Psychological is really the twisted sister of Violator's Policy Of Truth.
All of this agreeing with you is making me nauseous.
Drico.
Fundamental/Fundamentalism CD Review 19/05/06
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Your Funny Uncle
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Janet Street-Porter
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I think it truly is their saddest album. It doesn't have the autumnal feel of Behaviour which is always tempered by spring being around the corner. To labour an analogy, Fundamental feels like a nuclear winter.Drico One wrote:Actually, it strikes me as if loss is the overriding concern. From the undertaker paraphenalia to the black cover art, the tenor of the record is sombre and morbid. Numb is about the loss of a loved one, I Made My Excuses and Left concerns the loss of love, The Sodom and Gomorrah Show recounts the loss of innocence, Psychological the loss of sanity. Luna Park seems to deal with the loss of reality or even hope. Integral heralds the loss of freedom.
I only heard it in full for the first time today and was struck by how relentlessly grim it is. The tracks impinge on each other like no other PSB album. Behaviour felt like a symphony to me but Fundamental is a wake.
I suppose Casanova in Hell is light relief but even that's about the loss of an erection.
I've been listening to this record at a particularly grim time, and I wondered if I was experiencing Fundamental through a somewhat skewed prism, but it's clear to me now that there is an overwhelming sense of morbid decay and hopelessness about the whole project.
Even the joyous loss of innocence showcased in the Sodom and Gomorrah Show is immediately followed by a slamming door and the emptiness of solitary confinement as loneliness returns with a wicked vengeance. It's as if the debauched night out has ended in its inevitably abrupt fashion and the descending depression has revisited to torment a lost soul.
Yet, through the unrelenting paranoid claustrophobia, there are glimmers of light and humour. The difference between this record and say, the magnificent Violator, is that through the bleak soundscapes there are moments of wit and wry observation. Whereas Depeche Mode sometimes specialise in somewhat unbelievable misery, Neil and Chris have kept their darker visions grounded in reality - albeit a very grim one.
Rigor mortis has never sounded so comforting.
Drico.
Even the joyous loss of innocence showcased in the Sodom and Gomorrah Show is immediately followed by a slamming door and the emptiness of solitary confinement as loneliness returns with a wicked vengeance. It's as if the debauched night out has ended in its inevitably abrupt fashion and the descending depression has revisited to torment a lost soul.
Yet, through the unrelenting paranoid claustrophobia, there are glimmers of light and humour. The difference between this record and say, the magnificent Violator, is that through the bleak soundscapes there are moments of wit and wry observation. Whereas Depeche Mode sometimes specialise in somewhat unbelievable misery, Neil and Chris have kept their darker visions grounded in reality - albeit a very grim one.
Rigor mortis has never sounded so comforting.
Drico.
The pale kid that hides in the attic behind his PC...