OK finally getting around to doing the next one.
Pornography (1982)
This record is fairly well described in terms of mood, ambience, general themes and sound, by the opening line. "It doesn't matter if we all die", pronounces Robert Smith 35 seconds into the Cure's darkest and most desperate album.
While Seventeen seconds charted boredom and apathy, Faith plummed depression and hopelessness, Pornography sounds like the mutterings of someone who has lost it; finally plummeted headlong into crazy.
The bare minimalism that reached it's apex on Faith songs such as The holy hour, is replaced by more expansive arrangements and production. It makes heavy use of long instrumental vamps utilising the Bass Vi which is a bit of a trademark Dark trilogy foundation. However, while still echoey, the reverb seems to have been pared back and Smith's voice brought prominently to the forefront. More complicated production is evident with many effects, such as backwards parts and more extensive modulation have been used, along with panning that pre-echoes the psychedelic tendencies of the next few albums.
Most of arrangements feel a bit more swirly and confusing, featuring much faster tempos than the almost exclusively funereal tempos of Faith.
This album is brilliant, yet it makes for an uncomfortable listen, and for that reason, I very rarely bring it out. There is something about it that prevents me from really embracing it, it's a bit voyeuristic maybe, listening to some one elses pain so exposed. That, and the fact that it is a very album orientated affair, the only possible single here, was The Hanging garden...not to say that singles are hugely important, but it emphasises the fact that it is hard to find something to grab hold of.
It is a hugely dense, intimidating and evocative album, that said, I don't think I can give it any score that reflects how I feel about it. I suppose it's a bit like reading Patrick White, you know it's great, you enjoy it's brilliance, but it drags you down so much, that you can only bear a very limited amount of it.
?/10
Very good.