COCK ROBIN - Precious Dreams – The Complete Cbs Recordings 1985 – 1990

Remember that old promise made by Cock Robin? Around the mid-Eighties they seemed to have all it takes to conquer the world, but after just three albums the whole thing fell apart due to a series of romantic entanglements. So, by the dawn of the following decade, the San Francisco band had vanished from the radar entirely, only to attempt an unexpected reunion in 2006 that produced a handful of largely forgettable works, which — judging by the meager sales — only the most die-hard fans and precious few others ever noticed. In any case, this collection, "Precious Dreams – The Complete Cbs Recordings 1985-1990", focuses exclusively on the albums from the golden years, reissuing in full and remastered form the self-titled "Cock Robin", "After Here Through Midland" and "First Love/Last Rites", along with the B-sides of the related singles and several twelve-inch remixes.

The American group originally consisted of four members: Texan keyboardist, bassist and songwriter Peter Kingsbery, English guitarist Clive Wright, Pennsylvania-born drummer Louis Molino III and sultry singer and percussionist Anna LaCazio, born in California to an Italian father and a Chinese mother. They never managed to break through in their home market, but from the start they achieved enormous popularity in Europe, where the hit "The Promise You Made" reached the top of the charts practically everywhere, remaining forever etched in the collective imagination as one of the most seductive images of 80s-made sophisti-pop, alongside hits by Roxy Music, Scritti Politti, The Blue Nile, Frazier Chorus and Prefab Sprout.

Produced by the seasoned Steve Hillage, known for his work with Simple Minds, Real Life, Robyn Hitchcock and Murray Head, the first self-titled album from 1985 contains at least a couple more top-notch tracks. Take, for instance, the poignant ballad "When Your Heart Is Weak", the band's very first single, sung solely by Kingsbery and their only 45 to make any headway on the US charts, or the lively duet "Thought You Were On My Side".

So be careful about hastily branding them as a "one-hit wonder", since the rest of the tracklist features songs that are less well-known but no less distinguished, such as "A Little Innocence", "Just When You're Having Fun", "More Than Willing" and "Because It Keeps On Working", skillfully built on elegant arrangements and romantic, wave-flavored atmospheres, while "Once We Might Have Known" and "Born With Teeth" break up the slower passages with a pleasant uptick in pace.

The second album, "After Here Through Midland", from 1987, was instead entrusted to Don Gehman, but the result doesn't change and remains a substantial work. Clive Wright and Louis Molino III left the band, and the new producer — highly regarded for helming "Hurts So Good" by John Mellencamp and "Life's Rich Pageant" by Rem — replaced them with a dense array of session musicians, including Brian Kilgore on conga, Denny Fongheiser and Tim Pierce.

The sound becomes rougher and grittier, with the splendid "Just Around The Corner" as the standout, which once again oddly fails to storm the English-speaking charts but sets the rest of the old continent alight, particularly in France, where Peter Kingsbery settled permanently, becoming from then on a bona fide local favorite.

"The Biggest Fool Of All" and "El Norte" (named after a film by Gregory Nava) are the other highlights of an LP that has no weak spots and also boasts the excellent "I'll Send Them Your Way", "Another Story" and "Every Moment", all marked by delicate midtempo cadences and the duo's soft vocal interplay, as tight-knit on stage as in life. Also worth noting are "Open Book", "Blood Of A Saint" and "For Dear Life" (B-sides of "Just Around The Corner", "The Biggest Fool Of All" and "El Norte" respectively), blessed with admirable songwriting and foreshadowing the smooth adult-contemporary formula that would characterize their third album, the 1989 "First Love/Last Rites", no less effective than its predecessors despite its troubled genesis.

By the time they entered the recording studio, Peter Kingsbery and Anna LaCazio's love story was in fact going through a deep crisis that would soon lead to their breakup, and the lyrics — more pained and anguished than ever (above all "Win Or Lose" and the singles "Straighter Line" and "Worlds Apart") — clearly bear the marks of it. "One Joy Bang" (enriched by horns), the impassioned "Any More Than I Could Understand" and "My First Confession" reflect, starting with their very titles, that turbulent moment which, however, despite the couple's irreconcilable differences, does nothing to dent the duo's well-established artistic chemistry, captured here in a compositional effort of rare melodic refinement.

A cut above the rest are "Stumble And Fall", "For Experience Sake" and the poetic "Hunting Down A Killer", while the Spanish-tinged experiment "Manzanar" fares a little less well, attempting — with scant success — to revive the group's by-then-flagging commercial ambitions through the addition of clumsy mariachi instrumentation.

At this point Peter Kingsbery and Anna LaCazio went their separate ways, only to cross paths again in the studio several years later, even though the high point of their musical career can be said to have ended precisely with "First Love/Last Rites". It's a shame they lasted so briefly and perhaps reaped less than they deserved, but at least they kept their word: judging by the quality of these three albums, it's fair to say Cock Robin made good on that old promise.

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13/04/2024