Adrian Crowley – Dark Eyed Messenger – Album Review

Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com

https://nomoreworkhorse.com/2017/10/19/adrian-crowley-dark-eyed-messenger-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.

EP Review: Nine Inch Nails – Broken

Nine Inch Nails released the Broken EP in 1992.  In comparison to the not-exactly-easy-listening Pretty Hate Machine, this is an outright aural assault.  After the barely there instrumental Pinion, the insistent beats that open Wish lay the path for bludgeoning riffs that slay all before them as Trent Reznor howls his angsty lyrics.

The rockisms of Last give way to the moody instrumental piece Help Me I Am In Hell which creates a dystopian atmosphere.  This mood is shattered by the distorted torment of Happiness In Slavery which pounds and pounds for five minutes before the breakneck beats and anguished shouting of Gave Up.

There are 2 further ‘bonus tracks’, an industrial version of Adam Ant’s Physical, and a Pigface (?) cover – Suck, both of which dial the distortion down a little but are still riff-heavy tracks.  Suck sees a slight return to the electro-style of their debut album.

It’s the sound of a man screaming and raging against the world.  Great, if you’re in that kind of mood.