Psychedelic Furs

A sensual, hypnotic record: this is the first impression left by "Talk Talk Talk". Yet another product of "Venus In Furs"'s Velvet lineage, the sound of Psychedelic Furs is more precisely a crossroads of three cultural and musical traditions: new wave, from which it draws its epileptic rhythms and dry, nervy guitar work (descended from Tom Verlaine's), as well as its imagery; dark-punk, from which it takes its existential mood; and the psychedelic revival (led in England by bands like The Sound, Echo & The Bunnymen and Teardrop Explodes), to which the band owes certain instrumental interplays and its overall hallucinogenic atmosphere.

Richard Butler's muffled, monotone voice, along with his detached, Lou Reed-esque singing style, lend the whole thing a sickly romantic sheen in the manner of Japan, Roxy Music and the "fallen angel" of "Transformer". The band also owes its originality to Duncan Kilburn's saxophone lines, which manage to add a touch of restraint to the Furs' constantly obsessive rhythmic bacchanals. The album's ten gems sustain an unbroken emotional tension (one that never quite explodes), occasionally interrupted by Kilburn's elegant saxophone swoons, as in "She Is Mine", painting a portrait of subterranean unease rather than declaimed alienation.

These traits will make the record one of the missing links between classic new wave and its synth-pop offshoot - an offshoot the band itself would pursue on subsequent, enjoyable and commercially successful records, though none would recapture the magic that pervades "Talk Talk Talk".

The album's greatness lies chiefly in being a pop vehicle for new wave's rhythmic and harmonic experiments, much as Bowie had been for the avant-garde electronic breakthroughs of the early Seventies. It's genuinely remarkable how the Furs manage to harmonically integrate Tim Butler's rough guitar work and Vince Ely's relentless drumming with Kilburn's delicate saxophone textures, giving rise to a sound that is fluid and tight at once.

"Talk Talk Talk" is chiefly a child of new wave, as shown by the android rhythms and assorted dissonances that make opener "Dumb Waiters" a bridge between strict post-punk and industrial music, while in a doom-laden, romantic-fatalist tone Butler polishes off the wonderful "No Tears", which, purely through its melodic flow, manages to break free of the dark-punk song template.

As befits any self-respecting masterpiece, the album contains its own manifesto track, in this case the irresistible "Pretty In Pink", which, stripped of its distinctive Velvet-style guitar progression, could pass for a mild power-folk number in the style of the Byrds, complete with catchy jingle-jangle - but it isn't. Pounding, sickly yet melodic, it unfolds over roughly four minutes with a fast-slow-fast dynamic, maddening in its ability to build tension only to abruptly abort it, then stoke it back up again.

"I Wanna Sleep With You", with its lethal Wire-like rhythm, manages to convey that sense of claustrophobia so typical of Colin Newman's band. The chaos of "It Goes On" is propelled by Vince Ely's powerful, mechanical drumming, out of which an epic refrain suddenly emerges - a model for the many bands (U2's "Gloria", Tears For Fears's "Shout") that would take from new wave almost exclusively its romantic, solemn, emphatic side.

The album's secret lies in being steeped in an underlying romanticism that expresses itself through easily digestible pop structures rather than complex compositions, unlike some bands of the era, Japan among them; even in its most agitated songs, the melodic aspect always comes first, as in "Into You Like A Train", where an exotic saxophone motif even manages to defuse the tension built up by Ely's obsessive drumming.

The ballad "All Of This And Nothing", steeped in existential spleen, showcases Butler's poetic-decadent streak, somewhere between Ian Curtis and Bryan Ferry. The album closes with "She Is Mine", a delicate ballad and a masterful exercise in counterpoint, featuring no fewer than three overlapping, alternating melodic lines: Morris and Ashton's two guitars and Kilburn's ever-present saxophone.

It's truly hard to resist the oblique charm of "Talk Talk Talk". Its place in a territory populated by experimental impulses makes it one of new wave's most captivating relics, while its unfolding in a pop language has made it easy to decode and absorb; an object that has aged remarkably well: a classic.

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06/11/2006