CD Review
Legendary Pink Dots – “Your Children Placate You From Premature Graves”
By Marcus Pan
Legendary Pink Dots, active since 1980, are a band that defies explanation. Their compositions are strange, weird…folk like, experimental and daring. As they embark on their 25th anniversary tour this year, which will include the return of Martijn de Kleer, their latest release, Your Children Placate You From Premature Graves, is disturbing and dark and echoes the state of the planet that, if you ask me, is on the very brink of disaster.
Using elemental electronics with loping movements of bass and rhythm, combining that with nightmarish spoken vocals and the occasional stabs of horns, No Matter What You Do on track two takes us further into a desperate nightmare. Stigmata (Part 4) gives us a light tinkling piano tune, a breather from the previous darker edge. The light, chanting reading is touched with desperation, but never strays too far into the murky depths, staying on the very cliff of sanity looking off into the abyss of madness.
Feathers at Dawn is a cute little tune with flamenco, Spanish influenced guitar and light male vocals. Its hoppy style at its onset and within is almost cute inside the surrounding album. Please Don’t Get Me Wrong is a party in a Tupperware factory with Ali Baba as the chief guest. The Island of Our Dreams is surprisingly sweet, but the backing electronic dirges sets a stage of weirdness just beyond the otherwise nicey nice vocals and guitar.
Songs like Bad Hair are similar, in that the Dots tread on the waters of insanity but never deluge you. The Made Man’s Manifesto has a vocal quality that is kind of leery and strange, but somehow inviting. Nearly done now, A Silver Thread is a foreboding horn and wind ensemble, jazzlike.
The Legendary Pink Dots have always astounded people with their weirdness. Compared to everything from Skinny Puppy to Coil, They Might Be Giants and more, their folk influence is apparent but they’ll mix in surprising electronics, unexpected experiments and interesting bits of out of place sounds. For anyone looking for something a little more strange for their nightly candlelight vigils, Your Children Placate You From Premature Graves will fit that bill brilliantly.
(The date of this review is unknown.)
