[gmku]

Adventure - Television

If the first album is the cat's pajamas, this is the cat's terry cloth robe. If the first album is an A+, this is an A-. If the first album was the greatest 70s-era punk album since sliced bread to float up out of the CBGB scene, this is the greatest 70s-era punk album since homogenized milk to float up out of the CBGB scene. If you bought the first album, you should not not-buy the second album. If you like the first album, you will not not-like this album.

Besides, you're just not cool if all you've ever heard by Television or Verlaine is Marquee Moon. Everybody's heard Marquee Moon. Only the cool punk rock people also have heard Adventure.

The conventional wisdom on this one is that there are no "Wow!" songs like the first album's "See No Evil" or "Torn Curtain." I couldn't disagree more. Every one of them knocks me out, from the opening "Glory" through the final cut. They're a bit more restrained, more tightly constructed, but that just means the unleashed guitar solos seem to rage all the brighter. The songs are all tough muscle, no fat; Television takes a post-punk clue from the punk masters of concision growing up around them. "Foxhole" reminds me of something the Stones might have done in their Mick Taylor-era heyday--only it's far leaner, and far meaner, than any product the Stones ever manufactured. The whole album sounds real, and without a doubt, it stands, along with its predecessor, as one of the finest things to emerge from New York City's post-punk furnace.