Love Backed by Force is the third album in the Tronics cannon following What's the Hubbub Bub, also from '81, and it is the group's most immediate release. Here Zarjaz offers up discordant melodies, candied guitars and minimal rhythms made up of bongos, tambourines and handclaps. These tracks weave folk, pop and electronic elements into a piece heavily influenced by the Nadsat language used in the cult classic film, A Clockwork Orange. Interplanetary opener "Charlie Manson" features warbled digital effects revealing Zarjaz's flare for computerized sounds. Yet the bulk of the album takes a different shape, with rock guitars alongside nursery rhyme melodies with repetitive lyrics delivered deadpan. "I've got this crush on you, and it's crushing me," Zarjaz confesses in "Crush on You," accompanied by infectious bright fuzzy guitars set to chugging stripped-down rhythms. Another standout track is "My Baby's in a Coma" featuring a cheery tune offset by cheerless lyrics -- it's this tragicomic point of view that aptly describes Tronics' approach, with a style of songwriting that influenced a legion of UK indie bands who came after, from the Smiths on down. Love Backed by Force is where Zarjaz began to develop his self-styled "baroqueabilly" aesthetic, and utilized it to charge the gates of this new thing called post-punk. What's Your Rupture? has certainly done the Tronics catalog justice, absolutely recommended.
(written for edited by Other Music)
Find copies at Other Music & What's Your Rupture?
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