reviews
“In the lightening quick realm of rock time doesn’t march on, it runs. Rocker Robin Lane and her band The Chartbusters had a new wave hit single two decades ago “When Things Go Wrong.” It doesn’t sound a bit dated to many tens of thousands of other wildly loyal fans. While The Chartbusters toured with Hall and Oates, XTC and The Kinks, and lead singer Robin Lane drew comparisons to Blondie’s Deborah Harry and the Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders, Lane and the rest of the band eventually drifted out of the pop spotlight. Now they’re back, nineteen years now since their last major label recording, with a terrific new release, ‘Piece of Mind.’…The minute you hear those jangling opening chords of ‘All Fall Down’ on the new release, the record just really pulls you in.”–Bill Delaney, Here and Now, NPR 2003
“The new CD is on the respected indie label Windjam Records (windjam.com). The music is brand new, but most of the songs are previously unreleased from the Charbusters’ heyday… The songs sound astonishingly fresh, with Lane more charismatic and edgy than ever as jangly guitars propel the melodies forward. It is great pop-rock music with a timeless sheen.”
–Steve Morse, The Boston Globe 2003
“The feeling the music (Robin Lane and The Chartbusters) gives off is that of unrelieved foreboding, backed up by passion blindly seeking an object-any object…Robin Lane’s mission…is to make life real. The terror that motivates her music is rendered palpable; so is hope; so is hope abandoned.”
- Greil Marcus
“Robin Lane & the Chartbusters is given sharp distinctiveness by the vocals of the leader, whose dark, strong-but-supple voice can be ominous, desperately tender, and cuttingly illuminating. Robin is always intriguing because her sound suggests even more than the lyrics say.”
- Nat Hentoff
“Lane’s insights are everyday but not banal. They’re delivered with the authority of a lived-in life and the kind of perpetual disillusionment that manages to make way for new illusions.”
- Rolling Stone
“The feeling the music (Robin Lane and The Chartbusters) gives off is that of unrelieved foreboding, backed up by passion blindly seeking an object-any object…Robin Lane’s mission…is to make life real. The terror that motivates her music is rendered palpable; so is hope; so is hope abandoned.”
- Greil Marcus
“Robin Lane & the Chartbusters is given sharp distinctiveness by the vocals of the leader, whose dark, strong-but-supple voice can be ominous, desperately tender, and cuttingly illuminating. Robin is always intriguing because her sound suggests even more than the lyrics say.”- Nat Hentoff
“Those mood swings from bitterness to tenderness, have always been part of Lane’s songs and she still has a way with an emotionally grabbing tune.”
- Brett Milano, The Boston Globe
“Robin Lane sounds for all the world like Kitty Welles traveling down Highway 61 Revisited”
- Kit Rachlis
“Though Blondie’s Deborah Harry and the Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde have had more hits and better press, Robin Lane looms as the most talented female artist to come out of New Wave rock.”
- Geoffrey Himes, The Washington Post
”Robin has an incredible gift for tapping into the creative source. she worked with my own children for 6 months. Much imagination and rapport with people of all ages.”
- Danny Hillis/Applied Minds/Inventor
“Robin Lane is a great songwriter and a great spirit. The music she makes will touch anybody with the ears to hear it and an open heart.”
- Bill Flanagan/Executive Producer ..VH1/MTV, and author
“Just a note to say “Irish Song” is unbelievable, what can I say? Weak at the knees…If your going to put it out I’d like to be involved some-way, in fact I’d like to sing it with you.”
- Bono/ U2