iTunes Music Review - Go Away White

• Go Away White

  • 10 out of 5
  • Bauhaus
  • Reviewed by Bryan Chaffin
  • 
  • 

  • Go Away White is an album I've been waiting more than 20 years to hear, and the good news is that it was worth the wait.  The latest -- and last, no...for real this time -- album from Bauhaus is fantastic.  More importantly, it's far more of a "Bauhaus" album than I was anticipating.

    With a plethora of solo works from most of its members, and an entire career of Love & Rockets work between L&R's 1983's Burning From the Inside and Bauhaus's Go Away White, it would have been fair to expect something new, and perhaps watered down, in this release.  Such is not the case -- this is a thoroughly Bauhausian project, with a couple of minor caveats.

    For instance, the guitars are 100% Daniel Ash, but there's a difference between the guitars in “In the Flat Field” and "7th Dream of a Teenage Heaven," you know?  The guitars on this album are pure Bauhaus, and they took me back to the days when I first discovered how cool a song "In the Flat Field" or "Dark Entries" truly is.  From the opening chords of "Too Much 21st Century," to the discordant chord/weird tonal thing in "International Bullet Proof Talent," I love those guitars.

    Peter Murphy's vocals are also original Bauhausian.  He croons ("Mirror Remains"), he howls (Endless Summer of the Damned"), he screams ("Adrenalin"), he wails ("Undone"), and he agonizes ("Saved").  For a bonus, he runs the gamut of all of those styling's in "The Dog's a Vapour." Very few singers sound as good, or better, in their 50s as they did in their 20s, but Peter Murphy seems to have (ironically, in my opinion) taken care of himself, or at least his voice.

    It should be noted that our first L&R caveat enters the picture in the vocals department, as we have some terrific harmonies interspersed throughout this album that clearly came about after of all those side projects.

    The bass work is also (mostly) Bauhaus, but here we have the second caveat: David Jay's bass on "Undone" sounds like an outtake from a Big Audio Dynamite session -- and that's just weird -- and the "Mirror Remains" bass line would sound quite at home on L&R's Lift.

    Still, there's "Black Stone Heart," "Adrenaline," and the awesome fretless work on "Saved" to more than make up for the above-mentioned two songs (and I should stress that I enjoy both songs immensely).

    Throw in the production and feel of the album, along with the drum work of Kevin Haskins, and Go Away White picks up where the Bauhaus left off, even while carving out something new for the band, too.

    It amazes me that this CD of ten songs was recorded in only 18 days, and it makes me wish that Bauhaus hadn't made it the band's official swan song. Go Away White is simply another great album from a great band.

    Favorite moment on the CD: Hearing Peter Murphy tell Daniel Ash "There's supposed to be a solo of some sort here," while Daniel is making these scraping sounds with his guitar.  His reply: "This is the solo!"

    Favorite songs:  "Too Much 21st Century," "Adrenaline," "International Bullet Proof Talent," "Mirror Remains."

   

   

• 1421
• TMO Staff
• alternative