...Never Too Late

A mildly decent, however verging-on-stale eight-track wedge of unfamiliar French metal that fell silently into the mid-‘80s gorge of misfit vinyl is Stators’ orphan release which, within its trinity of super-imposed jacket, screw-around band photo and installed NWO?HM apparatus that often blows off as past prime, takes us on a retrieval journey leaping back a few years to find this thing a more satisfactory and proper release date. We find ourselves in a pylon somewhere in the Land of the Lost, displaced by about two years where …Never Too Late’s basic and uncomplicated, yet rock-edged traditional formula is a little happier with its surroundings, yet it sometimes still unfolds a moldy spore or three when it’s not too starched up.

An all-important ingredient most new acts never establish that can disappoint listeners into disinterest as well as cause groups to pull single album disappearing acts is a lack of personal touch or calling card…y’know, a band’s individually-claimed sound that will hopefully one day have other bands sounding like you instead of the other way around. Naturally it’s more difficult than it sounds, ‘cos you can’t write material people aren’t gonna compare to eighteen other bands whether the comparisons make sense or not. Peer down at the squalor as, I dunno, one out of every hundred acts strides past the others with its own focused, hard-wired voice, sound, and overall vision instead of wandering zombie-like through existence like more bands than we can count. But hey, every band can’t be Slayer, Live or friggin’ Olivia Newton-John, but I’m afraid Stators hasn’t even a chance to live up to the last on the list, nor do they embellish any kind of sound they can throw an autograph on.

The five-piece faced yet another predicament from where I’m sitting, one that can decree a band’s doom even more hastily than a musically everyday face. Recorded and released in ’85, …Never Too Late had in its possession its band-accepted soundprint. Well, “Critical Miss” and “Outcast” are automatically ejected from the pylon, and despite the honest decency of livelier hair-triggers “No Way to Rest”, “Fail Safe”, and long-ish “Brainstorm”, they all coulda been revamped in updated splendor in the studio that was only a few feet away. Jeez, guess they’re taking the album’s title stupidly seriously, ‘cos apparently it’s never too late to submit material that already sounds a few yards out to pasture. Or what, it totally slipped past them? Hell, blame me for expecting more from this anonymous gaggle of Frenchmen with nary a stitch of relevant history and the shitty sleeve. However, even before these breathtaking possibilities started rolling around my stupid head, these eight songs were allowed to hit back alleys as is.

Yeah, yeah, some stuff is up to snuff, like brief assault “Come On (We’re Goin’ to Awake)” lacing up side two with some admittedly ass-kickin’ Accept boots while “Midnight Suburbs” shakes enough of its dust free to spin-kick the side shut with some tractable, yet lively frontward momentum. Year-exempt is the rhythmic intrigue of “Crazy Lie”, a mid-paced grab at superior songwriting that may just be the best 3.5 minute stab in this bunch. A presumably taller French Udo, better known here as Gilles Meleo, scabs up a share of verses with some unclean scratch, but just as easily is able to wipe them clean, however I can’t imagine Udo ever being caught dead dropping his urban camo pants to squeeze into any of their spiffy spandex.

So here’s where I feel kinda bad whipping these music career-deprived guys a little longer and harder than they probably deserve, but at the same time I mull over ’83 (not even ’85) Anvil, Tokyo Blade, Jaguar, Oz, and a slew of others that have it all over …Never Too Late. Then comparing ’83 French cuisines means to sling hash alongside the harder-hittin’ likes of High Power, H-Bomb and obviously Sortilege, three compatriots holding fresher discs breathing fresher sounds that are more freshly roadworthy than Stators of ’85.