Write a Review
Critic's Review
Mark Deming, All Music Guide
On their first album, the Motors were a rough-and-ready guitar band with the sense of rock & roll roots that came from their days on the pub rock circuit and a loud, muscular attack inspired by the nascent punk rock movement. A year later, the Motors at once had a surer sense of their musical identity and a greater willingness to try different things, and their sophomore effort, Approved by the Motors, balances the gusty approach of the first album with some polished and surprisingly sophisticated pop confections. The opening cut, "Airport," announced out of the box that this album was a different kettle of fish with its sleek synthesizer lines, lush acoustic guitars, stacked backing vocals, and ABBA-esque melody; the song proved to be the band's biggest hit (going Top Five in the U.K.), and not without reason (though the arrangement was complicated enough that the band had a hard time playing it live without additional musicians). While the more straightforward "You Beat the Hell Outta Me" "Dreaming Your Life Away," and "Mama Rock & Roller" were on hand to placate the rockers who embraced the band's first album, the dance-friendly "Forget About You," the folk-rock nugget "Today," and the aggressively cheerful love song "Soul Redeemer" make clear that "Airport" wasn't a creative anomaly. However, if Approved by the Motors doesn't rock as hard, the songwriting is top-notch on the pop songs as well as the guitar features, and the band delivers the songs with the same sure hand throughout -- it is a different sort of album from the debut, but one that also shows many things this group could do well. [The 2006 reissue of Approved by the Motors from Captain Oi includes five bonus tracks -- live versions of "Cold Love" and "Be What You Gotta Be" along with three non-LP B-sides.]
