19.
Therapy?
Crooked Timber
Another really good album that’s also a big disappointment, from this most prolific and consistently excellent of bands. Therapy? have six records that are bona fide masterpieces. Crooked Timber isn’t one of them. It’s certainly an improvement on their last effort, though, the rather bland and pop-tinged One Cure Fits All from 2006. In fact, it’s a totally different beast, with Therapy? once again shifting direction significantly. Crooked Timber sounds most like Therapy?’s earliest period (circa late 80s pre-heyday albums like Babyteeth and Pleasuredeath); under-produced, distorted and comparatively unpalatable. This is probably Therapy?’s most simplistic record, and it is one that essentially eschews all melody in favour of pure rhythm. Bass and drums rule on Crooked Timber, with the pop choruses of their 90s albums like Troublegum and Semi-Detached entirely absent. There is no attempt whatsoever to pander to radio – Andy Cairns sings with a strong Northern Irish accent, and the lyrics are pretty bleak (recalling 1999’s Suicide Pact – You First): see for example, ‘make the time left/a living death’ from ‘Enjoy the Struggle’. Therapy?’s best work has always come when they find a marriage between the grungey distortion and the melody – this goes a little too far into the void for my taste, but it’s still a cracking album and beats their previous radio-friendly unit shifter hands down.
Therapy?
Crooked Timber
Another really good album that’s also a big disappointment, from this most prolific and consistently excellent of bands. Therapy? have six records that are bona fide masterpieces. Crooked Timber isn’t one of them. It’s certainly an improvement on their last effort, though, the rather bland and pop-tinged One Cure Fits All from 2006. In fact, it’s a totally different beast, with Therapy? once again shifting direction significantly. Crooked Timber sounds most like Therapy?’s earliest period (circa late 80s pre-heyday albums like Babyteeth and Pleasuredeath); under-produced, distorted and comparatively unpalatable. This is probably Therapy?’s most simplistic record, and it is one that essentially eschews all melody in favour of pure rhythm. Bass and drums rule on Crooked Timber, with the pop choruses of their 90s albums like Troublegum and Semi-Detached entirely absent. There is no attempt whatsoever to pander to radio – Andy Cairns sings with a strong Northern Irish accent, and the lyrics are pretty bleak (recalling 1999’s Suicide Pact – You First): see for example, ‘make the time left/a living death’ from ‘Enjoy the Struggle’. Therapy?’s best work has always come when they find a marriage between the grungey distortion and the melody – this goes a little too far into the void for my taste, but it’s still a cracking album and beats their previous radio-friendly unit shifter hands down.