It is amazing how polarizing (for listeners)
Bill Laswell's
Material side projects can be. They are either fresh and inventive or stale and uninspired. Unfortunately,
Nona Hendryx's 1984
Material-produced album
The Art of Defense falls into the latter category -- another case of some very talented folks making a very bland record.
Nona and the
Material crew are obviously capable of great things, but despite the formidable pedigree of the artists involved,
The Art of Defense falls short of expectations. There are few real songs here, lyrically, so (if the group were going for the
Donna Summer disco diva over complex-studio-grooves kind of thing) it would have made sense to make the music more engaging. Lord knows
Laswell is capable of that. Neither the music nor the vocal performances ever take center stage, and the result is simply a boring album. The songs with the least going on in them (and the least going for them) are, invariably, the longest songs on the album, and the two songs that are actually somewhat engaging and well realized ("Electricity" and "Ghost Love") are the record's shortest tracks -- there is a lesson in here somewhere. ~ J. Scott McClintock