Rowland S. Howard
Pop Crimes

Rowland S. Howard, a prominent figure in the Australian punk and post-punk scene, former member of The Boys Next Door, Birthday Party, Bad Seeds, Crime and the City Solution, These Immortal Souls, passed away from cancer last year in absolute anonymity.

“Pop Crimes”, his third solo album recorded during the terminal stage of his illness, was released posthumously in 2010.

A fundamental yet understated figure in the music circuits that sell, Rowland S. Howard hastily puts together this final farewell before death arrives, which I would define as an album of indescribable beauty.

Rowland S. Howard's songwriting is a cursed one, which, although still tinged with the sonic dirt of his early career projects, is shrouded in metaphysical undertones that bring it very close to the more spiritual Nick. After all, the journey with the Ink King started long ago, almost like an umbilical cord, from his first artistic incarnation, The Boys Next Door, continuing with the indispensable Birthday Party, where Howard played guitar. A bond that, despite diverging paths, has remained over time, albeit almost invisible, and it's no coincidence that Howard plays on albums like “Let Love In” and “Murder Ballads”, and it's no coincidence that this “Pop Crimes” features important pieces of the Bad Seeds, like the legendary Mick Harvey (on organ and drums). To complete the essential lineup, we finally mention J.P. Shilo (violin, bass, guitar, and various treatments) and Jonnine Standish (who participates in the duet “(I Know) A Girl Called Johnny”, dedicated to herself).

What can I say, a great piece of work, which will obviously delight all those who love Cave and derivatives, who love all that alternative pot featuring people like Lydia Lunch and Geremy Gluck (with whom he also collaborated on multiple occasions). It should be clarified, however, that Cave and Howard play on equal terms, and it certainly can't be said that - despite the notable points of continuity - the latter is derived from the former, rather they seem to both draw from the same inspirational source, the same cultural background. Only one has been successful, the other not, and for this reason Howard's work shines with a sincerity that, alas, cannot be found in Cave's current works, increasingly bogged down in a manneristic drift that detracts from a talent now in disrepair. A Cave better than Cave, then? No, a cursed artist grappling with his own death, a journey that looks to the Afterlife with the proud pace of an epic Morriconian country, in the shadow of squeals of post-punk derivation, rock-blues acidity and, why not?, avant-noise asperities (impossible not to think of the more straightforward Einsturzende Neubauten). Therefore, a masterpiece without ifs and buts.

From the very first notes of the opener “(I Know) A Girl Called Johnny” Harvey's organ takes us to the Bad Seeds territory, creating a bothersome sense of deja-vu for two seconds which is shortly dispersed by the spectral descent of Howard's voice (unenthusiastic, suffering, sublime). With Jonnine Standish standing in for a hypothetical P.J. Harvey, the most Caveian track of the lot is thus completed, but we already realize that Howard shines with a unique interpretation which, combined with profound inspiration (probably dictated by the exceptional conditions in which the album was written and produced), makes him an author with a remarkable artistic measure and capable of moving in every single moment. Even though the comparisons are continuous, as “Pop Crimes” inherits the obsessiveness that made the Birthday Party great, pouring it into the plots of a poetry of the Unknown rooted in an unbearable sense of loss that seems now irretrievable. Rather like what happens in Johnny Cash's latest works. Only, Howard is a Johnny Cash a little less struck by the idea that there is a benevolent God waiting for us on the other side of the grave; a toxic, messed-up, disenchanted Cash despite the need to hold on to any hope.

For this reason, the following “Shut Me Down” sends chills with its desolate pace, while “Life's What You Make It” is a sublime flowing reinterpretation of the eponymous Talk Talk song, oscillated by a sobbing and paranoid beat of percussion and jolted by an uneasy blues-psychedelic electricity.

Gold medal goes to the title track, another seven minutes of damned smoky and nocturnal rock darker and smokier than the night itself: a badass bass line, cyanide guitar strokes, and Howard's inevitable derelict voice. One of those tracks you wish would never end.

We're at the turning point: “Nothin” is a shaky country (as usual illuminated by the singer's magnetic voice), but not “the-typical-country,” since Our Man's cultural-traditionalist background is continuously irrigated by the obsessions of music that since '77 has never been the same (for the record: there are no acoustic guitars on this album). And, by chance, in the subsequent “Wayward Man” the nerves of the Birthday Party return, momentarily abandoned in “Avè Maria”, the inevitable mystical interlude: a poignant ballad that makes concessions to more sentimental rock (listen to how the guitar builds up at the end), testifying to the moment of fragility experienced by the author, who at times could hope for a gradual recovery (eventually halted by a fatal relapse). The work concludes with “The Golden Age of Bloodshed”, another descent into the inferno of a terminally ill man who does not yield to the enticement of death, but continues his cursed crusade against the world and for life.

For me a great album, for everyone (absolutely everyone) a pleasant gift to unwrap under the Christmas tree.