| Track: | Rating: | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Blasto | | | | | |
| 2. Love In A Plain Brown Envelope | | | | | |
| 3. Sleezo | | | | ||
| 4. Neon Gladiators | | | | | |
| 5. Kitto | | | | ||
| 6. Eight Minutes To Live | | | | | |
Faces In The Fire is a brief, and fairly unimportant EP release from the Legendary Pink Dots' early career. There's nothing wrong with the music here (indeed, the weirdness and lyrical gloom provide some hints as to EK-S's subsequent direction), but there's not much that stands out, either. Listening to the album, one gets the feeling that FitF was planned as a temporary way-station in the band's development. Viewed on those modest terms, it can be judged a success.
Most of the tracks on this album segue together, and form semi- detached (semi-coherent?) glimpses into the madness of solitary life in the modern city. The first five tracks alternate between paranoia and petty diversions; the last holds out the prospect of an outside armageddon to break the tedium. If nothing else, Ka-Spel plays the lead role remarkably well.
"Blasto" is pretty much a microcosm of the entire album -- Ka-Spel's "Syd-Barrett-in-hell" lyrical base walks the line between the banal and the truly disturbing (consider: "Blast away the stains/Nothing's better", sung in a tormented voice), and a guitar wail provides a minor diversion from the cheap synthesizer technology which makes up most of the track. Taken as a whole, it comes off as simultaneously creepy and half-baked -- a good listen, on a weak grounding. Naturally, this is one of the better tracks on the album.
"Love In A Plain Brown Envelope" features some good violin parts (as The Silver Man begins to make his presence in the group felt), and more disturbing raves from EK-S's psyche. The lyrics seem to connote some sort of man-machine hybrid (the details aren't clear), and Ka-Spel's decision to start panting in the middle of the song edges the creepiness factor up a bit. Some bizarre synthesized effects appear at the end.
"Sleezo" is one of the album's low points, though no less bizarre than anything else here. Ka-Spel laments his unfulfilled romantic life in the first part of the song, subsequently giving way to a female voice which advertises the Sleezo manufacturing firm (specializing in X-rated projects, and the like). I imagine that this must be April Iliffe's turn in the spotlight.
The next two tracks provide an interesting contrast. "Neon Gladiators" is apparently the depiction of an hallucinatory experience (the band had settled in Amsterdam by this point...), complete with images of statues coming to life and carrying out their days as Nietzschean supermen, living out the legends of Asgard in their own setting. The fact that the music doesn't really develop into anything special might suggest the artificial nature of the experience ... this is the charitable interpretation, at least. After this comes "Kitto", as the protagonist's fantasies come crashing down into solitary tedium (the title does not refer to the Anglican theologian, but rather to the presence of several tins of cat food on K-S's shelves).
"Eight Minutes To Live" is probably the best track on the album, chronicling the rise of post-human soldiers (without blood, interestingly enough) following a nuclear holocaust. A creepy synth organ makes its presence felt; despite this, the track never really builds up to its full potential on the instrumental front.
There's nothing here that would thoroughly displease a hardcore LPD fan, but this EP doesn't even come close to being the group's best work. It would be best for newcomers to start elsewhere.
(review originally posted to alt.music.yes on 19 Mar 2001)