Therapy?
Nurse

THE REVIEW

If there is a definition for the term underrated, it must surely be applied to Therapy? and especially to their third album, "Nurse" ('92), a true European response (they are Northern Irish) to the NuNoise offshoots (will you allow me the neologism, please? The term Crossover annoys me...) and Post Hardcore that emerged across the Ocean between the late '80s and early '90s. If you want a name, I can give you Helmet, but I'm sure you will find others.

I said underrated because the question I ask myself every time I listen to this album is: "But without "Nurse", would 'Undertow' by Tool have existed, for example?" or "Are we really sure that NuMetal is nothing more than a dogmatized vision of the Psychogenic Universe of Cairns & Co.?"

I know you will fill me with insults for this bold hypothesis (and I specify, I don't think Tool is NuMetal — heaven forbid, nor are the reviewed), but the questions do spin in my (flawed) head, and I can't give an objective answer.

"Nurse" is a disturbed album: sweet melodic intersections (even brushing against Pop) are suddenly disrupted by brutal guitar riffs that immerse you in an almost "Industrial" dimension, but without the electronic programmability typical of the genre in those years, leaving more initiative to Noise inserts (and here the Hardcore origin is fully felt) rather than references to the classic Rock typical of their land.

This renunciation of origins is the key to understanding the album: Therapy? are European by mistake; their sound is a mix of Grind and, why not, American Punk. The singing is a pure side component to bring to life the psychiatric nightmare of which the lyrics are soaked, never giving the impression of being at the center of the scene, even when it becomes angrier.

A sinister world that of Therapy?, difficult, tormented by Demons bearing future catastrophes and mentally disturbed Cassandras, listen to the "dark" "Deep Sleep" or the continuous sonic offenses produced by the six strings of "Neck Freak" to believe it...

An explosive and hypnotic charge, in short: it starts from an internal, dreamlike world and bursts out, furious, never consoling.

In the clutches of a sadistic nurse...

Mo.