presencetotale

the album is excellent, but what truly makes it for me is Take Me Somewhere Nice. many times throughout my life, that song has been my voice when i've been too feeble and hurt to say anything. whatever i have i owe to it.

a poem about killing yourself, read in an appropriately monotone voice and spread around a drone piece with very eerie noises between every stanza.

the treatment they give the poem is amazing, and gives me tons of ideas of how to translate poetry to music. the poem itself is not very good, but its vagueness and simple language really helps the song strike an eerie chord.

if you enjoyed this, i'd recommend reading A Knife All Blade by João Cabral de Melo Neto. it's objective language ... read more

when Hex was completed, one of the band members went to Sutton and said "this is YOUR album". this wasn't congratulatory, but scornful. before that, they were a band in which every decision was done collectively, while on Hex Sutton had the final say on everything.

but after both Bark Psychosis albums, this compilation poses an interesting question: was Sutton's "betrayal" of Bark Psychosis' original democratic ideals worth the damage it caused to the band? after listening ... read more

first impressions: it's definitely better than Masseduction and self-titled. for one, the album flows much better and doesn't feel like a haphazard playlist... but i still feel nothing while listening to it. it's hard to put it into words, but that brilliance, that near-chaos of Actor and Marry Me simply aren't here. these are just competent and well-recorded pop tunes.

but maybe with time it'll grow on me. who knows; part of enjoying a piece of art is living with it