release date: May 1980
format: vinyl (9198 686) / cd (1996 reissue)
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,46]
producer: Robert Hauschildt, Warm Guns
label: Vertigo Records - nationality: Denmark
Track highlights: 1. "Back in the 80's" - 2. "The Young Go First" - 4. "Welcome in the CIA" - 5. "Under My Skin" - 6. "She's a Go-Go-Getter" - 8. "Rip Off" - 12. "So What?" (4 / 5)
Full studio album debut by Warm Guns originally released on Vertigo. Here the band credited consists of Lars Muhl on vocals & keyboards, Lars Hybel on guitar & bass, Jacob Perbøll on guitar & bass, and with Jens G. Nielsen on drums, which means that Per Møller has left the band (to play with Anne Linnet Band), and instead Perbøll and Hybel both play either guitar or bass. Lars Henriksen produced track #2, "The Young Goes First", which was the bands first real Scandinavian hit, although, I don't find it among their best songs. Apparently, the band had recorded some tracks in Denmark and sent these to the record label in England where they then went to finish the album, however, Vertigo didn't find it straight enough, so to speak [perhaps meaning: stylistically unclear], to make an international release of it. I think, the band had the potential, but were too close to Costello, Joe Jackson and not enough... something else. The band plays very fine, the songs are original compositions, but they were somehow put in a limbo in between genres and styles. I found it rather great back then and listening to it today, I find it difficult to understand why they never were big, or at least an international commonly known name. Yes, Muhl has a strange English intonation, and the band builds on Costello, Jackson, Springsteen and others - perhaps bits of Blondie and The Police, but who didn't back then? However, what they do really fine is to play energetic well-composed new wave songs with great enthusiasm.
