So here it is, the final Foetus record and it sounds very much like a grand finale - a culmination of forms developed over the course of the previous nine studio albums, although admittedly the mutant disco of Deaf and Ache are represented in spirit more than actual sonics. The new Foetus album - whichever one it is this time - always expands on its predecessor, taking the ideas further, albeit occasionally in a different direction; and Halt is no exception, building on the symphonic excesses of Hide and Love while marking a more concerted reinvestment in the crime jazz heard on earlier records. I'm borrowing crime jazz from some online review I saw because it's amusingly descriptive and—no kiddies, this isn't fucking industrial music. Anyway, the big band is bigger and raging harder than ever, he's growling again, and we have that seasick sound which seems more or less unique to Mr. Thirlwell, here sonically underscoring the point of The World is Broken, for one example, which staggers along on what would be swagger but for its fatal failure to develop sea legs. We have excursions into both opera and a sort of nautical folk - another new deal which nevertheless makes perfect sense - but the set is dominated by what feels like a variation on soundtrack music, the huge orchestral scores of the Biblical epic. This seems appropriate given the theme of endings - both the Foetus mission and human civilisation if the world outside the window is any indication. He's really not fucking about this time.
Did he ever fuck about? I'm not convinced. All those songs about hot times in the old town may seem the opposite of telling it like it is, as Thirlwell does on Halt, but the intensity is the same firehose of imagery and loathing and we shouldn't mistake extremes of emphasis for some guy stood on a stage pulling scary faces because that's showbiz. Serious as cancer, as the saying has it.
This one may conceivably be his crowning achievement, and certainly for something which lavishes in and so subverts familiar musical traditions, it somehow doesn't sound like anything else; and where Halt might resemble Flow or Thaw or Nail or any of its predecessors, it does so but more and better with a thousand additional shades of grey bringing terrible depth to the shadows.
This man is honestly a fucking genius.
No comments:
Post a Comment