David J Album: On Glass Label: Glass Records - 1986 1 2:55 The Promised Land 2 7:10 I Can't Shake the Shadow of Fear 3 3:29 Saint Jackie 4 3:49 A Seducer, A Doctor, A Card You Cannot Trust 5 5:16 Crocodile Tears and the Velvet Cosh Revisited 6 2:45 Ship of Fools 7 2:38 Night of the Silver Veil 8 3:30 4 Hours (by Adi Newton/Clock DVA) 9 2:20 The Conjurers Hand 10 3:21 This Vicious Cabaret 11 11:00 V's Theme (intro)/Incidental/V's Theme (Outro) 12 1:30 The Party's Over (by ) My picks: 2, 3, 9, 10 10 is the reason I listened to this: it's about the Alan Moore graphic novel "V". Lotta of junk here, though (e.g. cut 11 stay away!). cut by cut: 1 fast rock with horn 2 one min intro: monster grunts/flip notes/sitar then basic upbeat rock instrumental for a minute (which it would be better without)/ then vox comes in... "Under the hammer,under the sickle", "Rule Brittania rules the waves and the river will be sold"... OK 3 guitar fades in, kind of dubby beat. Nice ditty about "Actresses torturess Saint jackie", who "maintains that bondage is for the free" 4 slow piano lead, weird sound effect punctuates each line, which is okay... "adversity fueled desire", "stare into the sun, speak into the mike, is this your idea of fun?" 5 light guitar strum and vox. Lyrics seem kind of weak. 6 light guitar rock sound "guess we must be getting close to tombstone", "hang on, it won't be long"... This reminds me an awful lot of John Cale. Like a bouncy version of "Buffalo Ballet"? "picked up Bela Lugosi in mephis, it was just about break of day, and we hastily prayed for our souls to be saved", "This ship of fools must sail, make sure they all get home for Christmas". I dunno, something feels off about this one. 7 horns back again, slow rock, husky vox. Eh. Not awful. 8 Slow rock thing punctuated with a fast chorus all with touches of sax, and somehow I think I like the Clock DVA version better. 9 Just when I thought it was all junk... this cut's okay really. Some slow sax, on a fast beat, with mostly tense fast vox, and weird vocals... "a golden lie, a golden dust, spread like a conjurors hand" or something like that. 10 Good, a nice competent version, maybe a little slick sounding, high male vox (imitating a woman?), cabaret sounding piano, a few too many "at least the trains run on time/but they don't go anywhere" Based on the graphic novel "V", written by Alan Moore... and aren't some of these words written by him? Not attributed on the disk. 11 Eh. Cheesy synth organ sound, trying to sound like Beehtovehn? Like a Hunchback of Notre Dame theme? Bleh. (2 minutes of this junk!) then quiet, a drone, and military drum rolls. bursts of simple piano angular piano alternates with spacey stuff. OK, but not worth the intro, or I'm sure the outro... which comes in at abut 10 mins to go, and only lasts for a minute. This one screams soundbed. Skip first 2mins though. 12 Simple husky vocals (tom waites imitation?)