''Espresso Bongo'' is the second studio album released by

Mental As Anything Mental As Anything are an Australian new wave and pop rock band that formed in Sydney in 1976. Its most popular line-up (which lasted from 1977 to 1999, and recorded all of their charting singles and albums) was Martin Plaza (birth name Mar ...

. It was released in July 1980, and peaked at #37 on the Australian Album charts. NOTE: Used for Australian Singles and Albums charting from 1970 until

ARIA In music, an aria ( Italian: ; plural: ''arie'' , or ''arias'' in common usage, diminutive form arietta , plural ariette, or in English simply air) is a self-contained piece for one voice, with or without instrumental or orchestral accompa ...

created their own

charts A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can represent tab ...

in mid-1988.

Recording

Greedy Smith later said the recording, "just got away from us all together. We'd only learned the songs the week before we recorded them, and then we put them down in seven days." O'Doherty later recalled, "we did it in six days under the influence of all sorts of terrible things. It's one of my favourites and it's the weirdest album we've done but it could have been played a lot better and done a lot cleaner."

Reception

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...

'' said, "Sounding like it consists of songs leftover from the sessions for their debut, ''Espresso Bongo'' does no one any favors, although it is not a bad album. Cameron Allan's production is even flatter than before, sucking almost all the excitement out of what could have been an exciting album." The efforts of Martin Plaza are described as "buried". '' Rip It Up'' said "The hooks are just as subtle, but growing songwriting expertise and excellent production mean that the sound is smoother, and the band no longer wear their influences like badges". The subject matter was said to be, "that great Australian institution, suburbia".

Track listing

;Side A # "Troop Movements in the Ukraine" # "Semi Trailer" # "Missing Plane" # "Insect Liberation" # "Won't Let Me Drive" # "Come Around" ;Side B # "Harmonic Visions" # "Away" # "Cannibal" # "Blacktown to Bondi" # "The Girl" # "Live Now Pay Later"

Personnel

Musicians

Martin Plaza Martin Edward Murphy (born 1 January 1956), commonly known by the pseudonym Martin Plaza, is an Australian singer-songwriter, musician and visual artist who is a founding member and vocalist and guitarist of the new wave band Mental As Anything. ...

— lead vocals, guitar *

Greedy Smith Andrew McArthur "Greedy" Smith (16 January 1956 – 2 December 2019) was an Australian vocalist, keyboardist, harmonicist and songwriter with Australian pop/ new wave band Mental As Anything. Smith wrote many of their hit songs including " Live ...

— lead vocals, keyboards, harmonica *

Reg Mombassa Christopher O'Doherty, also known by the pseudonym Reg Mombassa, is a New Zealand-born Australian artist and musician. He is a founding member of the band Mental As Anything and member of Dog Trumpet (alongside his brother Peter O'Doherty). Ea ...

— guitar, vocals *

Peter O'Doherty Peter O'Doherty (born 23 March 1958) is a New Zealand-born Australian musician and visual artist. He is a founder of Australian pop band, Dog Trumpet, in 1991 on guitar and vocals, alongside his older brother, Chris O'Doherty ( Reg Mombassa) on ...

— bass, guitar, vocals * Wayne de Lisle – drums

Recording details

Cameron Allan Cameron Beck Allan (July 9, 1955 – June 25, 2013) was an Australian-born American-based composer, record producer, filmmaker and former label owner. In September 1978 he co-founded the record label Regular Records with fellow filmmaker Martin ...

— Producer * Jim Blackfoot — Engineer

Charts

Certifications and sales

Release history

References

{{Authority control 1980 albums Mental As Anything albums Regular Records albums