Therapy? - Infernal Love

Therapy?
Infernal Love
Alt.Metal/Rock
1995
192Kbps CBR
1.Epilepsy
2.Stories
3.A Moment Of Clarity
4.Jude The Obscure
5.Bowels Of Love
6.Misery
7.Bad Mother
8.Me vs You
9.Loose
10.Diane
11.30 Seconds
Total Size: 66.8mb
This just might be the greatest power trio album since Sugar broke up. It's
every bit as dark and vicious as Therapy?'s more obscure earlier work, and yet
the songcraft is far better. Some of these songs have pop hooks that sink in to
the bone, even though they're harsh as 40-grit sandpaper. In the post-Husker Du
grunge era, many bands tried to recapture the formula of mixing furious heavy
metal with pop songcraft, and none succeeded as well as Therapy? has.The subject
matter is not for the timid. But sometimes if you're feeling traumatized, the
most healing thing to do can be to immerse yourself in the black worldview of
someone more traumatized than you are... if that someone is a musician of the
caliber of Therapy?'s Andrew Cairns.
There's one thing that I should remember," sings Andy Cairns on 30 Seconds, the final song on Therapy?'s third full-length album, Infernal Love. Oh yes, what's that? "There is a light at the end of the tunnel," he yells. Well, now he tells us. After 37 minutes of
unadulterated angst, pain and despair, Therapy? stick a vaguely optimistic
little Post-It note on the door of the medicine cabinet. The previous album,
Troublegum (1993), was a similarly unhappy affair, but then the neuroses were
tempered by catchy, upbeat tunes and the Belfast band's famed sense of irony. No
one will describe Infernal Love as bubblegrunge. It's as heavy and dark as
Metallica, as morose and melodramatic as Pink Floyd's The Wall; and it's great.
Though still a trio, Therapy? seem to have extended their sound in all
directions. Fyfe Ewing's drumming, maniacal but machine-like on previous
records, now pounds and crescendos all over the place, and Cairns's guitar is
dominant and varied in a way it never was before. His voice, still essentially a
hoarse little thing, is multi-tracked and distorted into the larynx of Satan on
Me Vs You and Bowels Of Love, the tension heightened by a string section. The
latter, in fact, sounds like Tindersticks, up to the point when you realise
Cairns is singing "You poured . . . maggots down my throat/Until I choked". The
narrowness which was always the group's downfall has been jettisoned at last.
This album ranges from the pop accessibility of Loose (which could have been
lifted from Sugar's Copper Blue) through heaving epics like A Moment Of Clarity
to an actual Bob Mould cover, Diane, which is a work of pure dark genius. Their
transformation is complete.
Enjoy! :)