plorentz's Full Review: Light at the End of the World by Erasure
Off to jail Paris Hilton goes. Two days early even. There's a part of me that wonders if she isn't going to enjoy the experience on some level. And there's another part of me - the one that always responds to my inner thoughts with nasty little quips - that she'd enjoy it more if she could have gotten a reality TV show out of the ordeal. But even without the cameras rolling, I wonder if she'll look back on her little adventure and think, Hey that was good for me. I will be a better, kinder, more lawful citizen after this experience. Or if, when she gets out, she'll have a newfound appreciation for her jetsetting life of unearned privilege and excess. Maybe her jail time could be a sort of secular Lent season of enforced deprivation, which will no doubt be followed by a saturnine season of unencumbered depravation. I can hardly wait for the glorious tabloid headlines to come!
Especially if she re-embraces her usual ways the way Erasure, the elder statesmen of perky, supergay synthesizer pop, have re-embraced computer programming as music-making following a period of self-imposed strictly acoustic exile, resulting in a country-themed self-covers record (Union Street, released in 2006 but largely recorded before their typically synth-based 2005 album Nightbird) and an all-acoustic tour culminating in this year's CD/DVD live document (their first live album) On the Road to Nashville. Having apparently fully exorcized what must have been two full decades of previously unvented yahooing and do-si-do-ing from their systems, Andy Bell (the voice) and Vince Clarke (the brains) retreated to coastal Maine, of all places, to write and record their next proper studio album, Light at the End of the World, an album whose 110% digital sound is at once as heavenly and apocalyptic as its conflicted title might suggest.
More than twenty years into their career, Erasure's tested formula - snappy, camp-laced three minute pop songs played on synthesizers and sung with soulful flamboyance - is burdened by a copious discography (thirteen studio albums, several EPs, dozens of singles) of similarly conceived records. Erasure have released more studio albums than Madonna, but Madonna goes through more artistic re-invention in the space between one record and the next than Erasure have in their entire career. (Granted, Madonna sells more records, but Erasure's cult is just as devoted.) And yet, the duo has never - never! - sounded fresher, more determined, more driven, more focused, more urgent, nor nearly as joyous as they do on their latest. And, while being a devoted fan of the group, I'm always a little excited to hear they have a new album, Light at the End of the World, more than any other record they've released since their 1995 self-titled album (which was exciting as much for its unusually intimate songs as for being a moment of unorthodoxy in a thitherto formulaic career), actually justifies my excitement - and, extraordinarily, over repeated listens, multiplies it. It is, quite simply, the best, most Erasure-ish album they've made since I was in junior high.
Which is not to say that it's got a nostalgic vibe, nor that it feels retro like an 80s revival kind of thing. But neither does it go out of its way to court a younger, or even wider audience. This is a now album for people who loved Erasurethen: party music for child-and-mortgage-encumbered former high school forensics team stars and college art fags (to borrow a phrase from the Dead Milkmen's hallowed back-catalogue), an album that reflects and celebrates the various twists and turns of mature relationships (both men are in their mid-40s) and cozy domesticity (Clarke's a new father), but also understands and amply fulfills the average thirty-to-fortysomething's innate need for disco beats, oceanic surround-sound basslines, and melodies you (and the kids) can sing along to as you trudge your way up the Interstate to the Water Park Capital of the World.
From the science fiction movie fanfare and pixelated orchestral swells which announce the opening track, "Sunday Girl", to the ethereal, haunted good-byes of "Glass Angel", this is tenaciously, urgently, confrontationally electronic music as mid-life-affirming, mental health floatation device. Erasure's tempos have rarely been as consistently up, and the album is enveloped in a gloriously womb-like bass sound, where beats pulse like the contractions of a heart as heard through a body's inner processes and fluids. "Sucker for Love" matches a frenetic all-night-rave beat to lyrics like "without love, I'm not tremendous" and a singalong kiss-off chorus that Bell sings as if channelling the spirit of the late Melanie Thornton (la da da dee da da da daaaa...), and just listening to it - even while sitting down (if you can actually remain sitting) - is nearly the equivalent of a half hour cardio workout. The lead single "I Could Fall In Love With You" is loaded with soulful assurances - don't get me wrong, I can be strong - that Bell sings like promises already kept.
The album's tenderest moments, like the slowly ascending "Golden Heart", or the sweet, worshipful chorus of "How My Eyes Adore You" are melodies that arc and dip softly and gracefully, with Bell's full-chested voice filling their curves like an ocean wind billowing a ship's sails. "When a Lover Leaves You" is a gently sympathetic song about two suddenly lonely people finding comfort in each other, and in one of the band's most lovely vocal arrangements, Bell's long, light, unassuming pleas - be my escape, my reward - are backed up by heavenly Bell choirs chanting I love you, I love you - as he reaches a sort of climactic, however inconclusive, revelation:
Where there are demons
I see angels passing by
The morning after nights before
I have tried
If Christmas tree lights could sing, they might sound something like the sounds that Vince Clarke cooks up for this record, and few artists can take such garish, dance-oriented songs and make them sound like they belong and have something to say to life outside the fog-machine TV screen glow, the dark communalism, and deafening atmosphere of a night club. If Erasure's songs are derived from a well-worn formula, they are also the quintessence of what they set out to do, and on Light at the End of the World, there's not a single track that doesn't continue to renew and reveal itself on repeated listens. If it sounds like I'm a little giddy, it's because I am a little. But how awesome is it when an album by a band this far along makes us feel like a fifth grader hearing them for the first time?
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BECAUSE YOU NEED TO KNOW:
"Light at the End of the World" by Erasure
Mute Records
Released 5/22/07
Produced by Andy Bell, Vince Clarke and Gareth Jones
39 min.
SONGS: Sunday Girl - I Could Fall in Love With You - Sucker for Love - Storm in a Teacup - Fly Away - Golden Heart - How My Eyes Adore You - Darlene - When a Lover Leaves - Glass Angel
Leave it to Erasure to hole up in a cottage abutting the woods of Mid-Coast Maine, surrounded by ocean, forest and mountains to produce one of the mos...More at Buy.com
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