If Belfast bands are generally esteemed for their passionate intensity, someone forgot to tell Silent Running. Emotional Warfare (released abroad as Shades of Liberty) contains slick humdrum dance-rock with only Peter Gamble’s Bonoesque bellow to suggest — if not generate — any enthusiasm. The pounding “Emotional Warfare” is as good as it gets, and that’s not very. The eager-for-airplay Walk on Fire reduces Silent Running to a quartet (the keyboardist left) and comes on like a dull hybrid of the Fixx and Bad Company.
Recorded by a drummerless trio, Deep is the best of a sorry bunch. The first two tracks on each side are invigorating blasts of determined and confident-sounding U2-conscious 4/4 guitar rock, but elsewhere the record runs aground on Bryan Adams’ soundalikes and metalhead power ballads.