{"id":41711,"date":"2009-09-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-09-29T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/before-the-poison\/"},"modified":"2009-09-29T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-09-29T00:00:00","slug":"before-the-poison","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/before-the-poison\/","title":{"rendered":"Before The Poison"},"content":{"rendered":"

Although Marianne Faithfull had enjoyed the process of recording her 2002 album Kissin\u2019 Time <\/i>with an array of modern day electronica\/pop artists, she was a little under whelmed by the technology offered in state-of-the-art recording studios and decided not to continue down that path. Instead, for her next venture, she would (in true Faithfull style) head in the complete opposite direction, piecing together an album the old-fashioned way. There would be no overdubs, Pro Tools, or multi-layered vocal tracks. This, of course, meant multiple takes, live recordings, and razor blades for editing.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Experienced exponents of this style of recording were needed, so Faithfull selected PJ Harvey and Nick Cave to serve as her main contributors. The pair had some history together and were not on speaking terms at the time, so Marianne accommodated them by always keeping their sessions separate so they wouldn\u2019t cross paths. Harvey ended up co-writing and producing no less than five of the album\u2019s ten songs; Cave did likewise for three tracks, working with Faithfull\u2019s trusted producer Hal Willner.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

The problem I have with Before The Poison <\/i>is that too much of it sounds like a PJ Harvey record. On the opener \u201cThe Mystery Of Love,\u201d their chemistry works and Faithfull sounds right at home with the stripped-back, raw sound that Harvey created. But on the more abstract numbers like \u201cMy Friends Have\u201d and \u201cIn The Factory,\u201d there\u2019s zero chemistry, which kills off any chance of this album being at least consistent. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Faring slightly better is \u201cNo Child Of Mine,\u201d which is a very dark Harvey poem that is right up Faithfull\u2019s alley, since it closely resembles some of her own morbid lyrics. Best of all the Harvey\/Faithfull tracks is easily the title-track, with which the pair finally hit pay dirt. \u201cBefore The Poison\u201d is a dark, haunting song exploring the pain of loss and quite possibly the end of the world as we know it \u2013 vintage Faithfull this one.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

So two and a half out of five ain\u2019t bad, but it ain\u2019t that good either, and as I alluded to before, Harvey\u2019s cold, ragged arrangements don\u2019t really do any favors for Faithfull at all. Marianne has an extensive bag of tricks and a wide range of choices at her disposal when it comes to bringing a lyric to life, but backed by Harvey\u2019s uninspired ditties, she seems to have failed in finding the heart and soul of these songs \u2013 which is a shame, because that is exactly what Faithfull is so damn good at most of the time.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Nick Cave and his Bad Seeds fared much better in creating the right sounds for Marianne\u2019s often dark and menacing lyrics. With the ballad \u201cCrazy Love,\u201d Cave wrote one of his most beautiful tunes, which happens to complement a true classic Faithfull lyric for which she drew inspiration from French director Marcel Carne\u2019s 1945 masterpiece, Les Enfants Du Paradis<\/i>. \u201cThere Is A Ghost\u201d is a perfect blend of Cave and Faithfull\u2019s shared ability to express lost love so hauntingly through their words and music. Her forlorn yearning is backed beautifully by Cave\u2019s piano, his instrument of choice for moments like this. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

The third song Cave provided a tune for is my favorite on the album, a curious, furious rocker by the name of \u201cDesperanto.\u201d Cave\u2019s chugging, edgy arrangement is the perfect foil for Marianne\u2019s caustic delivery of the bitter, twisted lyrics \u201cDesperanto spoken here, today I hear it everywhere \/ It is the language of despair \/ It\u2019s on your nails and it\u2019s in your hair \/ It\u2019s in your mouth instead of air.\u201d By this point, it\u2019s plainly obvious that an entire Faithfull\/Cave album would have been the way to go.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

On Kissin\u2019 Time, <\/i>Marianne worked with Damon Albarn, and the pair again joined forces here and came up with what is easily the most poignant song on the record in \u201cLast Song.\u201d Faithfull wrote the lyric about her perception of the end of England and its bleak future: \u201cWe saw the green fields, turn into homes \/ Such lonely homes.\u201d It\u2019s this sentiment that Faithfull is expressing with the cover shot of her presenting a child with an uncertain future.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

The album closes with a strange little song that Marianne wrote with producer Jon Brion called \u201cCity Of Quartz.\u201d Musically, it\u2019s charming enough with the soundtrack being a music-box to contrast with another horribly dark lyric of Faithfull\u2019s: \u201cCitadel, a prison of sorts \/ Only the rich make the laws \/ Using repression and force \/ Whore of Babylon, city of quartz.\u201d Although it bears a familiar message, musically, it doesn\u2019t quite fit with the rest of the material here and possibly could have found a more suited home on another record altogether.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Although Before The Poison <\/i>has been heralded as a Faithfull classic by many a scribe, for me, too many lackluster tracks courtesy of Ms. Harvey hamper its potential. The stripped-down and raw quality of the record suite Marianne\u2019s voice and style, but the patchy material at times leaves her sounding slightly confused herself, which is not a common problem for her. Having said that, this is by no means a bad record because when its good, it\u2019s very, very good, and it does contain some of Marianne\u2019s darkest and most prolific lyrics.<\/p>\n

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