The Icons – Masters of Disaster (Green Monkey)

One of the advantages to owning a label is the opportunity to release your own projects. While the Green Pajamas may be the flagship band for Green Monkey Records, the Icons, label owner Tom Dyers‘ group, could have easily laid claim to the title if the band had released Masters of Disaster in the mid-80s when it was recorded. Dyers and co-frontman Steve Trettevik pen tight, funny rockers like “Beach Party,” “We’re So Bad” and “(Half the World is Made of) Women,” letting hooks and raised-eyebrow lyrics tell the story. Following cut after cut of urgent, melodic postpunk, Dyer ends the record with the delightful “I Call Your Name,” a winsome pop tune co-produced by the Green PJs’ Jeff Kelly. Left unfinished until the last couple of years, the tracks sound perfectly fine, even contemporary – there are lots of young musicians trying to capture this kind of guitar-driven spike-pop sound and not doing it nearly as well. With Dyer reactivating the Icons, at least as a recording unit, now is the time to give these Masters of Disaster their long overdue props.

http://www.greenmonkeyrecords.com