Pale Saints - The Comforts Of Madness (Album Review)

 

Pale Saints - The Comforts Of Madness

(1990)


My copy: 2020 remastered reissue by 4AD.


The even-yeared three album run of the Leeds based Pale Saints fit perfectly in the 4AD roster with a special focus on lavish guitar melodies and sweet, whispered vocals. Their debut is wonderful when it’s willing to get its feet wet and mess about with structure and noise a bit, but unfortunately more than half of the record feels confined to boring, safe brit-pop. 

“Way The World Is” is eager to set the stage with a gliding combination of Primal Scream’s frenetic layering and Cocteau Twins’ supreme sense of harmony. The acoustic guitar is the driving force as the lead crackles and snaps with distortion. The progressions are refined and elegant, as are the vocals in spite of mostly unintelligible lyrics. The album is completely patched together by clever moments of ambiance or instrumental experimentation, with these transitions honestly providing more interesting ideas than some of the later tracks themselves. “You Tear The World In Two” is fortunately one of the best on the record with a mysterious progression and drums that play with tension and release - this sort of dynamic sense tends to signify the difference between a good Pale Saints song and a boring one. They’re at their best when combining a sort of regal chamber pop with the rhythmically unhinged rock sensibilities of contemporaries like My Bloody Valentine. 

The ethereal ballad of “Sea Of Sound” toys with momentum but is a bit too airy and skeletal to make a lasting impression. “True Coming Dream” bathes in ephemeral passages of divine layering, broken up by more traditional but satisfying choruses - here the tension is the addictive part for its dreamy and surreal sound. “Little Hammer” undoes the good will of the previous track with unnecessary hand drums though the percussive piano strings and moments of dissonance make for neat tricks. “Insubstantial” is ironically just that: a sunny brit pop piece that just doesn’t put enough into a single tone to truly stand out; I guess it’d make good for a romp at the beach. The transitional guitar bending leading into “A Deep Sleep For Steven” is what I’d hope to hear more of, though the rapid drumming and rippling synths do help. 

“Language Of Flowers” and “Sight Of You” are mostly forgettable again for their safe channeling of brit pop: these songs are not brittle and challenging enough for fans of MBV and the Jesus And Mary Chain, not frantic enough for Chapterhouse or Swervedriver and not vivid enough for Lush (though they did later adopt Meriel Barham). Instead these forward tracks tilt closer to a more uninteresting version of Ride’s Nowhere which came in the same year. “Fell From The Sun” and “Time Thief” are, however, impressive examples of how the band is capable of twisting rhythm and time signatures to create inventive juxtapositions of loud and soft. 

The vocals across The Comforts Of Madness are truthfully a big draw, with some truly creative harmonies and though it contains five truly great tracks, the rest is just a dash too uneventful. The creative interludes that maintain the sequencing would make for more appealing pieces where they elaborated on. The Comforts Of Madness will give you good mileage so long as you go in without expecting the absolute best of the early shoegazers - it’s relatively flat, droning production is better suited to play in the background on an evening in.

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