The Sound - Thunder Up (1987)

I oto kolejna odsłona The Sound, powoli budujemy dyskografię zespołu, a wszystkich zainteresowanych odsyłam do wcześniejszych postów o tej grupie. 
W kolejce do prezentacji czeka jeszcze jedna płyta The Sound, w następnym tygodniu...

THE SOUND's final official album from 1987. Thunder Up is a tightrope between Adrian Borland's vocals, the turbulence of alligator bass, the prettier guitars and drums with additional keyboards and brass bringing a touch of life down the wings. Welcome confusion, that works on two levels. Their blank image hides frosted weariness, defiant observation disturbing any placid pique. Their sound, conventional only in set-up, belies the depth and malevolence of their pitter-patter as Borland makes you ashamed of your pessimism. "Shut Up And Shut Down" tickles and crawls through hateful emptiness every bit as biting as the more obvious two-ply ballads "Hand Of Love" and "I Give You Pain". The implied threat of mindless, mawkish muck never materializes because the wounds always want to remain open, only apparently transparent, the kick really does occur inside. It never hurts to have the Pulomonary Art Ache, to find emotions and memories stirred by a cool blue fog of guitar, and the lean but incisive melodic devastation of "You've Got A Way" achieves a landmine of a victory here. They can be flawed, like the crump of "Kinetic" or the thwipp of "Barria Alta" but that claustrophobia also doubles as a rarified atmosphere Unlike the grand deceits of similarly inclined, fictitiously humble, rock bands. where you can always foresee the peaks and step lazily over dubious depressions, untroubled by grimaces or real anguish, The Sound, by refining their despair simply amplify their magnificence and magnify the intensity of expression. The Sound WERE the missing link between Joy Division and Echo & The Bunnymen; perhaps time will help acknowledge this.

Here it is folks, at long last the 6th LP by the Sound (plus the live one). Mostly, Thunder Up finds Adrian Borland and company going back to their starkly beautiful, minimal landscape pop and overloaded pop bullets that made their 3rd LP All Fall Down (recorded at the same studio, coincidentally) such an interesting work. Again they scrap the cohesive feel of the '85 masterplece Heads and Hearts, and back comes the scattered collection of strange turns, dark passages, open fields, and then back to a forbidding woods.

The best song is the opening 'Acceleration Group,' along with From the Lion's Mouth's 'Winning' the finest recording of their long career. As fast as a speed skate with the wind in your face, and suddenly shifting gears 2/3 of the way through to a leisurely campfire to warm your hands only to return to the speed skate. 'Acceleration Group' is a sensational track, perhaps the first one they've ever done that bowls over all listeners, right from the opening seconds! So much for the Sound as acquired taste! Phew! After that out-of-breath beginning, The Sound have your attention, and they're intent on taking you whatever direction they feel like. One or two tracks sound like a soundtrack for Kubrick's Dr.Strangelove or Marooned for their doomed-in-space and the horror of technology sound (especially the b-side of both singles, 'The Fall of Europe' which makes the purchase of either mandatory). 'Hand of Love' and 'Web of Wicked Ways' brings out Borland's Velvets' Influence; pretty, sighing pop with a strange, inexplicable depth. Kinetic is just that, an off-toned piece of fired dissonance with sexual innuendo pierced through the squeal, while the ending I Give You Pain' builds like a trash can fire becomes a towering inferno, from extreme quiet to a roar of distortion (Into the red).

Then, the piece-de-resistance (bad French, I know), the most emotional track is the ending one (2 straight they ended on such a pulling note. last time the heartbreaking 'Temperature Drop'), 'You've Got a Way.' with descending little piano and unbelievable strings as deep as the Black Sea (occasionally flanked by rapid lightning bolts of guitar which clap and vanish instantly), which dismantles your defences and makes you out and out swoon like a lovesick sheep. By the time you get off this non-stop rollercoaster of faith, expectation, disenchantment, gentle joy and crushing disappointment, you feel like you just became the wheel of fortune and you've been spinning so much you don't know if you're bankrupt or you struck the emotional jackpot. In 30 years, when the Sound are 60 times bigger than they are today, people will wonder how anyone could settle for anything less than such an stunning. moving juggernaut. And by now. The Sound (Borland especially) has proven their genius, their standard so far above all others.
Buy anything with their name on it!!!

http://www.renascent.co.uk/pagessound/sound.html
http://www.brittleheaven.com
http://www.myspace.com/thesounduk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sound
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Borland



01. Acceleration Group
02. Hand Of Love
03. Barria Alta
04. Kinetic
05. Iron Years
06. Prove Me Wrong
07. Shot Up And Shut Down
08. Web Of Wicked Ways
09. I Give You Pain
10. You've Got A Way