Vinyl Tap: The Psychedelic Furs - Talk Talk Talk

Tag : raw furs

I get a new turntable and dust off some old records. Vinyl Tap #55:
There's conversation
And conversation
Talk about yourself again
Talk about the rain again
Another lie for you
Another point of view
How can you believe in them?
Don't believe in anything...
--"No Tears" This isn’t your mother’s Psychedelic Furs . But isn’t it pretty to think that the snarling and scabrous“Pretty in Pink” — about a perennial wallflowerwho “lives in the place in the side of our lives wherenothing is ever put straight” — could be toned down andturned into a title hit relatively tame enough to nearly evokecrinoline and curtsies conceivably befitting the 1986 JohnHughes/Molly Ringwald movie it fronted?
Then again, as we are reminded in the no-bones “Into You Likea Train,” “I don't wanna … celebrate yourprettiness…”
Insidiously snarling, all bile and bite, the Psychedelic Furs Talk Talk Talk is a raw and rough-edged masterwork produced by Steve Lillywhiteto elicit — to most select effect — RichardButler’s vocal rasp and the instrumental rev and overdrive ofJohn Ashton and Roger Morris (Guitars), Duncan Kilburn (Horns,Keyboards), Tim Butler (Bass), and Vince Ely (Drums, Percussion).
Actually, “Pretty in Pink,” with a titular subject whoengages in crazy-endearing antics and “loses herself in herdreaming and sleep,” has a bittersweet savor amongst itslilting raucousness. But it also establishes for Talk Talk Talk a complex pattern — even mixed signals at times -- betweenit’s hard-edged stuff and its… well - slightly lesshard-edged songs, which includes its languid and melodic RoxyMusic-styled “She is Mine,” and “No Tears,”which is REM tinged, of the Byrdsian jangly variety, to assure usto not “believe in anything / no colours, no tears...”
Beyond the melancholic murmur — the "Balk BalkBalk," if you will -- the Furs are on solid, yet even morecynical and non-romantic ground on the rest of the album, when thepunk rock roots of the group comes through more loudly and clearly,and anger becomes power with propulsive and pounding manic thrills.The relentlessly-charging standout “Into You Like aTrain,” for instance, races with downhill runaway force,after starting with a mission statement from the depths of amocking, dark heart, before intensifying the course.