The Rapture
Pieces Of The People We Love

THE REVIEW

The Rapture were facing an important test after their intriguing (though not without flaws) 'Echoes', and after 3 years, there was a curiosity to discover what direction their music would take. Well, this is the stripped-down, boneless, softened, watered-down version of The Rapture's music.

The Rapture takes a plunge into the mainstream and emerges voided, the MTV-ized Rapture. If there was one quality that distinguished them, it was the aggressiveness, the enthusiasm, the youthful exuberance of those who want to conquer the world. With this 'Pieces of the People We Love', they have directly transitioned from youthful enthusiasm to the album of senility: because if this collection of inanities is supposed to be the mature version of The Rapture, they're not there at all: this is the nursing home version, fit for a sanatorium or for a dandy who, while sipping his Martini, doesn’t want his ears disturbed by any ideas. No problem because there are truly few ideas here: the rhythms seem to be the muffled, syncopated version of the ones from the past, a sad reflection, the melodies are totally absent, the songs drag on wearily without apparent purpose, after about 1 minute of each song it's already clear.

To close the circle, a flat, blandly Disco production takes care of it, where the guitars disappear in the mix, reduced to an unnecessary chatter. Good heavens, perhaps amid the fumes of alcohol, if one suppresses every capacity for analysis, one might even find themselves moving to the rhythm of the new single’s constipated pop "Get Myself Into It" before returning to their senses and realizing it’s a bland piece, of horrifying mediocrity, ultimately just bad. It's not even worth analyzing song by song; it would be better to gloss over the michaeljacksonesque shrieks of "The Devil", the senselessness of "Calling Me". Only the horribly titled "Whoo Alright Yeah.. Uh Uh" (where a damn fits well!) and "The Sound" are saved, which attempts to revive the glory of past furious assaults. It's just that listening to an old track like "Out of the Races and Onto the Tracks" is enough to see how much (filthy) water has passed under the bridge.

The impression is that this 'Pieces of the People We Love' is the classic product that will overcrowd second-hand CD stores (if CD stores remain at all). Useless and often irritating.

Try again, perhaps without listening to the advice of those who want you to be cool at any cost.