Infected --- The The --- 1986
Sure, there was a time when it was cool to like The The, but this album really affected (rather than infected!) me, and I went on to buy the rest of their catalogue and follow them through to what has been, so far, sadly the end of their career. And when I say they, I of course mean Matt Johnson, who is and was the beating, screaming, bleeding heart of the band: composer, instrumentalist, poet, wordsmith, frontman and prophet.
There's nothing I don't like on this album. From the screaming guitars, babbling synths and electronic drum machines of the title track and opener to the urban apocalypse of the closer, every single track demands your attention. In some ways it's a story, the tale of innocence lost and hope destroyed, with references to war (Vietnam I think), love in its dirtiest and most raw animal sense, urban decay and profiteering, and any other vice you wish to name. Above all strides the familiar dark figure of the devil --- "Come on down, the devil's in town!" from "Angels of deception", "One day I asked the angels for inspiration but the devil bought me a drink and he's been buyin' them ever since!" from "The mercy beat" --- but even that is a cartoonish figure, as Johnson points to the real evil lying in the heart of man.
It's a disturbing, often unsettling ride if you look past the electro-dance beats and the walls of synth and gaze deeply into the lyrics, which allow you in turn to look into Johnson's soul, and it is not a nice place to be. Johnson tells it like it is, with no attempt at sugar coating and no apology for the rawness of his lyrics --- "She was lying on the bed with her lips parted squealing like a stuck pig" --- he calls 'em as he sees 'em, and I guess we're lucky he's not God, cos otherwise he'd just condemn the whole damn lot of us to eternal fire and damnation.
A stunning album, definitely the peak of The The/Matt Johnson's creativity, an album that never lets up for a second and leaves you feeling like you've been dragged through Hell on a dirty, bloodstained train crewed by the damned across rail tracks made of the bones of sinners and saints alike, the latter of whom mistakenly thought there was another place they were going. Johnson's deaths-head grin as he growls and stokes the fire in the engine tells us otherwise.
TRACKLISTING
1. Infected
2. Out of the blue into the fire
3. Heartland
4. Angels of deception
5. Sweet bird of truth
6. Slow train to dawn
7. Twilight of a champion
8. The mercy beat