Critic's Review
Andy Kellman, All Music Guide
Confusingly released in 1980 as Alan Vega/Martin Rev: Suicide, Mute reissued Suicide's second album as The Second Album in 2000. The reissue adds the "Dream Baby Dream" single, as well as a second disc of Vega and Rev's first rehearsal tapes. The Ric Ocasek-produced Second Album is less confrontational and more contemporary than the duo's terrifying debut. Vega's rockabilly snarl and Rev's burbling electronics remain, but Ocasek's involvement purges a pop sensibility only hinted at on Suicide. Hell, some of the tracks are downright pretty ("Shadazz," "Diamonds, Fur Coat, Champagne"). Perhaps it's not as renegade as Suicide, but it's an arguably better, more realized work, and just as essential. Three of the tracks found on the first rehearsal tapes disc were previously issued on ROIR's Half Alive in 1981. The rehearsals are extremely spatial and equally creepy as the proper studio works. Most of the tracks lurch by at a mid-tempo pace; Vega's distorted vocalisms are rather restrained but highly sinister, and Rev's sonic wizardry is delightfully horrific.
