How We Live

'Q' Magazine 1987

 

How We Live - Dry Land reviewed by Paul Davies

How We Live - Dry Land

 

In the 1980s it's no longer enough to have a head full of rattling good tunes and a heart full of soul to make a dent in the fickle pop marketplace. More than ever before image and presentation can tip the balance. How We Live would appear to have the edge over many of their contemporaries: fronted by the classically shaggy dreamboat features of Steve Hogarth and Colin Woore, they look capable of setting prepubescent knees a-wobbling all over suburbia. It is, then, a pleasant surprise to discover that the group are substantially more than a figment of an art director's imagination. Dry Land is an auspicious debut LP of considerable charm and vitality: the versatility of their songwriting shines consistently throughout, and they shift effortlessly from the delicate, floating ballads Lost At Sea and Working Town to the stinging, electric charge of Rainbow Room and the serious urban rumblefunk of A Beat In The Heart. All this, and a lyric sheet which is actually worth reading.

 

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