Brian Eno is MORE DARK THAN SHARK

INTERVIEWS, REVIEWS & RELATED ARTICLES

New Musical Express JULY 17, 1982 - by Mat Snow

ADRIAN BELEW: LONE RHINO

Even if you didn't know that Adrian Belew has been sideman to Davids Byrne and Bowie, from this, his debut LP, you could have guessed.

Comparisons are inevitable, and, I'm afraid, invidious. His guitar style, midway between Fripp, Alomar and Slick, is bound to recall recent recordings of the Psychokiller and Thin White Duke. Even more so do his awkward vocal and lyrical mannerisms and song construction techniques.

He dabbles in other pools: Eno's Music For Films on Naive Guitar, Hot Sun and The Final Rhino (the best tracks), messy, busy, joyless Zappa jazz-rock fusion on Swingline, and Devo's angular doggerel on The Momur.

But his own ideas never get beyond a primitive phase - certainly they fail to transcend the borrowed styles in which they are expressed.

So, despite its occasional moments of mild exhilaration, this is a tentative, tame, even academic affair. To quote his mentor David Byrne - "Say something once - why say it again?"