Alan Vega
Collision Drive

THE REVIEW

How can you ruin everything, break it all to pieces, and still manage to "improve" it? That’s what I thought while listening to Alan Vega’s version of the famous "Be Bop A Lula," simply transformed into a song that isn’t "Be Bop A Lula." And if you listen to his specials, then? In 1982, he releases his second solo work, still indebted to his rockabilly and rock n' roll background; this time the body of the songs is less skeletal, the guitars have more depth, and the sound is altogether more substantial. All of this makes the opening "Magdalena '82" even more enjoyable than "Jukebox Babe" from the previous album. For the record, both tracks reflect Vega's identical desire to resurrect his "root-rock roots" to shoot them at the speed of sound towards the future of music that reflects the rhythms and anxieties of ill-fated modernity. Yes, Alan Vega is the artist who best embodied the figure of the space cowboy...

Even "Outlaw" reflects the "genetically modified rockabilly" standard, but the music is even stronger (numerous guitar solos between verses), and the vocals are even more whiny. "Raver" is fun, fast, and less "musically ungrammatical," so standard that it should last less than three minutes to avoid repetitiveness.

Among the "ohms" of cybernetic Tibetan monks, the wonderful space-billy version of "Ghostrider," the Suicide battle horse, implodes... The nightmares of true America, its legends, its hallucinations, in Alan, the knight from hell, return to their splendor. Who knows what Jim would have thought of him... In the ballad "I Believe," something again that starts Springsteen-like and monstrously becomes Alan Vega. And, of course, all thanks to him: here the music is normal, nothing unpleasant and nothing particularly original (and so it will be for the entire album, well played and strong, but nothing comparable to the creative genius of Martin Rev, excluding the two covers of "Be Bop A Lula" and "Ghostrider"), so the inventions are all Vega’s burden, in this piece even more than the others. Notable is the minute from 3:30 to 4:30, where it is possible to realize the greatness of this innovator of music, before even the style in question.

From rockabilly, "Magdalena '82" becomes country-hardrock and transforms into "'83". The country-rock continues with the wonderful "Rebel Rocker," while the finale is all for the terrible, doom and heartbreaking "Viet-Vet," among creatures sucking pieces of flesh from boneless soldiers... A slow, inexorable descent lasting almost thirteen minutes into a hell called Vietnam. "We are all Viet-Vet!!!" is the last terrifying scream of an Alan Vega leading his suicide squad...

A mature album, in sound and content, a bit less original than the previous one but also less "unresolved," better executed and completed. The last true pure rockabilly episode for Vega who, always uncomfortable in whatever position he assumes, will yield to the allure of early fan Ric Ocasek, leader of the mainstream band The Cars, with whom he will create the technological and danceable, as well as famous, "Saturn Strip." The fact is that, among the multiple directional changes that mark the life and career of this "artist at liberty," "Collision Drive" represents the second breaking point after the debut with Martin Rev; the second time you can shout "touch down!"; the second time you've found a suitable point on which to plant a flag, strictly stars and stripes but in black and white... And the second reason to go down in history.