THE BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE: THEIR SATANIC MAJESTIES' SECOND REQUEST (1996)
1) All Around You (intro); 2)
Cold To The Touch; 3) Donovan Said; 4) In India You; 5) No Come Down; 6)
(Around You) Everywhere; 7) Jesus; 8) Before You; 9) Miss June '75; 10)
Anemone; 11) Baby (Prepraise); 12) Feelers; 13) Bad Baby; 14) Cause, I Lover;
15) (Baby) Love Of My Life; 16) Slowdown (Fuck Tomorrow)/Here It Comes; 17) All
Around You (outro).
Well, they asked
for it. It always takes a concentrated effort to discuss BJM music on its own
merits, without necessarily looking back on Newcombe's idols and dragging in
the comparative aspect — but with an album title like this, ignoring the comparative
aspect is like ignoring a public slap in the face. Clearly, this is a legacy claim.
I actually know a few people whose favorite Stones album is Their Satanic Majesties' Request, just
because they find the combination of the band's usual sneery/rebellious
arrogance with cosmic/psychedelic ambience so decidedly one-of-a-kind, and it
seems that Newcombe is one of these
people — he likes his transcendental inspiration to come along with some snap,
or vice versa. And here we are being told that it is this particular vibe that he wants to cherish and develop. Well, I
guess we already knew that before, but we weren't told about it so explicitly.
The problem is, I am neither at all sure that
that particular vibe could be
developed further, nor that Anton Newcombe, Matt Hollywood, and their temporary
partners are the perfect team to try out this development. That the album, once
again, is insanely long is only part of the problem — after all, if it works,
it works, and if it succeeds in unlocking your cosmic conscience, it no longer matters
how long it is because «time» as a concept becomes relative and all that. A
much bigger part of the problem is that this
particular mojo doesn't seem to work on
me, and if I succeed in explaining why, it might become obvious that it also
wouldn't work on many other people.
First and foremost, the record only remotely sounds like Satanic, and its differences are
usually of the negative kind. It is rich in instrumentation, yes, with lots of
Indian sitars and percussion, and some odd old-fashioned keyboards, but it is
nowhere near as rich in melodic ideas. The majority of these seventy-two
minutes are almost literally spent crawling
— monotonous acoustic drones, on top of which Newcombe and friends pile up all
the overdubs and effects. Not even ʽSing This All Togetherʼ or ʽGomperʼ were that slow, and underneath all of its
trippiness Satanic was really just a
very strong pop/rock album — with great riffs (ʽCitadelʼ), stern basslines
(ʽ2000 Light Years From Homeʼ), beautiful piano melodies (ʽShe's A Rainbowʼ), inventive
structural shifts (ʽ2000 Manʼ), and widely varying atmospheres for different
songs. In comparison — yes, in obligatory,
self-triggered comparison — this «second» Request
is just one dreary drone after another, where one melody usually suffices per
song. If you ever wondered how in the world Newcombe could pull three albums in
one year — well, I can offer a few unpleasant suggestions on where exactly he
pulled them from.
If there is one proper way to enjoy this album,
it must probably be handled on a very, very
hot summer day somewhere out in the country, when your brain is already half
turned to mush through climatic conditions, and you can do nothing whatsoever except
suck on ice cubes and wander around or lie around in a near-vegetative state. (Alternately,
there's artificial substances, but I'm hardly an expert on those). Under these
conditions, the limp stroll of these tunes, one by one, one by one, might
perfectly fit the environment, and help your struggling brain readapt to the
circumstances, or just forget about them altogether. But do NOT make the
mistake — like I did — of listening to this in a perfectly brisk and vigorous
state, because it will drag you down mercilessly,
and not in a good, depressing sort of manner, either: it will just mush you up
all over.
To understand what I am talking about, it is
perfectly sufficient to listen to the first track: ʽAll Around Youʼ greets you
with a slo-o-o-o-w jangle-drone, group harmonies that sound like dazed mantras,
and a spoken lead vocal part where Newcombe basically just welcomes you to
chill out and enjoy the experience (thus, a song that pays tribute to the
opening ʽSing This All Togetherʼ and the
closing ʽOn With The Showʼ at the same time, except BJM take special care to purge
out any possible traces of «energy»).
Gradually, there will be more guitars, keyboards, and back vocals piling up on
you, but the energy level will be constantly kept at near-zero, and this is all you are going to get not just from
this song — from the entire album. Nothing here, not a single song, sounds
significantly different from the opener.
As it happens, despite the title, the Stones
are not really the major influence on
the album — I would probably have to say that Donovan is a bigger presence
(ʽDonovan Saidʼ is actually a rewrite of ʽThe Fat Angelʼ), his not-too-catchy
summer psycho-folk vibe reflected here as precisely as anything; as for the
melodies, Newcombe draws on the Beatles at least as much as he does on the
Stones (the short acoustic ballad ʽLove Of My Lifeʼ borrows the chord
progression from the beginning of ʽI'm Looking Through Youʼ, and also has a
Kinks vibe to it, I think), but since most of these melodies are taken at such
ridiculously slow tempos, they do not so much feel as «melodies» as they do as
«mind-melting note sequences», and since they melt my mind rather than stick to
it, how could I even begin describing this stuff?
I do admit there is some «songly» potential at
least in those tracks where Newcombe turns to the little devil inside him, and succumbs
to his blasphemous instigations — ʽJesusʼ is a desperate Jobian plea because
"I gave you my love but you tore me to pieces, have mercy please
Jesus", and ʽAnemoneʼ puts the blame on his girl because "you should
be picking me up, instead you're dragging me down", and both are steadily
and very lightly simmering with anxiety and paranoia, but neither of the two
dares bring up the tempo or kick it up otherwise in the energy department,
because, well, you know, it might just spoil that hot summer mood. Everything
has to be slow, quiet, implied rather than felt directly, or it won't fit the
rules of the game. Don't believe me? The next-to-last track is called ʽSlowdown (Fuck Tomorrow)ʼ, and
it sounds like Syd Barrett had a twin brother who was even more incapacitated.
Despite all this, no thumbs down from me. I
understand that the record has a certain purpose and a certain style, and that
there are certain people and certain circumstances for which it could be much
more useful than the first Satanic Majesties' Request. I do
believe that the grooves could be made more interesting and less derivative,
but this is, after all, an album that openly celebrates the idea of «laziness»,
and such an album should consist of
nothing but «lazy» melodies with «lazy» arrangements, to which lazy people
would listen on lazy days, hanging out their lazy tongues and staring at static
skies with lazy eyes. That purpose is
definitely fulfilled to some extent, and so, from an objective stance, I
couldn't honestly say this is a «bad» record. I could honestly say, though, that it relates to the original Satanic Majesties — as well as most of
its other influences — much like Psycho
II relates to the original Psycho,
so do not fall for that type of legacy-claiming arrogance.
Oh man this review had my *dying* laughing . . . i think you actually made this album sound totally awesome to people who like this sort of stuff: "mind melting note sequences . . . they melt my mind . . . " and "Slowdown (fuck tomorrow) . . . sounds like Syd Barrett had a twin brother who was even more incapacitated" lol oh my lord lol
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