All Night Radio's second album, The Killing Floor, has met with the wrath of the SABC. One of the main tracks, Reign of Fire, has been banned from airplay. Frontman Steve Louw went up to Johannesburg last week to do an interview on Radio5's program Loud and Proud and said he was told several tracks had been banned. "I was stunned. DJ Dave Charles broke the news to me. They also wanted to ban the first cut Bernadette because of the reference to District Six; Prisoners because of the lines 'prisoners of what we are told, prisoners out in the cold and prisoners in this land of gold"." Louw said after some negotiating with the SABC's own censor department only Reign of Fire was banned. The album will be released in Australia shortly.
Cape Times Funfinder
It was a fair while ago that we saw All Night Radio's debut The Heart's The Best Part charge off blindly into the night like some wild rambunctious rock 'n roll beast. They'd hired a British engineer to produce them, and he liked to make the boys sound lean and hard and live - I went to visit the studio while they were recording, and he'd put the drum kit in a steel-lined service elevator at the back of the room. Somebody banged on the snare and I had to back off in pain. So that's what it sounded like - very bright and loud. Of course, Stellenbosch yokel Steve Louw made no attempt to hide his Yankophilia, and his voice came roaring out like some weird cross between John Cougar Mellencamp and Tighthead Fourie.
Fair Lady (4 March 1987) Etceteras by Jeremy Thomas
Nico Burger's lead guitar tore through some pretty neat melodies, while bassist Rob Nagel contented his deepest ZZ Top fantasies by dyeing his beard red and sporting a baseball cap and shades. Ja, The Heart's The Best Part was a good album. The best ANR concerts had them fooling about with Presley and assorted blues, and their stand-in drummer played standing up. Naturally Steve played 'rock star" without much hint of irony. Nobody laughed too much. We had an excellent time. Now All Night Radio have a second album, The Killing Floor, which kicks up rather a different storm. It fades in with a light acoustic jig, fades out again, then suddenly guns off into territory I would never have thought possible. We're talking The Cramps, deep dark rockability with more than a hint of bad psychosis. I must listen to it again, but that was my first impression.
Then comes their cover of Them's Here Comes The Night - certainly an accomplished effort, but disappointing for adding little to either Van Morrison's lament of David Bowie's Pinups Ham-up. But onward: The Killing Floor is a loose, unhassled kind of album - there may be one too many entirely sappy American middle-of-the-road ballads in the Toto mould, but elsewhere the band's unexpected return to bluesy old rock 'n roll compensates with much rude aplomb.