Album Review: Crash N' Burn, "Fever"

Little more than a year ago Anglo-German rockers RIFF captured my interest, playing second fiddle to then label mates DRIVE SHE SAID. They were already mighty promising and now, renamed CRASH N' BURN, and signed to RCA, they're beginning to fulfil those initial positive indications.

However, it has to be said that my immediate response to the band's imminent opus was somewhat reserved until, with repeated plays, Fever crept into my system with all the insidious power of a particularly virulent virus. Fortunately, just two exceptions withstanding (in the shape of "Dancing With the Devil" and "Bump and Grind" - both R N' R sleazehem of a decidedly less than enthralling nature), what ya catch is actually very healthy.

Straight in with the hip-shakin' CROWES-esque blues of first single "Hot Like Fire," Crash N' Burn combine Deep South Blues (play "Fade Away" on a summer's day and watch the air shimmer), hypnotic and eclectic new age rock ("Ride the Rainbow"), soft rock melodies with R N'B embellishments ("So Close to Me") and mellow true blue(s) nostalgia ("Singing the Blues").

Alongside William Lennox's insistent, even toned vocals (not a wild scream in sight - bliss!), guitarist Frank Becking paints a plethora of moods with a six string sass that ranges from mellow cords through to riotous rockin' riffs. Impeccably produced by John Hampton (ZZ TOP), ultimately Fever's great strength is a compelling versatility that defines the restrictive bounds of rock N' roll categorization. This fire will be burning for quite some time.

Grade B-

Lyn Guy
Riff Raff
September 1991

Revenge...?

Riff Raff was a legendary rock magazine based in London in the late 1980s and 1990s. Edited by the ultimate music biz insider, Mark Crampton, and employing such talents as Mark Blake, Jerry Ewing, Mike Harris, Paul Smith, Chris Collingwood, Alan McCrorie, Simon Robinson, Lyn Guy, Anna Marx, Nick Douglas, Marion Garden, Peter "Grunty" Grant, Joe "The Crow" Mackett, Billy "The Kluck" Kulke, and, lastest and mostest, the incredible Liddell Brothers, Mark (a.k.a. "El Perro") and Colin (a.k.a. "Der Fly"). Unfortunately, Riff Raff was just too R n' R for its own good. A genuine working class rock mag, written, edited, and translated into 16 European languages in a drug-N-Jack-D-fuelled haze, often on the back of motorbikes, with spell checking by our staff of attentive rock bimbos (chosen purely for their blondeness and big knockers), it soon fell behind more trainspotterly, nerdish, and politically correct publications like Q, Kerrang, Mojo, Metal Hammer, and Horse & Hound. This website is an archive and kind of shrine dedicated to the writing of its greatest writers, some of whom, luckily for the Rock Kosmos, still continue to write about music. This is the REVENGE of Riff Raff...Rock on!