The Lines, Memory Span
Another post-punk classic rescued from obscurity: from dingy pub D.I.Y. to industrial disco.
It's a tale as old as your bongo-playing granny: band releases a handful of singles, makes a name among taste-makers, fades to obscurity and steep auction prices before some smart newbie re-masters and reissues them. With a sound as blink-and-miss as their name, post-punk foursome the Lines are easily glossed over but not forgettable, as this survey of '78-'81 output shows. Formed at punk's nexus in London, the band peddled their first single around town to Rough Trade and Step Forward. "White Night," opening this set, is the kind of guitar-heavy new wave that kept John Peel in business. Rico Conning plays the idealist, casting love as the infinite cosmos ("Let's stretch out like strings of pearls/ A million planets, a million worlds") over a mercurial pop melody. Alternately he's the comic cad, whining he's "too young to go through a vasectomy" in the charming, nervous highlight "Uneasy Affair."
In their brief career the Lines matured from dingy-pub D.I.Y. to industrial-disco, a danceable clang practiced by A Certain Ratio and Bauhaus. Set chronologically, Memory Span is surprisingly cohesive for a compilation — even a few instrumental throwaways ("Cool Snap," dub-laced "Part II") have a rightful place. "I never hope for anything/ Except for what there was," he adds in the anthemic "Not Through Windows." "What there was" will hopefully continue to be mined from an era of also-rans.
