Therapy?
Crooked Timber

An initial "mea culpa" is obligatory. I wasn't familiar with Therapy?, a Northern Irish band that enjoyed considerable success in the early 1990s thanks to albums like "Nurse" (the only one I remember clearly) and a strange mix of anger expressed in hardcore and post-punk-driven lyrics, vaguely gothic metal rhythms, and a hint of psychedelia. A "mea culpa" I said, because I've only discovered them now, with this latest "Crooked Timber", when the group's glory days seem to be over. Or maybe not?

From what little I've heard of their previous works (but I promise I'll make up for it), it seems that they want, perhaps a bit anachronistically, to throw themselves back into the fray with their sound, with the melodic threads that have always distinguished them and made them beloved, partially and deliberately ignoring that times have changed, whether we like it or not. Nonetheless, the ten tracks on the album sound really good: with ups and downs, moments of flatness and surprises, what we have here is a solid alternative rock album (I use this term to encompass the aforementioned influences), with at least seven strong tracks.

There is a certain difficulty for the band to "hit hard" when it would be most necessary: the opening "The Head That Tries To Strangle Itself" has a claustrophobic and labyrinthine stride, vaguely dark (a component present in other tracks of the LP), but it doesn’t quite convince, lacks bite, that viciousness I've heard in past works.

From the second track on, however, the trio seems to start getting into gear: indeed "Enjoy The Struggle" convinces thoroughly (with Andy Cairns finally delivering a gritty and robust vocal performance, as well as the rest of the trio showing in decent form), the acidic and seemingly chaotic "Clowns Galore", and "Exiles", which vies with the title track for the best song of the album. These two tracks are generally dark and hammering, the first more ominous, with a stellar chorus, the second faster and meaner, endowed with an exceptional progression and a tremendously engaging finale, where everything seems perfectly in place.

Reaching the album's midpoint, things slightly dip with "I Told You I Was Ill" and "Somnambulist", maintaining the standards of the opening songs, but real dissatisfaction comes when listening to tracks like "Blacken The Page" and "Bad Excuse For Daylight" (the latter, like the opener "The Head That Tries To Strangle Itself", suffers from a poorly concealed desire to "hit hard" without fully succeeding, even though it's fair to say the quality is slightly better).

A bit unexpectedly comes the instrumental "Magic Mountain", ten very strange minutes, starting dark, black as pitch, stormy, and then, as if nothing happened, it opens into an ethereal and sunny ride, certainly psychedelic and at times post-rock. It's a track that you might skip after listening to it three times (perhaps due to excessive length and, in the long run, a lack of ideas), but in those three times, it involves and transports you temporarily to a different reality than what has been heard so far in the album.

So how to judge "Crooked Timber"? In my opinion, it is an honest work, made with class by people who put their heart and passion into making music that they do exceptionally well. Long-time fans of the band might find it a bit bland, perhaps diluted and softened, I don't know: I would be curious to hear their opinion. From my side, I can only start digging into Therapy?'s past, knowing that if they have copied themselves, given the quality of the present work, what they did in the 1990s can only be better.

 Rating: 3.5