Why do bands reunite only to piss all over their reputations? Bands that can do it sans vomit are few and far between (no sense giving examples, there's always the chance that ten years from now they'll be just as disgraceful as the rest). Simply Saucer seemed to be one of those bands from the proto-punk era never meant for wider consumption or longevity. Their sole album Cyborgs Revisited--initially released over ten years after the band had disintegrated--managed to capture a unique brand of howling post-prog with the distortion turned way up and a penchant for convoluted poppiness a la Syd Barrett. All the band's best recordings come from the Cle-punk no-man's-land era when the Electric Eels and Rocket From the Tombs were labouring in obscurity. A time that held a lot of promise, but isn't easily revisited or recaptured. Unfortunately, on this release that's just what Simply Saucer attempts to do. And fails. Jeepers, do they ever fail!
It would be silly to think that they'd pick up where they left off thirty years ago, but one would expect a certain forward-thinking attitude, right? I mean there are parts of Cyborgs Revisited that people still haven't caught up to--portions of "Illegal Bodies", for example, where the guitar just iiiiiiinches into cacophony. That's some Stacy Sutherland shit from the Deep South, only in East Coast VU territory. So of course I was pretty excited to see that there's a version of that on the live portion of this new disc (yes, half studio half live--that's what the title's punning on, and puns are always a bad sign). Unfortunately, every other track on the album is some sort of sub-"We're Gonna Have a Real Good Time Together" boogie-thrust (with the exception of the excellent-but-slight version of "Mole Machine" and the uninspired take on "Low Profile", the original demo of which was profoundly uninspired sounding in the first place). And the "Illegal Bodies" cover isn't even worth the price of admission, sadly. It's too on track, no sense of chaos threatens, and we're never given the satisfaction of hearing them burn the shit down. In fact, there's a middle portion where they all do coordinated slams, and it sounds perfectly contrived. The rest of the album is exhortations along the lines of "Now's the Time For the Party", the lyrics of which concern, well, partying. There are several more songs along those lines: "Almost Ready Betty" and "Get My Thrills" both sound so uninspired that anyone who actually feels like having a good time after hearing them should have their pulse check.
Ok, ok, ok. I should have seen this coming, as the expanded version of Cyborgs Revisited shows that the band had long lost their innovative origins by the time of their sole contemporary release: the "I Can Change My Mind"/"She's A Dog" 7" from 1978. Along those lines, the post-album demos for songs like "Low Profile" and "Bullet Proof Nothing" have a certain degree of charm, but are entirely lacking in rawness and daring. However, considering that these recordings have been available for over ten years, and the critical concensus remains that they are dogshit, one would expect bandleader Edgar Breau to have revived a somewhat more savage version of his more greatly appreciated era. I suppose that back in the day these concessions made Simply Saucer a compelling live band--just a little more daring than their Ontario contemporaries like Teenage Head, but still tuneful. In retrospect, it seems obvious that once synth-operator Ping Romany had left the band, the blips and bleeps were not the only things jettisoned, but all the curvaceous song structures as well.
This release stands as an all-too-frequent reminder of the fact that bands can almost never recapture the initial energy that made them viable in the first place. Now, I'm not saying it isn't worth trying, because when things work out, it's usually pretty worthwhile. However, even at it's most high-minded, a reunion can't be much more than an attempt to cash in--whether fiscally or just on some respect now that the rest of the world has caught up. But once the world catches up, going from "ahead of the curve" to "greatest hits and saggy beer guts" is no glorious end. And ultimately that's why a product like this album is so completely unnecessary: it's a permanent reminder that recapturing any period from a bygone era just leaves you cold and unsatisfied. And wanting to listen to the first half of Cyborgs Revisited, pretending the reunion never happened.
