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Not quite reaching the heights of "The Affectionate Punch" in my opinion but a good album all the same. Very different in pathos. Much more of a morbid or sinister thread running throughout the album. Quite weird in some respects. Very original and refreshingly different to the mainstream stuff. Somehow made me feel a connection with Perry Blake's first album. Quite unique in it's own way.

Rating: 3 out of 5

I'm a bit ashamed to say that I only bought this CD on a bit of a parochial whim, having found out that my flat is only a few streets away from where Billy MacKenzie used to live. However the album is unlike anything else I have listened to; the comparisons other reviewers have made with Sparks and Berlin-era Bowie don't really give you an idea of how innovative and scary Fourth Drawer Down is. Punctuated by screams, subliminal mutterings and tubercular coughing, this is music that can give you nightmares, as I found out after listening to it in my bed one night. Billy MacKenzie's vocals seem sometimes to drown under the layers of the instrumentation, almost literally so in the bizarre final track, 'Blue Soap'. Submarine sonar bleeps and frenetic xylophones also make unexpected appearances, but there are also moments such as the beautiful organ chord at the end of the ferocious 'Kitchen Person' that keep the album focused. It might not have the variety and joy of 'Sulk', but Fourth Drawer Down is still a disturbingly good record.

Rating: 5 out of 5

For me, The Associates music reached it's inventive zenith here, on Fourth Drawer Down. Each piece is a labyrinthine opus in itself and entirely unlike the last, like the changes on Faust IV but more so. Roll back also to the intricate, extreme, finest points of Bowie - TVC15, 1984,The Secret Life of Arabia - then square them - and you might just be able to imagine what this album is like. The album kicks off with a Kraftwerk/Berlin Bowie Homage/Satire (with The Associates you never really know, being masters at suggesting something without quite pinning it down) 'White car' and finishes with an instrumental version of the same song in James Bond undersea mode. Reggae, marches, spy film music and disco, instruments like guitars and - er - doorbells?? are mangled and tortured into unrecognisable forms yet ultimately remain pop. For the Associates, the disco is a haunted place, everyday life is a feverish and jittery experience and for that reason, thrilling. It was mostly recorded at night, which tells in its restless mood. If proof of its greatness was needed, what other album has influenced artists from the most industrial to the most mainstream?

Rating: 5 out of 5

Following the release of debut album The Affectionate Punch (on Fiction), Associates parted company with said label & set about moving onwards. This album collects the results of this period, detailed in the Mackenzie-book The Glamour Chase & a great article on Mackenzie by Paul Lester in the first issue of Uncut magazine from 1997. Alan Rankine & Billy Mackenzie, alongside ex-Cure bassist Michael Dempsey, recorded these tracks while being courted by major labels- the sleevenotes detail a happy scam regarding the use of major label money for demos. This period saw Mackenzie hitting the 4th drawer down, where the 'Quiet Life'-herbal tablets were kept, taking this sleeping aid over the reccomended dosage summoned up the feeling of this album...The various singles are here: Tell Me Easter's on Friday (with flipside Straw Towels), the buzzing Message Oblique Speech- a definite relative of Nag Nag Nag & Being Boiled & the sinister Q-Quarters- which details a dystopic SF-image which ties in with this album. This collection advances on the template set by Bowie/Eno on Low & "Heroes" (Mackenzie recorded The Secret Life of Arabia on the debut BEF album, while Associates debut single was a cover of Boy's Keep Swinging!- see the Double Hipness compilation), taking pop to uncharted realms in this experimental era. The Associate is a bizarre funk song, that showcases dazzling keyboards & is syncopated by the screams of Mackenzie & co as cups were smashed over their heads (don't ask...). A Girl Named Property sounds like Scott Walker playing a song from The Cure's Faith, backed by Suicide- while single Kitchen Person has an accelerating beat, reminiscent of a chemical rush & odd noises created by guitar & a hoover-attachment- hard to make out what Billy is saying, which is just part of the joy...An Even Whiter Car (instrumental relative of White Car in Germany & b-side of Kitchen Person) is as out there as Bowie/Eno's V-2 Schneider & Warsawzawa: imagine if Christiane F was a SF film directed by Visconti (& you're getting closer...)This would be the soundtrack...Fearless (It Takes a Full Moon) & Kissed showcase a mutant fusion of post-punk funk with SF-synths- into alien territory & towards the towering achievment that was Sulk (easily one of the Top Five albums ever released). The final track, Blue Soap, displays the deranged sensibilities of Associates- Billy in the bath singing 'Blue Soap' as White Car in Germany plays & water runs...Ahhh, White Car in Germany- the greatest track here & one of the key Mackenzie-moments, alongside Breakfast, Partyfearstwo, Sour Jewel, Pain in Any Language & Nocturne VII. This song sounds decades ahead of its time, Rankine's electronic flux backing Billy's wildest vocals & captured by Mike Hedges. Billy's vocals appear to fuse with the opening guitars, before the song comes in proper: "lisp your way through Zurich/Walk on eggs in Munich"- here Billy was the European son: the international loner, the eurocentric. The European canon lead here. This song is years ahead of trip hop related fayre- such as Tricky, Massive Attack, Portishead & Goldfrapp- fusing soundtrack elements with a distinct vocal, this fits more with material like Tricky's Suffocated Love & Goldfrapp's Lovely Head than say Duran Duran or Ultravox. It sounds so alien- which is why it's as great as Bowie, Cocteau Twins (who Rankine would produce Peppermint Pig for), The Sugacubes & AR Kane. Fourth Drawer Down is experimental pop music at its wildest, it's fusion of electronica & soul has much in common with recent records produced by NERD & Timbaland (Like I Love You, More Than a Woman) & should be adored by anyone who appreciates early Roxy music or Bowie from Station to Station to "Heroes" (not to forget albums like Ege Bamyasi, Another Green World & Red Mecca). There may be the totalitarian music critic notion that New Order were the only experimental band of the 80s, prior to The Stone Roses (really, how amusing!)- but Associates from Affectionate Punch to Sulk were something else. A great collection of mutant pop, of Sci-Fi arias to aliens & moving towards the brief burst of perfect pop that saw albums such as New Gold Dream, Lexicon of Love, Songs to Remember & Sulk. These are pop idols, eternal, perfect & blue on this budget price CD...

Rating: 5 out of 5

The Music World has waited for a longtime to hear these early masterpieces on CD. The Assocaites were ground breakers on the new sound of the 80's. Billy Mackenzie's vocals are so grand and new for the time. Most vocalist could only dream to sound so Great! Alan Rankine's instrumentation is wonderful and the over production on tracks is worth it all, needless to say the raw sound itself. Please if you are a FAN of the 80's sound check this CD or any the Associates CD's.BIG FAN "VINCE" dallas, texas

Rating: 5 out of 5