BRONSKI BEATEN BY FALSETTO OVERKILL”AGE OF CONSENT.”...

BRONSKI BEATEN BY FALSETTO OVERKILL

“AGE OF CONSENT.” Bronski Beat. MCA. Forget Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s ambiguous decadence: This London trio delivers the most militant gay lyrics since the Tom Robinson Band’s “Glad to Be Gay” in the late ‘70s. Jimmy Sommerville also has the most unrelenting falsetto this side of Sylvester, so the songs have a disconcerting tendency to short-circuit themselves: If you heard that high voice on the radio wailing, “I got those need-a-man blues/Driving me mad,” you’d simply take it for a bluesy woman.

Musically, Bronski Beat takes two approaches: the brisk, electric dance-pop of the hit “Why?,” and the moody, free-form vamping that eventually bogs things down. The narrow musical range and that falsetto also wear thin over the course of a full album, obscuring some touching expressions of melancholy, rage and exhilaration lurking in the lyrics.