A Sweeping Curve of Sound

Depeche Mode frontman Dave Gahan is getting decidedly mixed reviews for his new solo album “Hourglass”. While some reviewers, like Pitchfork’s Nitsuh Abebe, feel that “Hourglass” lacks real passion, others, like David Jeffries at AllMusic, think that Gahan has released a solid record that plays well to his strengths.

“Hourglass doesn’t have any overly urgent need to shake off Depeche Mode comparisons. Instead, it surrounds Gahan’s serviceable writing skills with the dark electronic soundscapes he’s obviously comfortable with … At the very least the album displays how much Gahan brings to Depeche Mode, and should go a long way in getting the Gore-favoring fan base to admit it. “

Speaking of solo efforts, Monica Richards, the lead singer of goth/darkwave band Faith and the Muse, released her first solo album entitled “InfraWarrior” in May of this year (it came out earlier in Europe). While it hasn’t been getting a lot of mainstream press, subculture-related reviews have been very positive.

“It’s a pity that “tour de force” has become such a hackneyed term, because there’s really no phrase that better describes the enormous scope of InfraWarrior … an album that, despite its haunting beauty, simmers with righteous anger.”

Reviewers haven’t been very kind to the new album from the dark electro-pop duo She Wants Revenge. General consensus on “This is Forever” is, well, bad.

“The dark electronic sounds come across sounding like a bad Halloween sound effects album rather than the Depeche Mode sounds they so obviously attempt to ape. None of the tracks quite match up to the catchiness (like a virus) of the last album, too similar but not even as “good” as the last. Let’s face it, the last album sucked too. When will it stop sounding like bad Joy Division? Maybe they should stop having such dramatic love affairs and writing about them like we care.”

The most charitable review is from the Onion’s A.V. Club, and even they call it “dumber” than the last album.

Turning from music to movies, I haven’t seen the new Joy Division/Ian Curtis biopic “Control” yet (hasn’t reached Milwaukee, alas), but it has been certified critically “fresh” by Rotten Tomatoes. While a majority of critics seem to love (or at least like) the film, there have been some notable dissidents to this warm welcome. This includes The Village Voice, and Fluxblog’s Matthew Perpetua.

Image from the film “Control”.

“Despite co-writing exactly one great song (”Love Will Tear Us Apart”), being an epileptic, getting married at a very young age, and committing suicide at 23, Ian Curtis was a dreadfully dull human being. Maybe that’s an overstatement, but there’s certainly not enough in his brief life to support the plot of a feature-length film … The film is just awful; basically a pretentious tv movie … Really, don’t bother, even if you totally love Joy Division.”

His review, and claim that Joy Division has only one great song (and that Def Leppard had more great songs), caused some emotions to run high in the comments thread for the post:

“I will never read your blog again. Not even your love of Ghostface and Fiery Furnaces will make up for your blasphemous claim that Def Leppard had more great songs than Joy Division. Consider yourself dumped.”

I disagree with the notion that Joy Division only had one great song, but I’ll withhold judgment on “Control” until I’ve seen the film myself.

Finally, the new band Red Voice Choir (featuring Miss Kel from Black Ice on vocals) has its first release, “A Thousand Reflections”, out now and initial critical reception seems to be fairly positive.

“They define their sound as some kind of a post punk experience. Their female front-woman is rather persuasive and her vocals evoke bands hailing from the 4AD corner. The music alternates smooth and quiet melodic passages with more tenses atmospheres. A bit short to really unveil their potential but I’ve heard some good tunes here and there so the future might be promising for them.”

You can also read an interview (along with a positive review) with the band, here.

That is it for now.