr. John, Bettye LaVette, Temptations, Four Tops. CC Septet, Century College Jazz Ensemble, St. Croix Jazz Orch, Emperors of Jazz Dixieland Band, Explodo Boys, Raggs)
• Tom Burnevik - Sax (Lamont Cranston Band, Curtiss A, Soul Asylum)
• Terri Paul - Backing Vox (Fine Art)
• Howie Weinberg - Mastering
• Laurie S Allen - Photos
• Lonni Ranallo - Photos
• Haga Photography - Photos

Unknown-ness: Never heard of this band, but the cover art of choice makes for a bleak dreary musical guess. Counterbalancing that, though is the collage of photos, patches, cards, and art on the back. I'm gonna guess this will be something like brainy college rock, jangley and meandering just for the sake of sounding complex 

Album Review: So the album itself is not that great. Solid music, but lots of talking, dialogue-like vocals. The appeal is the couple of stand out tracks like the single & title track (with great sax hook), "Rattle My Bones" (which is a little embarrassing with its "knee bone connected to the thigh bone" lyrics) and the driving synthy, video-game like "Skin" with multiple hooks. The rest of the album is cold & dark, like an underground beatnik coffee bar. There is weariness and knowledge in the singers voice. But it is a record that could only be produced in the 80's.
They quickly became a fixture on the Minneapolis music scene in the late 70's, gaining fans like Bruce Springsteen, and opening for B-52's and Iggy Pop brought them across the country. They flipped between a bunch of labels and broke up 10 years after their start in 1987. But like most bands of that era, one-off reunions could not be denied and they even put out new crowd funded records in 2013 and 2017. They even received a star outside of Minneapolis nightclub First Ave for contributing a major affect to Minne's music scene and selling out shows at the venue. Their single Love is the Law was approved for use as the theme song for the campaign to legalize same-sex marriage. 

Stand Out Track: Love is the Law, Skin, Rattle My Bones

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