A quirky drum pattern garnished with synth beeps and squelches and then lower keyboard piano. Cope comes in riding the rhythm with a swing. When the chorus hits about distant fire and elusive ecstasy the brass section, already familiar from the debut, kicks in and the jazzier side of this post-punk side opener is brought into focus. They might have led with the single with its sudden start on 10 and neo-psychedelia (of which more later) but Bent out of Shape sits comfortably at a halfway point between that and the aching ethereality of some of the other tracks, offering a mutual hand to both. It's a musing song, a song of morning shower revelations but one done with the coffee afterwards in mind. This is the new Teardrop Explodes, not always in yer face but not Music for Airports, either.
Colours Fly Away is a blast from the pervious year. Big split brass and sax sections punching out the riffs, Copey calling images of melee, chaos and disorder with the urgency of a witness. The contained hear change for the chorus and treated vocal provide a kind of meta-observation before we're back on the street and in the thick of it. One verse is sandwiched between a pair of gorgeous vocal harmony descents and it's the first time you notice the guitar which will almost exclusively in this album, be janglling through a chorus pedal. There is a force and sweetness to it that wasn't heard at all in the debut album and that it fits here and so effortlessly is further indication that this band has picked up a few lessons in the interim. The song ends on a few tough brass punches before Cope parachutes down in falsetto: "Colours fly awaaaaaaay."
Seven Views of Jerusalem enters slowly with electronic chirps, beeps, swipes and caws. A jaunty bass rises from this. Cope enters in fine head voice, describing more chaotic rack and ruin, claiming a miraculous kind of aloofness. Is it he who has a Biblical seven views of Jerusalem? The apocalyptic lyrics are sompletely at odds with the bouncy tracking, sweet vocals and lyrics but that seems to be the point. It's a way of describing the achievement of godhead or at least the discovery of it in oneself ... after a good dose of the resurgent lysergant that was flowing around him at the time. The chorus is a banded, ethereal falsetto, ascending in small steps from tonic to major third to fourth, not quite ecclesiastical but certainly monumental and ringing with marble resonance. The fade is on this figure and joined by wordless backing vocals in counterpoint. It's quirky but it shimmers and it's stiffly beautiful.
Pure Joy begins with a clean electric guitar chord riff. The verse starts with a high lead vocal and a galloping hihat. The urgency is relieved for a moment before theyu launch back into it and then hit the chorus which extends into a kind of Scott Walker popera musing. And then it ends. I always remember this song being about twice its length, probably because so much happens in its sub two minute running time. Falling Down Around Me is a laid back groove and soft vocal. There is a sense of bemusement at events as they happen around him, leaving him to wonder powerlessly. The song develops with a distant brass section and the ba-ba-bas Cope had been using since the first album. The gentleness of the track against the weight of the words create a sad resignation.
Ba-bas again but in a minor key and against an acoustic guitar. The Culture Bunker fills out with an insistent punchy rhythm, chorused guitars and a stern vocal from Cope. Images of war, air raids with V1 flying bombs. The chorus tells of leaving the safety of the bunker and a resentful response to the success of friends. The key to this is the line: "Waiting for the crucial three. Wondering what went wrong." The Crucial Three were Ian McCulloch, Pete Wylie and Cope himself. The art school trio came to no more than teenage daydreams as such but each of them went on to international fame to varying degrees: Cope in Teardrop, McCulloch in Echo and the Bunnymen and Wylie in Wah! (which name seemed to change with every release). From this point it looks like parallel success but nothing works that way close up. McCulloch's success proved the biggest ane most durable than either of his perceived rivals which had to rankle, especially when the original grouping was made up of three frontmen (or at least men who wanted to be fronts). There is a sadness to the music which suggests weariness with the process of the pissing contest. This isn't a How Do You Sleep moment, more a Can't We All Just Get Along?
The old side one begins with a bang and the most joyous song the band ever did. Passionate Friend starts full band and vocal. After the full blast of the opening lines the band skips into a striding arrangement, emphasising the brightness of their parts, chorused guitars, '80s big bass and gated drums as Cope sings a shouting ode to someone he later described in an interview as, "just a girl." The chorus is delayed for two verses and an instrumental section that puts an electric sitar out front and introduces a shining classically flavoured brass section. When the chorus does come it's heralded by a pre-chorus of urgent happiness and then either disappoints or delights by being more ba-ba-ba vocalisations. But these are infectious and open the song on to the sunniest day on Earth. This song is a perfect example of using a late '60s influence without direct emulation. The catchy-cry repeats over jubilant trumpets as Cope quotes the melody of As Tears Go By before variations on the chorus tune into the fade.
In complete contrast Tiny Children's warm blanket of keyboards feels snug until Cope's vocal comes in at the top of his chest voice. The beautiful melody and Cope's control of it belie the strong melancholy. An emotional cataclysm has taken place and he can't ... Cope. Instead he's less coping than falling back into sensations of childhood but then is reminded that the thoughts of children can be epically violent and recriminating, especially when vengeful. Cope made no great secret that this was inspired by the unhappy dissolution of his marriage. It is such an intriguing take on the emotional racking that a breakup can create, no escape, even in the eiderdown and warm cocoa, everything, however briefly, will just end up hurting. I recall an interview with Cope where he metnioned Ian Curtis, then a year or so dead, as being a case of submission rather than fighting and how gross he found the idolisation of Curtis in the wake of his death.
A strident chorused guitar riff with a theremin-like portamento open Like Leila Kahled said. The song follows a straighforward rock song course without variation. Cope described it as a love song to the Palestinian hijacker because of her beauty but without knowing much about her life. I don't know how seriously I'd take that. Whether he liked the name and put it into a song lyric or there was a point about risk that he wanted to sing about. The song has a seize the day sense to it but it's minor key and almost sobering. Perhaps he was just using the name to emphasise the effects of taking any chance regardless of the damage it might cause.
... And the Fighting Takes Over begins with a chorused guitar riff but it's gentle and supported by buried echoing trumpets. When the vocal comes in the riff gets more complex. Another melancholy tune describing what feels like the same cataclysm of Tiny Children and its effect on communication, a series of ruptured attempts at peacemaking. Between each verse and in the fade out there is a beautiful interplay of the quiet trumpets and an organ line. The fade feels like the thought is being left where it landed and quietly abandoned.
If that wasn't enough, The Great Dominions begins with a heartbeat but it's harsh and rasping, the kind of sound reportedly heard by foetal ears during gestation. A gentle keyboard figure that sounds like a loop adds rhythm. Cope's vocal enters in head voice, in a trhowback to Tiny Children but here the concern has widened to concerns more global in nature but could still esily be the distortion of close viewing. A real string section plays what sound like keyboard chords. The drums are less keeping time than accentuating the grandeur, boomy, echoing and huge in the distance. Three verses of defeat and failed connection with images of violence and invasion with the anguished cry, "Mummy, I've been fighting again" ringing out in the chorus. The final chorus goes on twice the length of the first but instead of fading the song ends on the foetal heartbeat, rasping by itwself until it comes to a sudden stop. This is an album closer like When the Music's Over, A Day in the Life or Decades, gigantically epic with an expert use of aural space. Cope's dejection and the refusal of the music to build past its plateau or speed up keep the boundless landscape of it ranging. But if it's a landscape like the fade of Decades sounds like, it's not a sunset or noon, it's a deep dark night of a new moon giving the sense of its expanse without needing sight of it. A scary and magnificent song.
I have yet to read Cope's reputedly werid and wonderful book Head On about the days of this band and didn't want to before I wrote this as I wanted to keep my impressions from the time and the effect of the record over time relatively pure. As I've said on other articles like this one I don't regard the quality of timelessness as praise but a description of compliance with production methods or orthodoxy. Accessible this music might be but orthodox this album is not. It starts with a laid back psychedelic swing tune, follows with the first single and then adds new variations on melancholic perspectives with each track with convetions like fast followed by fast until a slow one brings relief. There is no attempt at balance in the sequence, rather, the notion of making an album feel balanced is flouted. Cope said that ditching some more typical uptempo songs in favour of the slower ones and shaking up the results made it sound wilder than the previous one, hence the title.
This record will always remind me of second year university, taking pleasure in the knowledge that the others who'd been in their teens in the '70s and preferred the richness of the sounds of the '60s were coming up in the music making streams, influenced but not copying the music that had inspired them. This is in stark contrast to bands from about five years later who augmented their fuzz wah riffs with paisley jackets and beads which was just revival. Wilder didn't need that. The times didn't call for it and preferred the stamp of originality for however brief a time. That's why this LP sings across the decades as loudly as it did in 1981. I'd end by saying more's the pity they didn't survive long after its release but this was a band in turmoil from the word go. That they were able to provide such epoch forming music is the wonder and the wildness of it.
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