Nine Inch Nails – Ghosts V-VI – Album Review

Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com

https://nomoreworkhorse.com/2020/03/30/nine-inch-nails-ghosts-v-vi-album-review/

The Cure - Wish

By 1992, The Cure were beginning to feel very 1980s, along had come 'Madchester', shoegaze and grunge, not to mention the rave scene.  Certainly by the time Wish, their ninth album was released not many of us were even thinking about Robert Smith and co. What is evident from first track Open is The Cure had amped up the guitars, they 'rock' a little more, but in a 'Cure-like' way.  High sees them on more familiar ground, a hummable, breezy tune. We also get the more immersive, glacial songs like Apart, which has wonderfully downbeat guitar lines you can just sink into, with the gorgeous, simple lyric "how did we get so far apart, we used to be so close together".  Later in the album, Trust and To Wish Impossible Things.

From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea has a bit of Stones and a bit of goth thrown together to make something that is, at seven and a half minutes, a bit much to be honest.  Wendy Time is a little 'quirky-Cure-by-numbers', not that there's anything wrong with that but it just feels like Smith could do this in his sleep.  Very hard to know what to say about Friday I'm In Love at this stage, but it seemed to press a lot of Cure buttons back in 1992 and is probably one of their most synonymous songs, and indeed casual fans would be hard pushed to name any more recent Cure songs.

Letter to Elise is an almost perfect distillation of Pictures of you, it would almost seem like a ripoff except that it's just so soothing, thanks mainly to some absolutely awesome guitar work.  In fact this could well be The Cure's guitar album. End is the last track, drenched in guitars it bookends the album nicely. While by no means a classic Cure album, there are enough good songs to carry this one through, so if you like this sort of thing, there's plenty to enjoy here.

The Apartments - Apart

The Apartments' fourth album, released in 1997, is introduced by the 30 sec piano of Doll Hospial, giving way to the brooding strings that introduce No Hurry, which is taken over by a late 80s style trip-hoppy beat after the first few bars.  It's a pity as Peter Milton Walsh sings as well as he has ever done, making "the days are getting looonnnger" sound kind of ominous.  But the beats don't suit the track, and so it follows across the album.  The chirpy strings, brass and beats of Breakdown In Vera Cruz are way more upbeat than a song entitled as such has any right to be.

The murky Welcome To Walsh World is a welcome change (down) of pace.  Walsh recites a squalid tale of "infatuation, sadism, lust, avarice possess our souls" over brooding, Tindersticks style music, augmented by strings here and there and (mercifully) no beats!  It doesn't quite work, though it's a distinct improvement on what went before.  File under glorious failure?

The rest of the album is, unfortunately, not helped by its production, Friday Rich/Saturday Poor and Cheerleader being a case in point.  World of Liars is more relaxed, dancing around classic soul tune Walk On By while maintaining its independence.  Final track Everything Is Given To Be Taken Away returns the band to their more natural, effortless state, the sound of waking up in the morning and wishing you hadn't.  

Probably the least essential of the Apartments' albums, something of a misstep.