Though it’s not a category I remember reading about in any music mag polls during the 1980s, if you were to suggest candidates for the “Best New Wave Cold War Album – Ever!” then FISCHER Z’s “Red Skies Over Paradise” would surely find itself top of the heap.
Even more significantly, when you consider that FISCHER Z’S power pop nous landed somewhere between THE POLICE’S punky white reggae and THE JAM’S adrenalized, chart-topping invective, it’s likely that had either of these notables released “Red Skies Over Paradise” it would instantly have landed in the Top 5.
But life’s rarely so perfect and while STING and PAUL WELLER continue to catch the bouquets, FISCHER Z’S enigmatic singer/ songwriter JOHN WATTS’ reputation gathers dust along with the Cold War relics that this – his group’s fabulous third album – is so preoccupied with.
Actually, I’m loathe to refer to FISCHER Z as a great lost power trio, as their previous LP releases, 1979’s “World Salad” and the quirkily memorable “Going Deaf For A Living” also featured fourth FISCHER, STEVE SKOLNIK, whose departure left Watts to add the synth colouring here. Nonetheless, the guitars are vigorously cranked here and the band – keen to better previous minor hits like “The Worker” and “First Impressions (Pretty Paracetamol)” – sound energized and focussed.
Fittingly, for a record so concerned with the Arms Race, the opening track is called “Berlin” and its’ strident militaristic feel sets the tone perfectly, with Watts’ dramatic images (“The signed pictures of film stars who stayed here/ In eras that know of no wall”) twisting like vintage Len Deighton.
The title track gets even more specific, a direct comment on the Nuclear aftermath in Brighton(!) shifting gear beautifully from a mid-paced reggae lope to the all-out chorus where Watts spits out “Down in the bunker, under the sea, men pressing buttons don’t care about me!” The epic “Cruise Missiles” meanwhile, gets to grips with a favourite Cold War tabloid subject. Here, Watts sounds even more incredulous, musing that we’re “Pointing rockets at the Russians/ and hope they don’t end up in Greece.”
Yet, it’s when Watts gets personal that “Red Skies” really lights up. To this day, I can’t understand how the pre-LP single “Marliese” failed. It’s got everything: a vendetta-based lyrical theme involving a movie star ex-girlfriend, tension galore and the sort of chorus that should have us all re-evaluating our feelings about great POWER POP. There. I said it.
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The album’s other failed 45 “Wristcutter’s Lullaby” begins the record’s magnificent conclusion. Shortened to “Cutter’s Lullaby” in hope of airplay, it’s still emotionally-charged and tinged with palpable regret, before giving way first to “Cruise Missiles”, then the desolate keyboard refrain “Luton To Lisbon” and finally the fear-laden roller coaster of ”Multinationals Bite”, the subject matter of which is still painfully accurate today.
The end result then, is an album every inch as charged, passionate and critical as the day it staggered uneasily out into the turbulent 1980s. The fact that the band’s US label passed on it surely helping explain why it’s drifted into oblivion. Particularly ironic when you consider it made significant strides in Europe for the band.
But accessibility and idiosyncrasies are both favoured bedfellows here with JOHN WATTS and after “Red Skies” he split FISCHER Z to pursue initially solo musings and finally reconvene a new FISCHER Z in the late 1980s (with no sign of drummer Liddle or bassist Graham, but a return of Skolnik) to sporadic success in Europe and Australia with albums like 1989’s “Fish Head” and 1992’s “Destination Paradise.”
Ultimately, while WATTS’ offbeat songcraft and his manic, PETE TOWNSHEND-influenced vocals have led him down the (probably inevitable) cult cul-de-sac like the equally glorious PETER PERRETT; at the very least you should try to wake up to “Red Skies Over Paradise”. Terse, tangible and frequently terrific, it’s an unsettling glimpse into a Cold War-obsessed world almost too scared to draw breath.
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