Mind Bomb

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Few artworks of any type will ever capture a time and place with the definitive gaze Johnson applied to mid-Eighties Britain on Infected. I borrow a phrase there from one of the likewise rare spirits who might be described as even remotely kindred to him. Where Howard Devoto sang in riddles, parables and allusive nightmare images, Johnson was blunt as a hammer, piercing as nails. You knew precisely what he was getting at, and you knew precisely where he was getting at it: you felt it pounded in though skin and tendons. A crucifixion of a kind. Think I'm exaggerating? Listen to Infected again and see if he isn't nailing himself to a figurative cross alongside this island Golgotha's irredeemable brigands.

Psst - you know what, readers? I think he may have intended that whole sinking American military aircraft thing as a metaphor.) Top 100 (ARIA) peaks from January 1990 to December 2010: Ryan, Gavin (2011). Australia's Music Charts 1988–2010 (PDFed.). Mt Martha, Victoria, Australia: Moonlight Publishing. p.277.

a b "British Band The The Release 'Mrs Mac' – Their First Single in Over Five Years". Billboardpublicitywire.com. Archived from the original on 9 May 2007 . Retrieved 2 April 2011. Uniquely optimistic yet tortured and anguished, Mind Bomb is TheThe’s most impressive work to date. A meld of bitter images and desperate hopes focusing on the individual conflicts and politics of a troubled world.” If Infected seethed and rattled with claustrophobic urgency and loathing, and it did, then Mind Bomb was slow, expansive, looming into inexorable life with a rage that smouldered rather than flamed. It creeps up on you, on 'Good Morning Beautiful', with what sounds like a muezzin's call, which for one reason and another it's likely no major label act would dare to use today (although it might be a Qawwal; it isn't credited and I haven't the ear to tell.) Next, a blast of sluggish brass over ominous piano chords, and pattering, insinuating percussion. Then Johnson's voice, a tense, febrile tenor, a voice living on its nerves, near breaking point, teetering here and there into an aspirated growl, sizzling when pressed against the side of the pan. Both the sonic and impassioned resonance of this album grips you by the throat, by the spine, by the heart and lines you up for an aural punch you won't forget. austriancharts.at > The The in der Österreichischen Hitparade" (in German). Hung Medien . Retrieved 19 November 2011.

And in the third verse he sings about just how far the world has turned away from those original messages and that God itself surely no longer cares for world after what has happened to their words:After which, the closing 'Beyond Love' does what it would not do under any other circumstances. It comes as light relief. Among other things. From the snarling visceral "Good Morning Beautiful" to the nihilistically prophetic toe-tapper (written 21 years ago, folks) of "Armageddon Days are Here (Again)" to the sweaty exhibition of a doomed relationship in "Kingdom Of Rain" to the resigned acceptance of mediocrity in "The Beat(en) Generation"- this caresses your head as it fondles your base emotions. Moonbug". nicholabruce.com. Nichola Bruce. Archived from the original on 12 May 2010 . Retrieved 2 April 2011.

One of Matt Johnson's best releases. Given the caliber of his releases up to and including the excellent 'Dusk', that's truly saying something. The The released their official studio album debut, the synth-noir classic Soul Mining, in 1983. It featured the minor UK No.71 hit " This Is the Day", as well as a new recording of the The performing "Uncertain Smile". Produced by Johnson and Paul Hardiman, it featured guest appearances from Orange Juice's drummer Zeke Manyika, Jools Holland, Thomas Leer and JG Thirlwell (a.k.a. Foetus).Now permanently relocated to New York, the The's next project was 1995's Hanky Panky, an album that consisted entirely of Hank Williams cover versions. Hanky Panky was recorded by a new group consisting of Johnson, Collard, Fitting, ex- Iggy Pop guitarist Eric Schermerhorn, former bassist for David Bowie Gail Ann Dorsey (billed as "Hollywood" Dorsey), and drummer the "Reverend" Brian MacLeod. Their cover version of "I Saw the Light" hit No.31 UK, released by Some Bizzare Label / Epic. Bassist James Eller and drummer David Palmer weren't famous, particularly (the former had played for Clive Langer and Julian Cope, the latter was a member of ABC's classic line-up), but they were just the men for job, as Marr would have been regardless of his fame. If there's anything in Marr's post-Smiths career as good as this, and if his own work on anything since has been as good as it is on this, I've missed it. It's not simply a matter of how different Mind Bomb would be if you took his - by turns - stretched, coiled, wailing, glowing guitar off it; it's that you can't imagine anything akin to the same album might have come about without it in the first place.

This, bear in mind, was four years before Operation Desert Shield, and already Johnson saw the American century, America's global power and America's global ambitions, failing and falling in a Middle Eastern graveyard. Mind Bomb, which spread itself, lava-like, into a burning lake of foreboding about the West and Middle East, was released a year before the invasion of Kuwait. The second Gulf War, the Iraq War, was still fourteen years away. Matt Johnson was right. He saw it coming. And we laughed at him, the way one does at prophets. Because he'd really overdone the fire and brimstone this time. Johnson’s music and words are not for the faint-hearted or feeble-minded. Mind Bomb is an unflinching look at the collective soul with all the lushness and intensity of Infected, but simpler, less dense and more spiritual.” Since 2007, The The have enjoyed a small surge of attention in the United States thanks to an M&M's advertising campaign, which has been using the band's song "This is the Day" as its theme music. Hanky Panky: "The The – Hanky Panky (album)" (in German). GfK Entertainment . Retrieved 9 June 2017.Johnson told Uncut magazine in early 2015 that he was starting to write the first new vocal-based The album since 2000's Nakedself. [ citation needed] This has not yet materialised. Billboard > Artists / The The > Chart History > Alternative Songs". Billboard. Archived from the original on 31 July 2016 . Retrieved 9 June 2017. HarperCollins imprint The Friday Project announced in the spring of 2014 that they would be publishing the first official biography of the The. Authored by Neil Fraser, it will apparently [ according to whom?] have the full cooperation of Matt Johnson. THE THE make powerful brooding music that grapples with the big questions. Mind Bomb is an eloquent rant against organised religion.”