One note of caution though - I saw references in forum posts to front man HR having made homophobic remarks about AIDS during the late 80s. There’s nothing about it on the Wikipedia page and I couldn’t hear anything like that in the lyrics on this album but usual caveats apply.
After a few of these tracks, it feels like she got bored with the politics and declared “Got the point? Let’s dance!” before kicking into some more uptempo dance tracks and smoochy ballads. The music is mostly that 80s over-compressed bass with random stabs that gets very wearing after a while and hasn’t aged well. It did make me want to listen to the Reynolds Girls though.
On the whole, a bit better than I expected and at least she seems to be the non-problematic Jackson unlike certain others we could mention.
Wardrobe-malfunction-tastic!
Perhaps it’s the opening track “Wouldn’t it Be Nice” which is, when you boil it down, just about a horny teenager wishing that he could have sex with his girlfriend. Similarly, “Sloop John B” is someone singing about being home sick on a boat in the Caribbean, not a typical subject for a pop song.
I find myself coming back to the instrumental tracks “Let’s Go Away For A While” and the title track as being the most enigmatic and interesting, as well as the final song “Caroline No” which ends with dogs barking and a train steaming off into the night.
Four stars, but not quite five for me.
I was eager to give this scenario another outing after running it at UK Games Expo and had four investigators willing to face the gloom. The character generation is an important part of this, and working from the archetypes gave us a good mix of backgrounds and bonuses, which helped make sense of the case. Lots of good roleplaying, leaning into personal baggage and a final grim ending on a cold, rainy Gotland night. Enigmatic gazes into the distance to Assaf, Amelia, Jamie and Michael!
A complete change of pace with competitive televised dungeon crawling GM’d by Debbie with traps, mutant crocodile men, moving platforms and a surprisingly deadly number of snakes. We made it through a whole two and half rooms gaining some drinks vouchers and a bit of fame before a bad series of rolls saw half the party falling victim to the aforementioned snakes. Ace fun!
Unfortunately the game I’d originally been assigned in this slot fell through, but I was able to quickly jump into another game with Debbie, and another complete contrast with this kids on bikes setting for Savage Worlds with a large cast of characters given equal time as we investigated a quarry with a deadly and tragic past. Great tactical use of adventure cards and bennies to bring the adventure to a successful conclusion with much hilarity and characters helping each other.
This was a unique twist on the superhero genre, taking characters based on the Teen Titans into a fantasy setting. GM Declan had produced some extremely high quality character sheets, player aids and a very colourful battle map for a classic slugfest. It looked as if it was just going to be me and Simon playing, but we recruited a couple of waifs and strays to round out the team. Hot headed superhero flirting, wild accusations being thrown around, and a sinister plot to mind control the city council. A great ending to the weekend!
