Consumer Guide Album

True West: Drifters [PVC, 1984]
They're still loud, they're still songful, but the balance is now so cautious that their elegiac, hard-driving Television-goes-country-rock wins this month's Trouser Press Memorial What-Does-It-All-Mean Award for Formalism, an eye-catching statuette of gilded virgin vinyl that looks kind of like an ear and kind of like a question mark. Blame it on the new drummer if you want. My guess is attrition, a/k/a maturity. B