Flag
was a watershed album for the group. On one hand, it is a refinement of all the ideas the band had been following through the '80s, on the other, in the wake of their high-profile success with
"Oh Yeah,"
Yello
had reached the point where ideas turned into self-parody -- the cover art of
Deiter Meier
and
Boris Blank
pulled together into a human knot is horrifically appropriate. Nothing is a surprise here, apart from how
"The Race"
is a Xerox of their own 1981 song
"Bostich."
Tracks like
"Of Course I'm Lying"
are empty exercises in suave, like late-period
Roxy Music
without the pedigree.
Billy Mackenzie
returns to provide backup vocals on the more romantic tunes. This isn't to say that the album is a dull listen --
"Tied Up,"
repeated here three times on a nine-track album, is a fascinating collage of
Afro-Cuban
rhythms, rain storm effects, drums nicked from a Broadway revue, monkey chatter, basso-profundo lyrics, and screams. Similar thick, eclectic production dogs each track like cologne on a lounge lizard -- too much of a good thing.
saw the decade out with
-- they haven't found their way back since. ~ Ted Mills