January 27, 1999

Apollo

Old punks never die, so here's [B]Mark Perry[/B] still knocking it out, 20 years after pop's finest paean to impotency, [B]'Love Lies Limp'[/B]....

4 / 10 Old punks never die, so here's Mark Perry still knocking it out, 20 years after pop's finest paean to impotency, 'Love Lies Limp'. But then, Perry was always the real deal, possessed of more wit than most of his contemporaries, and outraged by the speed with which punk sold its soul. Like that other perennial punk, Mark E Smith, Perry sticks to a formula: hectoring vocals and caustic observation, while remaining wilfully obtuse.

Unlike Smith, Perry seems to have grown complacent with age; he's lost his bite and, worse, he's stuck in the past. So, 'Apollo' offers a rambling series of mood pieces that attempt to cover all musical bases and, inevitably, misses most of them.

A couple of smart ideas are stretched over 16 tracks. The best, 'Green Hair', is a wry narrative on (ahem) an old punk trapped in the '90s, the worst, the heartfelt but daft 'Politics In Every Sausage', sounds like Haircut 100 jamming with Pigbag. It's aimless, rambling stuff, proving that Perry spent too much time hanging out with useless old hippies like Here And Now in the 1980s.

Punk's not dead, but its grandad seems to be going senile.

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