Pere Ubu — Trouble On The Big Street

Trouble On The Big Street is around about the 30th or so album from Cleveland’s Pere Ubu.  And it’s an often haphazard blend of rough blues rock, wavering electro-edged post-punk,  and noirish jazz blues with Avant leanings- all finished off with David Thomas’s baying, wailing, at times spoken/semi-spoken vocals.

I think the last time I checked in on Pere Ubu was back in 2006 with their Why I hate Women album, and its remix album Why I Remix Women. And I’d certainly on this album there is much of blues & jazz tilt to the proceedings, but otherwise, it’s very much business as usual for the band which is now in its forty eighty year of existence.
 
I’m reviewing the CD version of the album, and this takes in the album's original ten tracks, as well as seven bonus tracks. So you most certainly get a lot of bang for your buck…possibly a bit too much to be honest, as I think with a jarring ‘n’ haphazard sounding band such as this a short ‘n’ sharpe thirty-minute album is more palatable/ effective.
 
Anyway, things kick off “Love Is Like Gravity” which is sort of chugging jazz rock underfed by playful electro production & searing tone swoops. We have “Crocodile Smile” which is a haphazard blend of bounding blues punk &  dragged-out 80s synth-funk. There’s the hovering organ tone ambience, purring feedback and expressive spoken word of “Worried Man Blues” which later switches to a baying blue rock-come-electro purred stomp.
 
In the album's second half, we have the wonderfully rough, ready, at points barely hanging together cover of The Osmond’s “Crazy Houses”. There’s the wayward horn honk, choppy messy electronics, and gone wrong fairground ride organ wonderings of “Pidgin Music”. Or the gloomy tolling Blues rock stumble and madman wail/ bay of “From Adam”.
 
It’s great to see Pere Ubu still treading their odd ‘n’ wonky sonic boards all these years on. And at points, Trouble On The Big Street is wonderfully damaged, appealing haphazard, and chaotically charming. The problem is at times it’s just too shambling ‘n’ messy for its own good, and this CD version is way too long for its own good, with the band's trying elements getting very trying in places.