release date: Feb. 1986
format: vinyl (IRMG 14) / cd (1993 reissue)
[album rate: 3 / 5] [3,22]
producer: Søren Wolff
label: Irmgardz... - nationality: Denmark
Track highlights:
A) 1. "The Party Is Over" -
2. "My Girl and Me" (promotion clip) -
4. "Sitting in the Park" -
5. "Yesterday, When I Was Drunk" - -
B) 1. "Once Bitten Twice Shy" (4 / 5) (video) -
2. "This Can't Be Love"
2nd studio album by Gangway follows 14 months after The Twist (Nov. '84) is released on Irmgardz and reissued on Genlyd / Sony BMG in 1993. The line-up has changed as drummer Jan Christensen has left and new replacement is Gorm Ravn-Jonsen. Also Torben Johansen (former Escape Artists) has now joined on guitar, keyboards & backing vocals. Allan Jensen remains the band's vocalist & bassist, and guitarist & keyboardist Henrik Balling is now credited as composer and arranger of all tracks.
The sound has changed a bit on this album, and is no longer The Smiths- but more Madness-inspired, which means a move to more mainstream pop/rock and sophisti-pop, and gone are the simple guitar-based compositions. The album was without doubt the band's commercial breakthrough in Denmark, but it didn't make the band more wanted abroad. Although, this is a much more uniform album, with songs pointing in the same direction, I still saw this as a bit of a disappointment, as I found it too mainstream sounding, and basically just lacking the original and simple sound they had on their first release. Yes, "My Girl and Me" is fine but not really great, but the majority of Danish music buyers and the national radio station DR P3 all embraced it as an improvement and obviously saw it as a potential commercial hit abroad, which it came close to be via heavy rotation on MTV and airplay on US (West Coast) college radio stations; however, before spreading the news and signing distribution deals the label stood knee-deep in financial difficulties and eventually went bankrupt in March '87 after which Gangway signed with PolyGram. The album sold approx. 25.000 copies from sales exclusively from the distribution in Scandinavia.
My favourite track was "Once Bitten Twice Shy", although, I find the single version somewhat altered with more strings and heavier arrangements on the album. The album is Gangway's last with Irmgardz..., and according to songwriter Henrik Balling it was on initiative of the band that they decided to leave the label as they weren't paid any royalties for their music, but instead the label closed and the band ended up signing with PolyGram, who wanted a "safe release", and initially simply wanted to buy the rights from the closed Danish label and re-release the album - but instead ended up releasing some of the band's older songs in new arrangements but was released as Sitting in the Park (Again!) (1988).
