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Rating: I Love And Rockets are nothing more than Bauhaus without Peter Murphy. And here someone might say: "That's saying something...". Certainly, Murphy represented an icon of English dark-punk, but what is contained in this record is more refined than the entire Bauhaus production. It dates back to 1985 and represents the debut of the new formation. The sound is a precious weave of psychedelia, electronic elements, and vaguely danceable rhythms. But it's especially the atmosphere that represents the real novelty of the record. A somnambulistic trance, a sense of transcendence that has a hint of shoegazing. There's a narcotic, overwhelming mood. The result is achieved through the use of hypnotizing keyboard riffs, walls of background guitars, and choral singing that amplifies the sense of desolation.
Beware, we are not dealing with a dark album: sometimes the atmospheres can also be gloomy, but always wrapped in a dreamy patina of great charm.
In short, 7 extended tracks (rarely dropping below 6 minutes) that significantly contributed to foreshadowing what the '90s would be.
"If There's A Heaven Above" is, for example, a piece of rare elegance, as if Pink Floyd had decided to fill the disco clubs. A clean and crystalline sound, that doesn't tire you out, doesn't go to your head, precisely because of its latent content. And this speaks volumes about the album's sophistication. The celestial guitar riff that opens "A Private Future" wonderfully mixes with a lazy and sluggish rhythm, the atmosphere gradually starts to become shadowy, between sharp drum machine beats and funereal synth swathes, everything then recomposes to make the sky clear again as before. The martial "The Dog-End Of A Toy Gone By" is a dark ceremonial with avalanche strokes, always contended between hell and heaven. Their ambiguity is one of the key points of the entire record. Their sound never takes a precise direction, never completely reveals itself, but above all, it never becomes predictable or trivial.
The gloomy minor notes that announce "The Game" set off a recitation that seems the skimmed and spiced version with new ingredients of what was "In The Flat Fields". The synthetic alarms of the title track on subliminal suspense rhythm foreshadow the deep groove of "Haunted When The Minutes Drag," a track with two faces: a leaden march marked by electronic whiplashes rises on an epic choir, then fades into a subtle and dreamy melody with a vaguely retro flavor.
The melancholic "Saudade," for acoustic guitar and synthesizer, ends one of the most beautiful journeys of '80s music.
A pleasant and welcomed surprise, heralding very important novelties, and perhaps, indeed without perhaps, unfairly underrated.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
02 A Private Future ()
Thinking of your private future
You snatched at the trees
In the starry dark green sleep
Thinking of your private future
You think at the river and set it flowing
A late fog's lifting a fast wind's rising
So you turn to reflect on your brief life
Session slip
Thinking of your private future
Cut by the scars of timeless coming back
Realize the unreachable is nothing
Cool winds wash down your hope and you slipped
Cool winds wash down your hope and you slipped
God's good to the humble
As the devil is to fools
Stop looking back in anger
Cause you can't change the rules
Believe in where you're going
But don't lose your yesterdays
To terrify to cry its true
Your life is just a game
So I need a million dollars
To sit on mountain tops
To see the stars surround you
Is to see an awful lot
I see the work of sinners
I see the work of saints
So I see the work of everyone
That's ever ever been
Sleep without reason
Your laughing masks your love
You've got so many scars
How does it feel deep in your heart?
Cause when the covers blown over
It'll crack up your skin
So now you're drowning your sorrows
In whiskey and sin
Live the life you love
Use a god you trust
And don't take it all too seriously
AHHHH
AHHHH
AHHHH
AHHHH
03 The Dog-End of a Day Gone By ()
There's a man on the corner
Coming on like Moses
Flogging new religion
like a bunch of plastic roses
He's found his path
To the bleeding heart of jesus
You tell him
You've found yours
Heir to a future
You never made
There is nothing less amusing
Then the amusement arcade
In a city without a soul
Newspaper boys selling you the hard truth
Lucifer employs idle hands by night and day
Stub out the dog-end of a day gone by, boy
Stub out the dog-end of a day gone by
Stuck at the dog-end of a day gone by, boy
Don't let the smoke get in your eyes
Well the drunk outside the Wendy's
Is becoming less than friendly
A dog is barking at the moon
The drunk outside the windy
Is becoming less than friendly
A dog is barking at the moon
You want to get away
From the city of light
Then when you've gone
You want to get back
It is some strange addiction
When you need to put yourself
Back in your eye
Stub out the dog-end of a day gone by, boy
Stub out the dog-end of a day gone by
Stub out the dog-end of a day gone by, boy
Don't let the smoke get in your eye
Stub out the dog-end of a day gone by, boy
Stub out the dog-end of a day gone by
Stub out the dog-end of a day gone by, boy
Don't let the smoke get in your...
Stub out the dog-end of a day gone by, boy
04 The Game ()
We're going to stay awake
For as long as it takes
We're going to stay awake
For as long as it takes
To correct all the silly mistakes we have made
We're going to play a game
We're going to play a game
We're going to play the game again
For as long as it takes again
For something we don't really want at all
One two three four
Two two three four
Three two three four
One
To win is to lose, to lose is to win
To win is to lose, to lose is to win
To win is to lose, to lose is to win
To win is to lose, to lose is to win
We're going to stay awake
(To win is to lose, to lose is to win)
We're going to stay awake
(To win is to lose, to lose is to win)
We're going to stay awake
(To win is to lose, to lose is to win)
We're going to stay awake
(To win is to lose, to lose is to win)
05 Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven ()
Put it all down to chemistry
Put it all down to the heat
The seminal spark of sexuality
Put it all down to the beat
There was magic in the air on a Saturday night
It was tragic, it's there on the street
The quicksilver stud and the warm jets
Make your leopard-skin dream complete
Intrigued by alcove whispers
So you tore off your old school tie
Facination found in strangeness
And your sister's alien sigh
Your sister's alien sigh
Put all down to chemistry
Put it all down to the heat
The seminal spark of sexuality
Put it all down to the beat
To wake up sunday morning
With a rose and blue tatoo
So lay on the back of your skinny white hand
So near are the brave and the new
So near are the brave and the new
It's the seventh dream of teenage heaven
06 Haunted When the Minutes Drag ()
The word that would best describe this feeling would be haunted
I touch the clothes you left behind that still retain your shape and lie still haunted
I trace the outline of your eyes blue in the mirror hypnotized, I'm haunted
I find a solitary hair, golden still I reminisce, I'm haunted
Haunted by your soul
Haunted by your hair
Haunted by your clothes
Haunted by your eyes
By your soul, by your hair
By your clothes, by your eyes
By your voice, by your smile
By your mouth, by your soul
By your hair, by your clothes
By your eyes, by your voice
By your smile, by your mouth
By your soul
HAUNTED (haunted)
So this is for when you feel happy
And this is for when you feel sad
And this is for when you feel...
Nothing
OOOOH when the minutes drag
OOOOH when the minutes drag
And this is for the tears that won't dry
And this is for a bright blue sky
And this is for when you feel...
Lucky
And this is for when you feel...
Lucky
OOOOH when the minutes drag
OOOOH when the minutes drag
OOOOH
OOOOH
So this is for when you're feeling happy again
And this is for when you're feeling sad
And this is for when you feel...
Something
OOOOH when the minutes drag
OOOOH when the minutes drag
OOOOH
OOOOH
HAUNTED (haunted)
When the minutes drag
HAUNTED (haunted)
When the minutes drag
OOOOH
OOOOH
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