Lucie
In The Sky...
Gang Records

The group Lucie rose to enormous popularity in the early nineties. Unfortunately, this popularity has been falling since. In the Sky... shows reasons for both their popularity and their downfall.

There are twelve cuts on this CD, eight completely written by the band members. Most songs feature a pop/rock style halfway between Billy Idol and The Cars, with drums, bass, guitars, keyboards and male voices, two of them almost always singing an octave apart. And here lies the rub. While the production, musicianship and most of the songwriting is passable, this cold impassive singing and the resulting sameness of expression deter from a totally positive experience.

Only occasionally Lucie breaks the mold. Mary'N'Jane consists of repeating samples, a synth bass line and sound effects alternating with their typical vocals. Dal bych ti co chces (I'd Give You Anything You Want) brings the first memorable lyrics, restrained drumming and a building keyboard/guitar arrangement. On the other hand, Zhavy stroje (Red-Hot Machines) features passionate singing of forgettable lyrics and Zkamenely dite (Petrified Child) mates an upbeat ska melody with a parade of rhyming surrealistic images, including among other things "white tar, Lenin's bald spot" and a "I like peace and cheese" outro...

The skimpy CD booklet features all of the mostly pointless lyrics, but doesn't list any of the musical details. But that's OK, the typeface is too difficult to read anyway...

So in the long run, Lucie's In The Sky... "czechs" out as a noble, but ultimately boring effort that doesn't really stand up to repeated listening.

Copyright © 1997 Ivan Sever