Refrigerated Love: Afterplay (2023)

In May of 2019, the semi-seminal U.K. new wave heavy metal glam rock shoegaze new romantic band Refrigerated Love released their 28th studio album, Prodigal Sunshine and a retrospective box set called Refrigerate After Opening. It was a triumphant return to the spotlight for a band who had long been justly ignored. Following a summer tour of state fairs in the U.S., the band took time off to relish their middling success. Their plan was to begin a massive European tour in May of 2020. 

Well, we all know what happened next. As the seriousness of the COVID-19 virus foisted itself on the world and everything began to shut down, the band initially held fast to their intention to tour. "We have always been an anti-fascist band," lead singer said in a press release on March 19, 2020, "and we will not give in to these attempts to curb our natural born freedom to rock"

As venues shuttered their doors, Refrigerated Love continued to be defiant. "We're coming to the arenas no matter what," guitarist Nigel Hornblower told the press, "We'll play on the roof, close the streets in front of them, take over adjacent parking lots. The shows are going on!"

But they didn't do any of those things. Like every other musical artist, Refrigerated Love retreated to their respective homes and tried to figure out what to do with their broken plans, rising anxieties, and lack of a creative outlet. 

Each band member coped in their own way. Lyricist Elvis Hornman started a podcast, Elvis Has Left the Building!, the title of which many took to be a clever allusion to Elvis Presley, at least until they found out that the podcast was literally Hornman recording himself walking out of various public buildings and describing what the doors look like. Hornblower gave guitar lessons via Zoom, winning warm reviews for only forgetting to unmute himself about half the time. Colin Porthorn and illegitamite son Alfie - the band's newest member - did a series of live performances, which they released in 15-second increments on Tik Tok. And keyboardist Hornel Lieberman - who has always created the artwork for the band's albums - made headlines when he announced he'd be selling the images as cryptocurrency. He generated more headlines, though, when it turned out he'd confused JPGs and NFTs.

Then, after reading somewhere that many musical artists were creating some of the best work of their careers in quarantine, the band decided to convene to write and record a new album.

"Rock and roll is about rebellion and free-thinking!" Porthorn said at a press conference annoucing the album. "We won't be silenced because you don't like to hear what we have to say," said Porthorn to the many members of the media who had gathered to report on every word he said at the behest of the multibillion dollar corporation to which the band is under contract.

Porthorn went on to claim that Gen X Norwegians were were consipiring to control the populace, and had created the COVID-19 virus and then transmitted it into homes via electric kettles. This led journalists to unearth footage of Porthorn's drunken onstage rant from a Lollapalooza stop in 1994. "Stop Britian from becoming a slacker paradise. Get the lazy Norwegians out," he slurred to a Denver audience. He went on. "Do we have any Nordics in the audience tonight? Identify yourselves and then leave. Stop eating our food." The band then launched into their cover of Anne Murray's "Can I Have This Dance."

A contrite Porthorn smoothed things over with a public apology following that show, but apparently the wounds inside the band never healed. After Porthorn's media meltdown, plans for a new album were abandoned, and the Refrigerated Love camp went dark. Then, one by one, members began annoucning their departure from the band. First to go was keyboardist Lieberman. He announced that he would retire from active duty, and would instead focus on painstakingly remixing and remastering the band's vast discography. At last report, he was on working on the third track of their debut album.

Elvis Hornman jumped ship next. His relationship with the band had been strained for awhile, so it was no surprise when he submitted his resignation by faxing the lyrics to a song called "I Quit" to all major media outlets that still had fax numbers. 

Many assumed that the band would go back to how they began, with Porthorn and Hornblower operating as a duo. So considerable shock ensued when in December 2020, Hornblower appeared on The Graham Norton Show, and the host asked him what Refigreated Love had planned for 2021. Hornblower answered, "I wouldn't know. I've left the band." The audience gasped. Hornblower went on to tell a delightful story about a time he got invited onto a men's college wrestling team bus in a Chik-Fil-a parking lot.

Scores of "Refrigerated Love Break Up" strories went out in the media, and about a dozen distraught fans gathered on the street outside the north London recording studio to demand the band reunite.

Porthorn remained uncharacteristically quiet through all of this. In March 2021 he quietly released an EP of covers of 1960s protest songs called No Shelter-In-Place. It was recieved with widespread apathy. That summer, Porthorn appeared on ABC's The Singing Designer, in which various pop singers perform and the audience rates their outfit and tries to guess which fashion designer created it. Colin was one of the few who could have been on either side of the equation: Some may remember his failed mideighties young men's clothing line "Colin's Boys."

Then, in September, a 24-day countdown clock appeared on the Refrigerated Love website, leading fans to speculate wildly. Some thought it would be the first remastered album, others dared to hope the band were fully back together. When the clock hit 12:00:00, it was joined by a repeated bit of distorted melody. When the clock reached zero, it was replaced with an image that appeared to be a an extreme closeup of an expanse of black leather emblazoned with the word "Afterplay."

Excitement over a new Refrigereated Love album was quickly dampened by the release of the details. The band most certainly was not back together. Working with hot producer KatKit (Maroon 5, Lady Gaga), Porthorn had written and recorded everything on the album himself, with the exception of a single tuba solo from Alfie (who is also the band's apprentice drummer, but who was not allowed to drum on the record). What's more, he announced plans to tour the album with unknown replacement musicians on keyboards, bass, and guitar. "I found the best possible musicians within a 100 mile radius of my home," Porthorn declared in the press release announcing the tour.

He also tried to head off criticisms of him carrying on the name alone: "There are very few unalienable rights in rock," he wrote, "But one of them is most certainly the right of a lead singer to put whoever he chooses on the stage behind him while continuing to use the band name that everyone knows and loves."

Expectations for Afterplay were very low, and they weren't helped by the stomping lead single, "Suit Up," with a melody that's lifted directly from Blondie's "Heart of Glass" and lyrics that detail Porthorn's elaborate grooming routine before spending a night with his lady.

The release of the full album hasn't changed the calculus either. While many older artists have trumpted the importantce of preserving the sanctity of the album as a cohesive creative statement, Porthorn has taken an opposite tack. On Spotify and other streaming services, Afterplay is only able to be listened to in shuffle mode. Not that it really matters one way or the other. Refrigerated Love were always a band that struggled to be mediocre even at full strength. To expect Porthorn to do it on his own is insanity.

Witness the flop second single "Stupendous," in which Porthorn sings syllabic variations of the title word for 5 and a half minutes over a lo-fi synth figure. Also patience-testing is the pleading piano ballad "You'll Blow It if You Don't Blow It Tonight." Porthorn has always had a way of making sexual come-ons sound extra creepy, and this may be his creepiest moment yet. And the less said about the ponderous "Homberg - Dying Death" the better.

That said, the album does have a couple of high points that will make long time 'Frigers remember what they loved about the band. "Empty Doorway" is a punky 2-minute blast of guitar, tuba, and drums. "Oh No Jane" is Porthorn's take on the popular English folksong, done as a power ballad in the manner of Porthorn's overappreciated 1990 solo album Mystery Pants. Of course, Porthorn saw fit to reinsert some of the bansihed verses of the song, including lines about removing garters and hands exploring naughty bits.

The fact that its best song is a cover that recalls Porthorn's only solo effort is damning for Afterplay, an album that shouldn't exist, and yet does, in fact, exist.

With rumours of a long-delayed entry into the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame, one wonders if Porthorn will continue to treat Refrigerated Love as a one-man show, or if he will welcome his band of brothers back into the fold. Or is that, "back into the cold."?

For more Refrigerated Love:
Refrigerated Love: A History
Refrigerated Love: The Complete Discography
We're Actually Serious, No Really (1999 album review)
No Expiration Date (2008 album review)
Inmortality (2011 album review)

Prodigal Sunshine (2019 album review)