OtherPress1996Vol20No16.pdf-12

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Wild Mood Swings
the cure
Elektra

Recorded in Jane Seymore’s house in Bath,
England, where The Cure was living more than
recording, Wild
Mood Swings took
four years in the
making, allowing
them to d6, redo,
and do over again
to make the album
what it is now—
worth the anxious
four year wait that
fans had to endure.

The title is so
amazingly
appropriate.
Admittedly, The
Cure has’ had
eclectic albums in
the past, but on
none other has this

group gone
between — such
extremes. Wish

came close, but the emotions on this

album are all too intense for comparison. ‘Mint
Car’ is like ‘Friday I’m In Love’ on overkill (a
good overkill, though), while ‘Jupiter Crash’ is
singer/songwriter Robert Smith at his absolute most
depressing.

‘Club America’ is the hardest song to get
accustomed to because Smith’s voice is so low. The
first single, ‘The 13th,’ is an almost misleading
representation of the album. But then again, it’s

Machine Fish
Galactic Cowboys
Attic
Galactic Cowboys are known (by those in the
know) as some of the best cheeseball rock
musicians in the universe. There is a special charm
to really good musicians playing really comy music
really well, and metal is, ipso facto, corny music.
The Cowboys have always played lighthearted
music with sometimes comical lyrics, but with
darker underlying themes, both musically and

lyrically, that occasionally seep and seethe to the
surface. Consider the disturbing ‘Kill



nearly impossible to choose one track that speaks
for the entire album. The Cure still shimmers with
that little bit of aloofness fans have learned to love,
“tomorrow I know I'll feel bad/ but I really couldn’t
care about that.”

‘Jupiter Crash’ connects the heavens to the earth
in a slower, more melodic tune about a ruthless
woman who couldn’t appreciate him after their
p hvyes ica |
encounter,
drawing cosmic
comparisons to
Jupiter being
smashed by an
incoming comet.
It expresses just
how difficult it is
to get up into this
hellish world to
try to make life
fun again. “So
much for gravity,”
he cries.

With new a
drummer, Jason
Cooper, and a
re tarp nang
keyboardist from
Disintegration,
Roger O’Donnell,
Wild Mood Swings
closes by reminding audiences that The Cure will
not live forever (gasp!). The album has a very sad
ending allowable only by the Goth God himself,
“but holding onto used to be is not enough,/
memory’s not life, and it’s not love/you know we’ve
reached the end, you just don’t know why/I will
never forget.”

by rachel young and hilary price

and-stomp-it-into-the-ground opening ‘Feel the
Rage’ to the slow burning power ballad-esque
‘Arrow,’ the themes of anger, pain, stress and fear
are clearer on this album then on either of their
previous releases.

The trademark vocal harmonies are still here,
albeit less exposed than on previous Cowboy
albums, and they can still pull off some of the
funkiest heavy metal this side of Living Colour (a
comparison perhaps not that far off, considering
the liberal use of samples on Machine Fish). The
humour is still here, but is only fully realized on
“Psychotic Companion,” a mock-out on all those

late night TV psychic lines.



The Other Cure Revi
Wild Mood Swing:
Blah blah blah

After the bloody mess that was 19
something had to be done. Having nm
album so bad that it ended with the b
eulogy, it was clear The Cure couldn’!
They had to prove that they weren’t was
uninspired, which was a safe assump
time. The strategy? Release another Wis
better job of it this time.

Wild Mood Swings frequently co
images of “Wish, Part Two.” Don’t be
Both albums open with what appears to t
song. Wild’s ‘Want’ has an identica
Wish’s ‘Open,’ as well as striking m
lyrical similarities. Both albums end
respective longest tracks with Rob
begging someone (or everyone) to
differently. The two albums sound m¢
than any other two Cure albums,
surprising, as the four year lapse be
albums .is the longest hiatus the Cure
There are also nods to Wish throughout

For instance, Wilds ‘Trap’ is a respons
‘Cut’ where the same dysfunctional rela
explored from opposite sides of the fe
helpless hands helplessly pulling you |
to me/I wish you felt the way that I still
a desperate, insecure, love-addicted Robe
to which a contemptuous Robert respa
the way you want me to be sick of it all

Of course, one has never had to cross
one Cure record to the next in order to {
divergent takes on love. They have al
conveniently located within individu:
Wild Mood Swings is an appropriate 1
would have for any Cure album since |

Ten Seconds
Ten Seconds
Discipline Record:

Singer/guitarist Bill Forth is infatuate:
with guitar craft guru Robert Fripp. So
that he convinced King Fripp to play ¢
of 10 tracks on Ten
Seconds self titled debut.

Musically, Jen Seconds
(the album) is an odd mix
of King Crimson, Fripp’s
trademark Soundscapes,
and a weird sort of
industrio-ambient. Lofty