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Terrorvision

From page 75 of Classic Rock Magazine June 2011

Cover of June 2011 issue.

Super Deluxe TOTAL VEGAS

A cracking comeback, plus an introspective groove from Gary Wright’s two bands.

Y orkshire’s happiest men return, but have they still got the Wright stuff? It’s ten long years since Terrorvision released an album, 2001’s Good To Go . After a career spent creating some of Britrock’s most shamelessly effervescent music – rock club favourite Oblivion and boozy surprise No.2 hit Tequila among them – they split up. And, bar a few reunion shows in the last few years, it seemed like the end of the road for the Keighley boys.

But it’s hard to keep a group of men this thoroughly excited about life down, so they’re back, albeit minus drummer Shutty. And if you’re expecting the years in the wilderness to have beaten the sense of fun out of them, you’re going to be sorely disappointed, because they’re the same old “everything’s brilliant ” goons they ever were. Phew. The glass is not half full on Super Deluxe , it’s fizzing over the sides and making the table sticky. Clocking in at a snappy 35 minutes, from rollicking opener Demolition to the near ska bounce of Pushover ( ‘You told me you like rock music,’ taunts Tony Wright, reclaiming the scene that made him. ‘ But I caught you dancing to Madonna ’), the beaming Yorkshire rockabilly of All The Girls Wanna Dance to the beer-boy swagger and credit crunch envy of Shiny Things ,

this is an excitable Labrador pup of a record. It’s not cool, it might well wee on your carpet, but it’s hard not to find it lovable all the same.

Frontman Wright’s other band, Laika Dog, soundtrack the hangover to Terrorvision’s balloon-waving party, with booze paranoia seeping out of its pores. Like the astronaut dog they’re named after, Laika Dog have their heads up in the stars, the spacey Hawkwind groove of Out Of Control peppered with the odd tremulous riff that’s pure U2. This is the box where Wright keeps his regrets and fears, mournfully looking back on all the mistakes he’s made in life on the self-flagellating Church Of Sin , before wallowing in his own perceived averageness in the sad and sludgy My Kinda Luck . Leaving Terrorvision’s boorish bounce behind, Laika Dog is more considered, looking to Led Zeppelin for inspiration, although the sprawling Frozen Kiss shares more with MOR types like the Eagles.

It’s unlikely they’ll repeat the heady Tequila -fuelled days of 1999, but with Terrorvision providing the Yin to Laika Dog’s Yang, it sounds like life’s a ball for these irrepressible men.

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