Consumer Guide Album

Tom Verlaine: Words from the Front [Warner Bros., 1982]
Verlaine's ever-resourceful guitar has always been more richly endowed with mood and effect than with the hook riffs that make him a great rock-and-roller, and here for the first time things get too atmospheric. "Postcard From Waterloo" is a classic, but the strangulated vocals and expressionistic structures suggest that he really should get out more. B+