GLORYDAZE Music - Articles: Face Dancer

ARTIST: Face Dancer
ALBUM: This World
LABEL: Capitol
SERIAL: ST-11934
YEAR: 1979
CD REISSUE: 2009, Rock Candy Records (UK), CANDY044

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:

LINEUP: Carey Kress - vocals * Jeff Adams - guitars * David Utter - guitars * Scott McGinn - bass, keyboards * Billy Trainor - drums

TRACK LISTING: 01 Red Shoes * 02 Can't Stand Still * 03 Change * 04 If I Could Kiss You * 05 The Sphinx * 06 Cry Baby * 07 Heart's At Home * 08 Hard To Please * 09 Time Bomb * 10 When You Said

WEBLINKS: www.facedancer.com

Background
A fantastic album, and one which seventies pomp fans constantly refer back to in the archive category. From Maryland, these guys have an different approach, fusing hard pop, pomp, and AOR. Not quite sure how they do it, but hey, it's worth a listen. Their redeeming features would be a comparison to Queen, plus the heavy handed drum work from Trainor, and Jeff Adams magic guitar tone, which resembles that wacky piece of vinyl that was the Russia album. The production afforded by Richie Wise certainly leads Face Dancer to being strikingly unique, but don't get me wrong, these guys may be quirky, but they certainly ain't wacky.

The Songs
Face Dancer standards such as 'Red Shoes' and 'Time Bomb' are as well known today as they were back then. Adam's searing guitar is a standout feature on' Can't Stand Still'. I love the tempo shift in the track 'Change', where the tempo does indeed change from Freddy Mercury flavored slowboat speed, to kick ass acceleration. Check out the midsection where they spin into a frenzied twin guitar attack with Trainor's heavy backbeat providing the metronome. My favorite track is 'If I Could Kiss You', which has some pomp approved keyboards within. Not far behind is the hard htting urgency of 'Cry Baby'. They change tack for the acoustic based 'Heart's At Home' and then head off into Rolling Stones territory with the bluesy 'Hard To Please'.

In Summary
Definitely a band which plays in a tongue and cheek style, and their sound is either gonna turn you on or off, depending which side of the bed you sleep on. The band followed this up with their second album 'About Face' a year later, a more straight forward effort. Despite falling off the planet for a few years, the band did occasionally get together for a reunion gig or two. And out of the blue, came a reunion album of sorts: 'Midnite Raid' which came out as a private pressing in 1990, and considering it's in CD format, is now about as rare as anything. As many regular readers of this site are aware, Face Dancer returned to the scene during 2003. All of their studio albums were re-released on CD, plus a live album was released during 2003. Refer to the reviews elsewhere on Glory Daze.

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