Pseudo Echo - Love an Adventure (Part One)

Pseudo Echo has everything that was awesome about '80s synth music. These guys were right in the same wheelhouse as Ultravox, Simple Minds, or OMD, or ABC (sort of) - well, a lot of bands, even Depeche Mode but not really, more like Psychedelic Furs. I find it strange that when the big dump of acts from Australia that overwhelmed the airwaves here by bands like Ice House and The Church, that Pseudo Echo wasn't in that mix, they were really good. Sure, one could argue they were a little derivative, I'd argue that when hair metal was a thing that was the height of derivative rock - and I loved an awful lot of it. 

Apparently their version of "Funkytown" was big in Canada, but I don't remember it - at all. At the time I didn't realize the original album was released in Australia in 1985 with a different track order. By the time this was released here in 1987 it suffered the same fate as Angel City's Face to Face - it was a cobbled together effort to gain an international audience. Three tracks from the band's earlier release Autumnal Park were re-recorded for the international release, which isn't a bad thing - they're great songs.

It's too bad RCA didn't at least spring for a proper photo shoot. The cover is a generic out of focus picture of four young men with mullets not knowing where to look or how to hold their hands. I think my favourite is the band's drummer Vince Leigh, who made a fist with one hand and then with the other hand poked his index finger into the other fist. If I described that correctly you're getting the right image. This was likely a subliminal message to potential groupies not to forget the drummer. To make this seem even cheaper the back cover crops out the head shots and uses them again.

As an album that I'm coming to very late I'm somewhat torn being really really loving this while also comparing it to everything else I picked up over the years and the worst I can say is this could be be lumped in a host of other generic '80s bands. Sure, it may be a tad generic, just like the cover art, but I have to say I've played the album several times today and I really like it. I mentioned Simple Minds, and Brian Canham's voice often bears more than a passing resemblance to Jim Kerr.

Musically the album sounds almost two bands. The first side has more edge, a lot more guitar and is more rock oriented, while still having the '80s vibe. While the second side is more techno and dance oriented. This isn't a hard and fast of course but it felt that way. I'll have to go and look at the original track order on the Australian release and see if this was re-sequenced to make this more pronounced.

I read a review that basically called the album a bait and switch as nothing else sounded like their cover of "Funkytown" and really didn't fit with the rest of the songs. Maybe, but I'd argue that where the song is sequenced on the second side it flows, and the title track "Love an Adventure" kicks off with disco strings a syncopated kick drum and is setting the stage for more dance oriented music. With their '80s infused "Funkytown" with the big drums and in your face guitars sandwiched between the rocking version of "Destination Unknown" and the generic ballad "Lonely Without You" it totally works and is not out of place. Besides the album closes out with "Lies are Nothing" where the band had moved totally into the dance vein.

All in all, I really liked this. After all, who doesn't love and adventure?