2 keepers
keeper avg .222
Though not exactly terrifying, the album's harsh textures and forlorn melodies plainly convey the pain of love or being without. Steve Drozd's guitar cuts with angular noise as Wayne Coyne chants "You can hear the voice, Telling you to love, It's the voice of MK-Ultra, And you're doing what it wants" in "Look... the Sun Is Rising"****. "Be Free, A Way" follows with the most familiar, Soft Bulletin-like passage, an exuberant melody that follows the question "Did God make pain so we can know the high that nothing is." The album's centerpiece "You Lust"**** is a composition of emulated machine noises that form weird melodies over a simple keyboard hook, a good idea taken too far at 13-minutes. Actually the whole album seems to be inspired by "Welcome To The Machine" as the main structure of most of the songs sounds like factory noises rather than any kind of percussion rhythm, the exception being the jazzy lounge-beat of "Butterfly, How Long It Takes To Die", which otherwise sounds similar to "Look.....", and the trip-hop beat that drives the title song. Unfortunately, like the Pink Floyd classic all the electronic noises leave little room for actual music to drive these songs other than a vocal melody and maybe a chord or two, giving the songs a sketchy feel despite there being no lack of texture and occasionally drama, like the electronic noise blast that transitions the last verse of "Turning Violent" or the pounding choruses of the title song. "Always There In Our Hearts," the closing track book-ending the album, has the same big Bonham-esque drums and scratchy guitar as opening track "Look...," suggesting there were only so many good ideas to go around.
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