Isolation Party

They Say...

Review by Mark Deming, All Music Guide

Tommy Keene always sounded a bit smarter and edgier than the sizable majority of his pure pop brethren back in the early 1980s, and he was a much tougher guitarist than nearly any of his peers (check out his live take of Lou Reed's "Kill Your Sons" on the Run Now EP sometime and hear him blow a hole in Reed's original). Which might be why his best stuff hasn't dated much, and, 15 years after his debut album, he could still come up with an intelligent and razor sharp set of hard pop songs, with Isolation Party as the result. While the tunes may be a shade less catchy than the highlights from Songs From the Film, nothing here sounds like a dud, either, and Keene offers up plenty of committed rockers ("The World Outside," "Getting out From Under You," and "Long Time Missing") as well as hooky, lower-key pop numbers ("Tuesday Morning" and "Weak and Watered Down," the latter of which does not live up to its title). Also, recording for Matador, no one was likely to tell Keene to lighten up on his guitar parts, and the result is a harder and leaner set than he usually offered up in his earlier days (with a Mission of Burma cover for good measure), though the hallmarks of his style -- moody but graceful melodies, a nimble and efficient rhythm section, and Keene's passionate vocals and subtly sublime guitar work -- are still very much in evidence. In short, Tommy Keene has long been an underappreciated talent, and Isolation Party once again begs the question why someone this good isn't a major star (or at least a bigger cult figure).