The Vapors - New Clear Days [1980] torrent

Chewy power-pop in a shiny new-wave wrapper! The best songs here are right up there with stuff like \"A Hard Day\'s Night\", Badfinger\'s \"No Matter What\" and The Who\'s \"Substitute\" and \"I\'m A Boy\". Not a great deal of stylistic variation, but a great bunch of songs.

Highlights besides the deserved hit \"Turning Japanese\" include the first four songs on Side 2, all superbly constructed and well-sequenced. \"Prisoners\" is relentlessly danceable. \"Trains\" has a whole bunch of different parts and they\'re all catchy as heaven; Sir Paul McCartney would be impressed. \"Letter From Hiro\", closing out the first side, is also very good in a quirky, anthemic sort of way. Very little filler, delicious hooks abound, and there\'s a \"conceptual\" vibe revolving around the pun in the title.

I\'ve had this since the early 1980\'s and listen to it every few months, and it holds up really well. (Gotta admit that the U.S. version, which I bought, is much tighter than the original U.K. release.) The hit single is a change in pace from the rest, really. Letter To Hiro, for example, could easily have been a song by The Jam. So it is that pommie sort of 80s style there, for most of the record.

Lyrically, an album that is generally fairly thoughtful, not about girls, cars and beer, in other words.


David Fenton - vocals, guitar
Howard Smith - drums
Edward Bazalgette - lead guitar
Steve Smith - bass, vocals
produced by Vic Coppersmith-Heaven


1 Spring Collection 2:52
2 Turning Japanese 3:44
3 Cold War 3:57
4 America 2:22
5 Trains 3:26
6 Bunkers 3:54
7 News At Ten 3:18
8 Somehow 3:33
9 Sixty Second Interval 3:52
10 Waiting For The Weekend 3:07
11 Letter From Hiro 6:23
Bonus Tracks
12 Prisoners 2:55
13 Sunstroke 1:57
14 Here Comes The Judge (Live) 6:34
15 News At Ten (Single Version) 3:21
16 Wasted 2:48
17 Talk Talk 3:55
18 Waiting For The Weekend (Single Version) 3:03
19 Billy 5:58