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| In accordance with our censorship policy, female nipples have been replaced with convicted murderer Stephen McDaniel, to avoid any offence. |
Because you're irreparably basic, your favourite Pink Floyd album is The Wall or Dark Side of the Moon. Because I'm a handsome patrician, my favourite Pink Floyd album is Adam and Eve by Catherine Wheel, one of the best and most interesting bands of the 90s. Debut Ferment brought classic rock grandeur to the shoegaze sound, followup masterpiece Chrome was face-punching space rock, and failed attempt to sell out Happy Days at least had my personal theme song on it. But on their GOAT B-sides & rarities collection Like Cats and Dogs, you'll find their cover of "Wish You Were Here", which presaged their full-album pastiche of "Welcome to the Machine"-era Floyd.*
You might think pastiche is a limiting format, that the result couldn't very well transcend gimmickry, that it would be fated to live in the shadow of its inspiration. But you would be characteristically wrong because Adam and Eve is great and uses Floyd as a genre the way a hundred billion doom bands used Black Sabbath, while imposing the Wheel's own more inimitable quirks and sensibilities. Bob Ezrin and only-album-artist-you-can-name Storm Thorgerson reprise their schtick from the Floyd catalogue but charismatic frontman Rob Dickinson (who is Bruce of Iron Maiden's cousin) takes the Wheel and wrests the sound in his own distinctly un-Roger-Watersishly positive direction. Lyrics like "don't you think the sarcasm's a little hard to stomach?/the cynicism's boring" ("Here Comes the Fat Controller") are as bold and caustic a revolt against the practically mandatory nihilism of the 90s zeitgeist as everyone pretends grunge was against those evil hair bands. In fact the track cuts short abruptly with a one-two punch "clamping down" effect in stereo just as it seems it will exult forever, like The Machine of corporate radio saying "that's quite enough of that". We don't mind; we'll be listening again.
Adam and Eve is far too long and I wouldn't cut a track, a verse, or an indulgent soundscape because the meandering, dynamic ebb and flow is the point. "Broken Nose", "Satellite" and "Controller" are standout anthems, but the plaintive, wistful strains of "Ma Solituda" and "Thunderbird" are no less resonant for being stood out from. The album feels vaguely conceptual but good luck pinning down the concept. Sex, love, friendship, burnout, melancholy, childhood, fantasy and nostalgia alternate with the fluency of a lucid dream. "There's far too many ghosts", Dickinson intones, and maybe that's the key. First "Phantom of the American Mother" quotes lyrically, and then "Goodbye" musically, from "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", so the album is already haunted by the ghost of Syd Barrett. Further lyrics allude to Bruce Lee, Sir Michael Caine, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, and then there's the titular pair whose archetypal tragedy haunts every man, woman and child. The closing track laments an unnamed girl who left town years ago. But with remembrance of old lovers, childhood favourites and estranged friends comes the warm afterglow of the good times. Does "Thunderbird" refer to the creature of American Indian myth, or the Supermarionation show from 60s British TV? Either way, urged on by eager, tentative piano lines, it sounds like it evokes the delicate integrity of childhood play: "just speak it more discreetly/you're making it sound absurd".
IDK if I'll write more music reviews but if I don't, listen to Adam & Eve instead of trapcore or post-slop or blackened EDM or whatever you think makes you sound interesting.
*When I sat down to write this, I was under the impression that the album was called Welcome to the Machine. Berenstein Bears confirmed.
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