Monday, January 6, 2014

The Fatal Flowers

One of the mystery bands of the 80s, The Fatal Flowers came from Amsterdam and made two albums for Atlantic that owed a lot to glam rock, garage rock and anything T Rex although they're a Dutch band.  The late Vic Maile produced Younger Days, and it showed a pub rock side, outdated by 1986 standards but had decent songs.

Their best album Johnny D Is Back!, was produced by Mick Ronson (Ian Hunter, David Bowie) and Richard Janssen revealed his inner Ian Hunter in him.  Although proclaimed the best album in 1988 in (where else?) Amsterdam, Atlantic gave little promotion in the album. and since this was not a hair metal band, The Fatals' were left to be written off as a tax write off.  Atlantic never bothered to issue Younger Days on CD either.  Johnny D Is Back! is a lost classic with the title track, Second Chance and the Mott sounding The Dance as standouts.  Moving over from WEA to Phonogram proved more bad news, their third album never came out in the states (Polygram passed on it) and disgusted with no promo and PR the band broke up.

Nevetheless, the two Atlantic albums do show up in used bins from time to time. And recommended to those with a open mind.

Albums:
Younger Days (Atlantic 1986) B+
Johnny D Is Back! (Atlantic 1988) B+

No comments:

Post a Comment