The fourth
Boomtown Rats album,
Mondo Bongo is the first to suggest that
Bob Geldof's manic creativity had finally crested. Two singles, the dense mutant dub of "Banana Republic" and the '60s pop inflections of "Elephant's Graveyard," both boded well for the main attraction, but from an oddly unappealing sleeve on in,
Mondo Bongo struggled to even tap the heights that earlier albums had taken for granted. Lyrically,
Geldof was at his most political, and "Another Piece of Red," noting the continued dissipation of the British Empire, joins the despairing "Banana Republic" at the apex of the album's achievement --
Geldof's own appreciation of the song, meanwhile, is amplified by the inclusion of a live version among the remaster's bonus tracks. Too much of
Mondo Bongo, however, is
Rats-by-numbers, while the remaining bonus tracks further highlight the group's dilemma by serving up one substandard B-side, "Don't Talk to Me," and one major disappointment, as a live-on-TV cover of
Pink Floyd's "Arnold Layne" serves only to render the song as uninteresting as the remainder of the album. ~ Dave Thompson