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Album Details

• Artist: Adverts
• Album: Crossing The Red Sea With The Adverts
• Label:
• Year of Release: 1978
• Original Release: 2002
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: charlesmartel on 2011-09-30

The heady days of punk in the UK in 1977 and 1978 brought a lot of new faces to the music scene. Some of these morphed and stuck around. Others faded away. But the infusion of new talent and new ideas into the music scene was a shot in the arm the effects of which are still felt today, over thirty years on. One of those bands who burst onto the scene and then disappeared were the Adverts.

Led by Tim (TV) Smith, the Adverts had a selling point which few of their contemporaries could match. With her panda make-up eyes and mane of black hair, TV Smith's girlfriend (later wife) Gaye Advert put some glamour into punk rock where it had been distinctly lacking before. Yet at the same time she was a distraction, and many derided her presence in the band as mere window dressing. But on listening to any release by the Adverts, such as Crossing the Red Sea with the Adverts, their debut album, you could hear that she was talented to an equal level as any other member of the band.

Yet the Adverts had a poor reputation among many in the music press as being at the lower end of ability among the punks who, generally speaking, were neither known for nor desired to be, known for their musical competence. The band knew this, and certainly played to it. It is no coincidence that the album opens with "One Chord Wonders". And for those who can remember that far back, there were the posters put out for the band's first nationwide tour backing the Damned - It is said the Damned know only three chords and the Adverts only one. Hear all four at...

At times, the album does perhaps pander a bit too much to this negative stereotype. The sound is frequently poor, with the guitars coming across as cheap and tinny, the vocals whiny and the whole thing too bass heavy. The three singles and their b-sides are an improvement, if only because they capture the rawness and energy of the band much more than the later album versions of the same songs did. As for the live tracks, well they are something of a disappointment. The gig they were taken from was not exactly a high point in the band's musical career - backing Sham 69 with their notoriously intolerant and thuggish skinhead following was not an ideal medium for them. And at times the sound skims the surface of the chaotic performances which their earlier career saw all too often.

But to say the band lacked talent is to do them an injustice. They may have learned their instruments as they went along, but they were certainly no slouches when it came to writing catchy hooks and clever lyrics. Oh yes, the lyrics are certainly clever. TV Smith had a knack for putting some pithy observations into clever words and anything more than a cursory listen to the album will be able to identify that.

The result is that the album contains a series of songs which reflect the times and the political and social stance of the Adverts as a group of individuals. "Bored Teenagers" and "No Time to Be 21" are almost anthemic in their statements of youth frustration and disillusionment with the times in which they lived. "On Wheels" was a scathing condemnation of attitudes towards disabled people - something which is as relevant today as it was then - while "Safety in Numbers" showed up the punks' anti-establishment mentality for what it all too often was, running with the herd as much as those who ran with the establishment herd.

But if the Adverts will be known in years to come for anything it will be their sole hit single, "Gary Gilmore's Eyes", which earned them an appearance on Top of the Pops no less. Inspired by the execution of the eponymous killer who wished his organs be donated for science, the track contains clever lyrics and conveys the fascination and the horror of seeing through the eyes of a murderer. Topical at the time and still resonant today, given that Gilmore's quest to be executed brought the death penalty back to the US, it remains the band's outstanding track and their lasting testament.

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