ABC

Beauty Stab

Toss that Synth and gimmee an electric guitar.

Review Score:

(8/10)
They got it perfect on the very first try, and the pressure rocked them to their core. By the time ABC was preparing "Beauty Stab," they'd lost their drummer, and by the time it was done, it was just Martin Fry and Mark White left to move on to "Zillionaire." All that tension shows clearly on "Beauty Stab's" opener, the ripping "That Was Then, But This Is Now." Trevor Horn's smoother than gilded glass was replaced my Gary Langan's harsher but no less slick sound. Also gone was the lush romanticism of the debut, replaced by more rocking social concerns. If it weren't obvious enough, the first two lines Fry belts out are "Why make the past your sacred cow? Guess you've changed, you've changed and how." The politics of dancing were thusly replaced by the likes of politically contemptuous songs along the lines of "Bite The Hand." (To put this in perspective, this was also around the same period as the Falkland Islands war, a rather dirty moment in British History.)

The odd thing about "Beauty Stab" is, as hard as they tried, ABC was just too self-conscious to really get all the way on board the Led Zepplin. They were just too tasteful ("she's vegetarian except when it comes to sex" from "Unzipped" not withstanding) for that, and it actually made "Beauty Stab" a better record. Having Roxy Music sidemen Andy Newmark and Alan Spenner as your rhythm team certainly made the power sound precise, (and the Roxy comparisons obvious), and the sax solos kept the band still inside the boundaries of the burgeoning new wave movement. Unfortunately, all the fans who were looking for a second "Look Of Love" were scratching their heads over this album and the singles didn't catch on. That left "Beauty Stab" limping like they'd shot themselves in the foot, and the band never got this dark again. That's too bad, because, next to their debut, "Beauty Stab" is my second favorite ABC record.

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