BAUHAUS: BURNING FROM THE INSIDE (1983)
1) She's In Parties; 2)
Antonin Artaud; 3) Wasp; 4) King Volcano; 5) Who Killed Mr. Moonlight; 6) Slice
Of Life; 7) Honeymoon Croon; 8) Kingdom's Coming; 9) Burning From The Inside;
10) Hope.
Considering who we are talking about here, the
phrase «nothing predicted a bleak future for Bauhaus in 1983» sounds rather
silly — this is one band that could always do with some bleak future, the
bleaker the better. Let me try and rephrase that: by early 1983, Bauhaus were
going stronger than ever, and there is no telling how many successful results this
Murphy/Ash collaboration could yield throughout the decade. But fate commanded
that, just as the band entered the studio to begin sessions for their fourth
LP, Murphy fell ill with a real heavy (some say life-threatening) case of
pneumonia — and the remaining members actually had the nerve to carry on recording
without him, even to the point of Ash
and David J singing lead vocals on several tracks. Whatever tensions between
the vocalist and the instrumentalists there were up to that point were
instantly magnified tenfold, and the band played their last show at the
Hammersmith on July 5, one week prior to the release of Burning From The Inside.
Tension, dissent, and various forms of cracks
within a band are not always detrimental — quite often, this actually stirs and
freshens creative juices, and there is nothing like a heavy splash of healthy
hatred to produce great art, anyway. Unfortunately, this is not what happened
here — with the partial absence of Murphy, Bauhaus... well, it just isn't
Bauhaus any more. Apart from a few trademark songs, Ash and David J push the
band into softer, more «melodic» territory that draws its inspiration from dark
folk and Kurt Weill rather than Joy Division. It may be tasteful and relatively
interesting territory, but it puts The Bauhaus Beast to sleep (and it sometimes
puts me to sleep, which is not good
at all).
There is really only one classic number here,
which accordingly opens the album and was also released as its only single —
ʽShe's In Partiesʼ has everything you could expect from a Bauhaus song: dark
«glam-hellish» delivery from Peter, going into a nostalgic trance for the
glitz, the vanity, and the noir of
the classic age of Hollywood; a simple, nasty, unforgettable riff from Ash, eventually
mutating into a series of heavily treated swoops and meltdowns, as if somebody
were pouring acid on the amps; and a gloomy solo dance by the bassline for a
coda. The song is so good that its very presence already sort of redeems the
album, so that the ensuing disappointment is not so disappointing — then again,
it is hard not to be disappointed when you slowly understand that nothing else
here comes close to matching the dark power of its opening number.
Most of the Murphy-less stuff is what I'd call
«for the fans». The boys mean well and have no intention of simply pelting us
with filler: ʽWho Killed Mr. Moonlightʼ, for instance, is a carefully
thought-out epitaphy to starry-eyed romance, a piano / organ-dominated
melancholic ballad on how "someone shot nostalgia in the back, someone
shot our innocence". Problem is... it's boring. They do not seem to be
able to do anything interesting with these instruments, let alone the saxophone
doodling that Ash is quietly arranging in the background. It's basically just five
minutes of fluffy atmospheric wallowing that is neither too pretty nor too sad
to activate the emotions. It's just something that is not-theirs-to-do.
Nor am I too impressed with the half-drunk,
half-tribal waltzing of ʽKing Volcanoʼ (tries to achieve a phantasmagoric
effect but fails), or with the acoustic folk balladry of ʽKingdom's Comingʼ
(monotonous, instantly forgettable); ʽSlice Of Lifeʼ is a little better because
Ash's vocals at least match the nervous tension of the instrumental melody, and
this is the only track on which he succeeds in building up some maniacal
paranoia — still, Murphy would have handled that so much better. Really, none
of these songs has any genuine staying power. In addition, it is a little weird that, all of a sudden,
without Murphy in the studio, Ash so abruptly decided to place his faith in the
acoustic guitar: he is not a master picker, and his greatest talent was always
in the sheer number of different effects and impressions he could derive from
electricity.
Things do not always work out fine with Murphy, either: case in point is
the title track, which starts out nice enough, with cruel, brain-melting riffs
and pleasantly extremist abrupt jumps from dirge-goth to «punk-funk» and
convenient lyrics about "razor weeds" that reach up to one's knees,
but then somehow gets stuck in a five-minute repetitive coda that annoys rather
than enchants, as if your vinyl got caught in the groove for some purely mechanical
reason. Those five minutes, I doubt it not for a second, were clearly thrown in
to fill up space: there must be more
atmospheric ways of getting the message of "I don't see you anymore"
into your listeners' heads than this.
Finally, what sort of a Bauhaus record finishes
with a song called ʽHopeʼ? Uplifting acoustic guitars? Hippie-style choral
vocals? "Your mornings will be brighter, break the line, tear up rules,
make the most of a million times no"? Who do they think they are —
Jefferson Airplane? Time to call it a day, boys; I have no more interest in
hearing this from my Bauhaus than in
listening to the Beach Boys doing hip-hop or to Elton John singing opera arias.
Of course, the album is not really a «sell
out»: it is simply plagued by circumstances beyond artistic control, and a
failed attempt to compensate for these circumstances with a series of experiments
that downplay the band's traditional strengths and lay open their weaknesses.
Many fans are still willing to accept it, particularly since ʽShe's In Partiesʼ
is such a strong opener that it does set the tone for the entire record, and
that's quite alright. My point is simply that Burning From The Inside is «diluted Bauhaus», and that I'd rather
go listen to R.E.M. than to ʽKingdom's Comingʼ, or to Peter Hammill rather than
to ʽWho Killed Mr. Moonlightʼ — why settle for anything but the best, after
all, when history has already provided you with such an ample choice?
Check "Burning From The Inside" (MP3) on Amazon
I, too, love "She's In Parties". I also like their dark folkie stuff, but maybe that's just cause I'm a fan?
ReplyDeleteGreat review, all the same. You've come a loooong way from your old website.