Polyrock (1980)

In retrospect maybe my favorite thing about this album now is Philip Glass sitting in on piano and keyboards—basically a member of the band. He's also formally a coproducer with Kurt Munkacsi. But Polyrock and Polyrock (their first album) are also examples of a nervous, twitchy type of new wave that I tend to go for, typified by Talking Heads, the B-52s, Blancmange, and the Tom Tom Club, which are obvious influences here, although of course in the first place Glass is more of an influence on them, so it's all kind of a moebius strip in a way. It's further complicated because Glass was not the leader of Polyrock although he produced. Maybe he was thinking of himself in 1980 as Brian Eno with his own rock band finds. The leader of Polyrock is singer and guitarist Billy Robertson, who wrote all the songs here with his brother Tommy. Billy, who died in 2018, may well be the yelpiest of this whole new wave class, a master of vocal anxiety like David Byrne, making you nervous just to hear it. It suits the quick tempos of the band's attack anyway: chukka-chik guitar rhythms and great guitar effects, a drummer working the high-hat, soaring harmonies like washes of color, and synthesized keyboards setting the main tone, sounding the melodies, marking the bridges, delivering the washes. It is tense and coiled music, but more nervous than menacing, like a day of drinking one coffee too many. It is always inviting with abandoned dance grooves. The whole thing runs under 35 minutes and works well like an informal suite building to multiple and various highs. It notably takes off on the third track, "This Song," guitar-driven with Star Trek vocals by way of the harmonies of Catherine Oblasney and Billy, occasionally interrupted by a more sweaty Billy. Sublime ultimately. Then who's mashing the keyboard on "Go West"? It could be any one of three or perhaps combinations (I keep wanting to know what Glass is doing on every track). Crazy blubbulous noise groove. "Bucket Rider" is another with an absolutely neck-snapping rhythm, an instrumental this time. Six of these 11 songs are under three minutes—the new wave aesthetic. "Your Dragging Feet," the longest at 4:58, is virtually epic in this environment, with another showcase for Oblasney and Billy. Nice to hear this one again.