Signed to Slash and contemporaries of The Del Fuegos and Beat Farmers, Wisconsin’s BoDeans began cutting solid, if unspectacular, roots-rock with 1986’s Love & Hope & Sex & Dreams. Despite top-notch producers (T-Bone Burnett, Talking Heads’ Jerry Harrison), touring with U2 and a Rolling Stone Best New Band gong, they never quite pulled it off. The tight’n’fast “Wild World” and downbeat ballad “Slipping Into You” apart, their return seems similarly blighted: there’s gusto aplenty, but Sam Llanas’ and Kurt Neumann’s emotive vocal attack and chiming guitars ultimately lack killer hooks or instinct.
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