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Rating: First solo album in a career that had already reached significant milestones, "Should the World Fail to Fall Apart" was released in 1986 and is equally tempted by the allure of disengagement as well as the call of the past. He is Peter Murphy, the dark and deep voice of Bauhaus, who, together with his bandmates, had left four remarkable albums in the early '80s, contributing to defining the identity of that decade. But after the group disbanded and the brief experience (one album) with Mick Karn of Japan in the Dali's Car project, the shadowy frontman returns, this time alone, for a new beginning.
It's time to turn the page, without wallowing in the inconclusive mush of memories, and this album offers ample testimony to the attempt undertaken: ten tracks, a very varied palette of sounds, no specific attitude of sound exploration or stylistic innovation pursued at any cost. Thus, with "Canvas Beauty," the beginning of the album is calm and reflective, just as the tone of "Confessions" will be intimate, starting from the title. But the sharp and incisive rhythm of "The Light Pours Out Of Me" and the almost funky sounds of bass and guitar in the title track contradict the listener's assumption of stylistic unity in the work, which indeed cannot be satisfied: each track is a story in itself, mandolin and harmonica did not belong to the dark arsenal, yet we hear them here, albeit in brief inserts, along with many other refined sounds that make this work an example of pseudo-pop more than post-punk.
Despite the cover of "Final Solution" by Pere Ubu, a specter haunts the tracks of the album, and it is that of the white duke David Bowie, one of Peter Murphy's generational myths, whom he, however, does not fully try to resemble. Despite the album's sonic eclecticism, indeed its dominant feature, the added value lies in Murphy's voice itself, which has lost none of its magnetism and allure since the beginnings.
Those who loved Bauhaus will find here less aggression and virulence than in the past but will instead find the call of a voice to which it is difficult not to surrender.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
03 Confessions (05:40)
I could use your gullibility
Distort the painful truth
Present a fear and laugh at you
Leave you lost unsure removed
The must I feel to put it right
Put an end to naive faith
In slick successes avenue
The vacuum of save face
Direct words can turn lost minds
Towards some monster seed
Lyrics sung from pretty looks
Can on the reader feed
Be strong to check and recognise
The pretty face is all
But being used to sell you songs
That never say it all
The incident meets the senses
The illusions in a mask
The sun of a summer afternoon
Docility rocks the mask
Broken loose from moorings
In a flash the swell had passed
Towards the beach with unabated speed
Confessions of a mask
09 Final Solution (03:56)
The girls won't touch me
'Cause I've got a misdirection
Living at night isn't helping my complexion
The signs all saying it's a social infection
A little bit of fun's never been an insurrection
Mama threw me out till I get some pants that fit
She just won't approve of my strange kind of wit
I get so excited, always gotta lose
Man that send me off
Let them take the cure
Don't need a cure
Need a final solution
Buy me a ticket to a sonic reduction
Guitars gonna sound like a nuclear destruction
Seems I'm a victim of natural selection
Meet me on the other side, another direction
Don't need a cure
Need a final solution
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