Michael Bormann & Michael Voss - Beware Of The Rex

  by John Clarkson

published: 11 / 6 / 2004

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Review

In 1998 the film director Gus Van Sant unsuccessfully remade ‘Psycho’. Van Sant’s version of the film upgraded Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 classic horror flick from black and white to colour, and featured Anne Heche in Janet Leigh’s role as the hapless Marion Crane and Hollywood unknown Vince Vaughn in Anthony Perkins’ part as Norman Bates, It was otherwise though, even to the extent of using the same camera angles, a complete scene-by-scene retread. The up-dated version of ‘Psycho’ was as an oddly stilted film, and one, which because Van Sant had chosen out of homage to the original to do nothing otherwise new with it, that seemed somewhat needless. Michael Bormann and Michael Voss, the two halves of German T. Rex tribute band, 20th Century Boys, go to great pains to point out on the sleeve of their new album, ‘Beware of the Rex !’, that their aim is to maintain, nearly thirty years on after his death, Marc Bolan’s “everlasting spirit”. In light of that that they have “changed a bit here and there, but never too much”. Indeed ‘Jeepster’ has a slightly more balladic feel, while ‘Children of the Revolution’, given Voss’ regular job as frontman in heavy metal band Casanova, has a harder edge. (Bormann meanwhile is the singer and guitarist in Spacemen 3 founder Sonic Boom’s new project Jaded Heart). While it would be wrong, to dismiss it out of hand as a total carbon copy, the problem with ‘Beware of the Rex’ is,however, exactly as the 20th Century Boys say, that “never too much" or enough has been changed. One has to admire at one level Bormann and Voss’ enthusiasm for their project and ear for detail, so much so that “slipping back in space and time there are no samples or modern synths on the album.” They have also gone to the trouble of seeking out much of Bolan’s original instrumentation including vintage vocoders and mellotrons. ‘Beware of the Rex ’ however, as a result of this, sounds too familiar.Perhaps it would have worked better if Bormann and Voss had included some of Bolan’s lesser known album tracks, or a few other obscurities. Even to the most casual T. Rex fan, however, all the tracks on Bormann and Voss’ compilation will already be intimate. All the chart-topping singles-’I Love to Boogie’, “Metal Guru’, ‘Hot Love’, “Get it On’ and “Telegram Sam’ as well as ‘Jeepster’ and ‘Children of the Revolution’-are there, and only the final track, ‘Life’s An Elevator’, the B side of ‘Laser Love’, one of Bolan’s last singles, is liable to be unknown. With all the many Marc Bolan and T Rex ‘Greatest Hits’ albums already in the shops, and usually only minimal differences between these covers and the originals ‘Beware of the Rex ', like Van Sant’s film, comes across as largely unnecessary.

Track Listing:-

1 London Boys
2 Soul Of My Suit
3 Children Of The Revolution
4 Metal Guru
5 I Love To Boogie
6 Jeepster
7 20th Century Boy
8 Get It On
9 Hot Love
10 Telegram Sam
11 Life's An Elevator