Fire of Love

Alright, another 1980s punk/new wave album. Interestingly, the band is American rather than British like most of the random new wave bands. It does have some blues and country influences in the guitar playing, but mostly just sounds like basic post-punk. The songwriting isn't very notable, and neither are the lyrics. While the songs are energetic, none of them are particularly enjoyable, and the album is more boring than anything else. The vocalist is actually very annoying at times, and it's pretty much the only thing on the album that inspires actual emotion. An absolute nothingburger of an album that is rightfully consigned to the dustbin of history.

Was stoked to dive into this record. My knowledge of music history is sparse but I know from listening to a lot of modern bands that I'm always excited when I get to discover new punk and rock records. The cover art is simple but effective, and I was liking it... Up until the gratuitous use of the n-word. It may be him doing a character or playing up the absurdity. Maybe it isn't serious enough for me to be so harsh, and I can tell its genre mixing of punk and blues was novel for its time. But using this album as my only reference, to me it's just not excusable every which way you slice it. It really was shaping up to be 3 stars but I bumped it down to a 1. Beyond that, there are quite a few enjoyable songs, but it did become a little repetitive as I listened through.

Sounds like punk paying homage to its roots (rock). It was an interesting blend of singing and talk-singing, but the vocalist is out of tune, which took away from my listening experience (2.5-3).

Jamais écouté avant.

J'en espérais beaucoup, mais c'est loupé... Un album pionnier, sans doute, mais le mélange de punk et d'americana ne fonctionne pas vraiment ici. L'agression punk est édulcorée, le chant est brouillon, les inspirations blues n'ajoutent pas suffisamment d'âme et de vista mélodique pour compenser. D'autres feront tellement mieux avec les mêmes ingrédients...

Top : Sex Beat
Flop : For the Love of Ivy

Like proto-Pixies. Fab.

The Cramps + Velvet Underground + Television + Rolling Stones + The Clash and mix in delta blues.

Sorry libérals but I like post punk. It's like punk but they deliver packages too. Unfortunately no catchy parcels

Favorite track(s): Sex Beat, She's Like Heroin to Me, For the Love of Ivy, Ghost on the Highway

Kind of repetitive but still enjoyable

this was dope, i like punk

It's weird, but good.

Kinda like a hillbilly discovering punk for the first time. The vocals are a bit weak in places, but the slide guitar carries it well.

I'm gonna show my hand pretty early here: this is sick as hell. I think cow punk and adjacent genres are usually awesome and a lot of people are understandably, but unjustly skeptical of them. Wikipedia claims that this is the first punk album to combine the genre with American roots music, but I don't know if I agree with that when you have The Cramps and The Birthday Party coming earlier, but regardless, this is still revolutionary. It's punk, it's blues, and sometimes it's almost true-blue country. The searing intensity of punk melds remarkably well with the scuzzier, dustier side of Americana, and the result is like a rickety train, constantly threatening to derail, but never *fully* escaping. The energy is awesome, the songwriting is awesome, the lo-fi take on punk suits the country vibe well. And for the rickety presentation, there's some real cool playing here. Also, from what I've caught, the lyrics are really cool. Preaching The Blues and For The Love Of Ivy are probably the songs to go to if you want to know what this is all about. They both have insane momentum, clever writing, and really smart incorporation of both parts of this album's DNA. In fact, one of my favorite things about the presentation here is that The Gun Club doesn't just slap some country paint on a punk album. Both genres are completely ingrained in the sound here and I can see how it would make people feel that this was completely original when it came out. Because, even if this had precedence at its time, it still sounds worlds away from its forerunners. In short, Fire Of Love truly feels like a unique accomplishment, and to the right person, this is like the coolest shit ever.

Discovered this band from tribute albums to JLP featuring Mark Lanegan, David Eugene Edwards, and Nick Cave. This record is like a Rosetta Stone for understanding where some of my favorite music came from and it is in itself a work of understated beauty.

Thought this was just fine, some standout tracks but overall just OK. I can see how it would have been pretty fresh at the time though, and can see a big influence on bands like the Pixies that would follow. Some uncomfortable use of the N word though.

brutal d+. dá pra ouvir a influência desse aqui em várias banda até mais recentes. doideiraça.
mas tá aí, hein. talvez a única vertente do country que eu curta: cowpunk. bacana demais, achei divertidaço!!

e de fato hein. 1981 e os cara tava quebrano a porra toda, pra frentex demais, o pixies bebeu dessa fonte aqui até o cu faze biquim

Some decent early punk music. Kinda sounds a little like Violent Femmes if they were voiced by Francis Black from The Pixies. However, both those bands are much better, and both manage to go without having racist lyrics (For the Love of Ivy). Maybe I'm missing something in the lyrics (for example, Dead Kennedy's do it in Holiday in Cambodia, but its use clearly has a point), but that lyric definitely caught me off guard.

So yeah. Perfectly fine punk music, with some questionable lyrics. But not enamored with it.

Started off so enjoyable and then just kept getting worse

By the end the vocals had really pissed me off. Shame because there were some really good songs

3 ⭐️

I can't believe I hadn't thought of their influence on Pixies until I read the reviews on here. It's really obvious.

Some of the most badass music to come out of the early 80's.

4/5

Boring. Not necessarily bad just boring. Cool drink of water blues sucks though. That one was almost painful.