Notes & Personnel Info |  | Vis-?-Vis has immediate and satisfying jangle pop sensations in "Miles Away," the revved-up "Dear Prudence"-inspired "Snowblind," and the exquisitely son-of-Raspberries "Just for You." For all the extraordinary good points this album contains -- and there are many -- the band just misses the mark by not thinking in terms of a number one smash. Take "Name of the Game," a song title that ABBA utilized more efficiently, as just one example. Cars drummer David Robinson referred to Bj?rn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson of ABBA as true "craftsmen" -- and that is all that is missing from the first side of Fotomaker's second disc. They are a terrific pop band in need of a production team, an Ulvaeus and Andersson, to take it all to the next level. But despite the lack of a big smash single, leadoff track "Miles Away" getting to only bubble under the Top 40, side two holds some very pleasant surprises. "If I Can't Believe in You" and "Two Way Street" are both in-the-pocket, dreamy FM-friendly material, the first borrowing heavily from John Lennon's "God," the second finding inspiration in McGuinness Flint, some of the majesty you know these guys had in them from former glories. "Make It Look Like an Accident" follows the same routine and shows real promise. "Sweet Lies" is a bit of an oddity -- gritty and charging, it could be mistaken for Bachman-Turner Overdrive lite, but still manages to survive surrounded by better song structure. Vis-?-Vis had all the elements except for that perfectly positioned monster hit. It's really a shame, as this disc -- and the group's career -- deserved a better fate. ~ Joe Viglione | | The power pop almost-supergroup Fotomaker's first album was very strong, full of good songs and excellent performances and sounding very much like one would expect a band with a former member of the Raspberries on board. Their second album, Vis-?-Vis, fumbles away any success that the first album might have brought by being markedly inferior and so slick that it almost slides right off the turntable. It is a very thin-sounding album with all the instruments separated and clinically recorded; it lacks any sense of excitement at all, which is what the best power pop has to have. For the most part, the songs lack hooks and the arrangements are flat and unimaginative. Only a couple of songs ("Miles Away" and "Come Back") have any of the spirit and verve that the songs on the first album did. They are not enough to make up for bad songs like the plodding "Name of the Game," the generic piano-led trifle "Does She Dance," and the bar band-lite blues-rocker "Snowblind." The first record sounded like it was made by a bunch of rockers who couldn't believe their luck at finding each other and also finding a great sound. This album sounds like it was made by tired and bored rockers who had run out of ideas. ~ Tim Sendra |
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