1011 Woodland San Francisco CA

1011 Woodland

The Fixx

CMC International Records, 1999

REVIEW BY: Christopher Thelen

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 06/29/1999

Back in the '80s, The Fixx were considered one of the topNew Wave artists of their time. Tracks like "One Thing Leads ToAnother," "Saved By Zero" and "Are We Ourselves?" are still heardon the radio from time to time today. But something happened laterin the '80s: the public's ever-fickle tastes changed, and Cy Curninand crew were left on the side of the musical highway.

Despite this, The Fixx have always maintained a decent level ofinterest, enough to bring forth their reunion disc Elemental last year. (We reviewed it thanks to Jeff Dinkins;I still owe Jeff a disc in return.) Now, Curnin and company lookback on their career by moving their old favorites into the newmillenium with 1011 Woodland.

In one sense, I questioned why the band didn't just record afull live album to accomplish the same means, but I guess that'swhat the album React was for. In another sense, I wondered how they couldrevive interest in some of these songs by recording new versions ofthem. But even for the diehard fan who probably knows the lyrics toeach song, this disc is a nice treasure trove - even if it is lessrock and more contemporary sounding.

The band - vocalist Curnin, guitarist Jamie West-Oram,keyboardist Rupert Greenall, bassist Chris Tait and drummer AdamWoods - seems to recognize that they are treading on holy ground bydaring to remake tracks like "Saved By Zero" and "One Thing LeadsTo Another," but they also realize that music changes with thepassage of time, and they were eager to share these new snapshotswith their fans.