Enemy is a Beguiling ‘Man vs Metropolis’ Fever Dream

Denis Villeneuve has garnered rapturous acclaim for some of his recent visual extravaganzas – but his earlier, quieter character studies provide a more-than-ample insight into his genuinely estimable filmmaking style.

With a panache for plunging into the psychological torments of ‘wounded’ protagonists, Villeneuve’s Canadian production Enemy centres on the life of thoroughly bourgeois history professor Adam Bell (portrayed with skill by the versatile Jake Gyllenhaal), who finds himself trudging through the interminable sludge of sticky existential ennui.

His slightly cold, statuesque girlfriend (Melanie Laurent) also fails to elevate his pulse rate.

Adam is a character who almost willingly breathes in the vapours of mundanity; someone who finds himself increasingly boxed in by the four walls of routine that imprison him – and it’s evidently taking a crushing toll.

By day, our jaded agent of action fronts a class of indifferent students and sermonises on the nature of dictatorship and control – how totalitarianism is inescapable, cyclical…

As is the case with many moments scattered throughout the film, these early, seemingly inconsequential scenes and the themes that are unpeeled, prove thematically important to ensuing events.

As Adam navigates through the beige haze of the everyday, an impending sense of doom begins to permeate the Ontarian skies – even before the narrative turning point occurs.

One fine (gloomy) day, Adam is abruptly jarred free from this suffocating quotidian blur, after discovering, to his bewilderment, that he has an exact physical double residing in the same city – someone he feels impelled to track down and make contact with for reasons he cannot reasonably rationalise.

Right from the beginning, Villeneuve’s visual objectives are clear.

The Toronto setting is drenched in sepia – rendering the sprawling, awe-inspiring metropolis an otherworldly dystopia – as if the city in question is actually the cloudy vestige of a long-ago dream.

Imbuing the urban space with a sense of untraceable dread – it’s clear the auteur has a slightly troubling view on modernity – as our fraught ‘hero’ is made to feel utterly powerless when pitted against the skyscraping expectations of contemporary society’s modern bustle.

In some ways, Steven McQueen explores this notion of ‘urban alienation’ in 2011’s formidable Michael Fassbender showcase ‘Shame’.

With echoes of Polanski’s ‘apartment trilogy’ (Repulsion, The Tenant, Rosemary’s Baby) bouncing off the alleyway walls somewhere in the backroom of the consciousness – Enemy is innately unsettling without even having to do much.

Our protagonist discovers his doppelganger by happenstance, via watching a film recommended to him by a plucky colleague.

Adam’s first viewing of the film fails to resonate beyond surface-level diversion, and he retires for the evening in the wan light of his spartan bedroom.

Once asleep, his double returns to him in a delightfully Kubrickian dream sequence – to the tune of a Shining-esque musical score – all nervy, orchestral clangour.

Awake and brimming with a sort of newfound anxiety-ridden verve, Adam returns to the specific scene in the movie that his subconscious replayed for him – and sure enough confirms the extra in question possesses an identical phenotype to his own.

He becomes completely and utterly obsessed with tracking down his ‘copy’, for now, the once listless man has ‘purpose’ on his side.

And the driving force behind his agency has snuck up and preyed on him in the most inauspicious way imaginable.

Villenueve’s cinematic gaze is a fraught and distrustful one – with a stark approach to mise en scène that startles, and hammers home a gnawing sense of forbidding desolation.

This idea of Adam being at the whim of the wiles of the world is also vaguely reminiscent of David Hemmings’ beaten-down photographer in Michelangelo Antonioni‘s towering magnum opus Blow Up (1966) – another universally lauded auteur known for employing a distinctive stylistic edge.

Adam, now armed with renewed determination, eventually locates his doppelganger – a struggling actor named Anthony – after an awkwardly handled phone call which sees Adam demonstrate the first signs of a crippling fear caused by the now very real possibility of meeting his lookalike in the flesh.

The internal interrogation commences: What are the consequences?

The eventual physical confrontation between the two men, in the mildewy low-light of a decomposing hotel room, is as good a testament to Villeneuve’s ability to expertly frame a scene as any.

Utilising an array of shots to capture the two characters (both played by Gyllenhaal of course) within the same space, whilst still achieving a sense of veracity, is truly marvellous to behold.

As opposed to the milquetoast Adam, we learn that Anthony is an energetic and driven screen performer in spite of a recent career lull.

He is recently married and his wife Helen (superbly played by Sarah Gadon) is pregnant.

We discover quickly enough, that Anthony’s history is chequered and that he struggles with remaining faithful.

Helen harbours an intense distrust of Anthony because of his past indiscretions– and she is naturally incredulous of Anthony’s insistence he’s been contacted by someone claiming to be his physical replica – instead wondering who the mysterious person on the other end of the phone really is.

It fast becomes eerily apparent that Anthony and Adam have complimentary character traits.

One (Adam) is sliding along with a kind of worn out torpor– emotionally and matrimonially unattached but professionally stagnant (so free in one sense but lacking fulfilment in another).

The other is a professional risk taker who is fettered to domestic life.

As the tension mounts and the interactions and machinations devised by Adam and Anthony turn more devious, it becomes unclear just who is who, and how much of what’s going on is really the by-product of the human subconscious in all of its wondrous infinity.

Villeneuve employs a host of recurring visual devices – and at least one nightmarish, hirsute motif will terrify many (if not all) viewers; remember to note the opening sequence down as one of high importance despite its initial randomness.

Enemy is a film requiring higher levels of engagement to unpack, as its initial ambiguities present a host of (resolvable enough) challenges for the viewer to overcome.

The themes of control, emotional commitment, destabilising societal expectations and mores, as well as the crushing pressures of modern life, all collide at an intersection of insidious psychological warfare.

To what extent are Adam and Anthony connected?

What constitutes a personality?

When quizzed on the intricacies of his film, director Villeneuve remained coy on providing conclusive answers to some of the picture’s enigmas – and there exist entire discourses dedicated to the unravelling of Enemy’s labyrinthine plotlines.

It’s a picture steeped in Freudian symbolism and subtext – and rest assured, some may feel cast to the cold by a film that seethes with a crawling subterranean menace.

For the more discerning, Enemy is a tantalising cinematic puzzle that unfolds atop a screenplay riddled with allegory.

Operating within the bounds of a genre that may be termed ‘high rise horror’ – Enemy is tonally similar to other 21^st century films like Killing of a Sacred Deer, Michael Haneke’s austere voyeur-freak-out Hidden, 2015’s Joel Edgerton drama The Gift, as well as Polanski’s aforementioned apartment trilogy in all their paranoia-soaked glory, wherein the urban space itself adds considerably to an overarching sense of foreboding.

In what’s a churning whirlpool of concepts and conjecture, Enemy strongly taps into contemporary ideas of ‘Being in control versus being controlled’, and the final, haunting (and frankly frighteningly shocking) shot ties back to these themes undoubtedly.

Like the lingering images of a particularly vivid nightmare, Enemy’s impact upon first viewing won’t deaden for days – a phantasmagorical thinking person’s picture for disconsolate urbanites. 

Words by Jacob Dunstan

9.3

Darkness Cloaked in Bucolic Mystique: the Witch is a Petrifying Exercise in Contemporary Folk Horror

The Witch (stylised as the VVitch) is completely (and appropriately) bewitching.

For prospective viewers: encase yourselves in dread, wonder and occasional puzzlement for an hour and a half – the images from this film will not easily be forgotten.

Anticipation was rife and the cinematic community abuzz well before the eventual theatrical release of Robert Eggers’ maiden film, and early reviews were almost exclusively glowing. 

And, remarkably, here's a rare case of warranted hype, for this smouldering modern ‘horror’ picture cinders away at the senses, and will leave an ineradicable mark – serving as a hugely rewarding experience for discerning viewers.

Inspired by the profound and pervasive role witchcraft played circa 17^th Century America, the film handles the subject adroitly, more than doing justice to the hysteria and madness it engendered in society.

Debuting auteur Eggers, a fan of cinematic restraint (which is most laudable), researched the topic heavily before entering production – and he deserves high praise for his slavish attention to period detail here.

So, this picture is obviously the handiwork of a director with a genuine interest in the time period, the witchcraft-induced paranoia and bedlam of the epoch, and the associated dialect (the dialogue here is quite infectiously, and fascinatingly, turgid).

There’s an authenticity to proceedings so often amiss in other films of its ilk.

In fact, many or some of the lines in the film are lifted directly from literature recovered from the time period.

Critically, debuting director Robert Eggers uses the setting he’s got to work with supremely well.

The location itself is forbidding and seething with a kind of natural, bespoken dread that hearkens back to the sort of innate fear of the unknown conjured by turn of the twentieth century Gothic and weird fiction authors - notably Algernon Blackwood (his The Willows), MR James (The Ash Tree) and Robert E Howard (Pigeons from Hell) where setting and a sort of rural or backwoods menace serve as a springboard for a controlled burn of encroaching dread.

The film too, is strongly reminiscent of 1970s pastoral terror –or ‘folk horror’ – which has become a popular label for films of this nature; notable examples include the Vincent Price vehicle Witchfinder General (1968), Christopher Lee starrer The Devil Rides Out (1968) and of course, Robin Hardy’s towering, monolithic exercise in pagan terror, The Wicker Man (1973).

 Eggers’ stark flick continues that tradition – rural setting, supernatural and/or apparently otherworldly disturbances, a township or small, tightknit community who’ve apparently ties to the occult, an ever growing sense of deviltry.

Whilst The Witch isn’t a full-blown revival , the elements are certainly there and the film capitalises on the menacing ruggedness of setting better than most.

This one however, is deeply, deeply enigmatic, and with opaqueness comes a driving desire to go back and decipher more.

Folk horror runs on a pervasive sense of rustic anxiety and dread, often suffused with uncertainty about what’s truly afoot – and it’s the second part which most strongly characterises The Witch.

It shuns procedure – we’re not simply watching a mystery film where the motivations of the characters are unclear – for there isn’t heavy exposition - the whole film is a cryptic package, and the ordeal of the tormented family at the centre of this demoniac crisis is one felt by the viewer as we travel unnoticed beside them.

Shot virtually entirely in low light, or so it seems, the landscape is painted in such a truly saturnine way that the look of the environment itself is as responsible for inducing fear as the elusive source of the nefarious goings-on - which gradually begin to manifest on the homestead of the family on-screen.

Atmosphere and mood is everything, and evidently, Eggers is acutely aware of this fact.

There needn’t be much immediately happening, for there to be a lot going on.

On the outskirts, somewhere in the peripheries, on the edges of the psyche, fear and trepidation can linger – here’s a picture that coaxes those bugaboos out from the shadows via a minimalist approach to filmmaking - prolonged silences, protracted scenes that linger on the environment, images that suggest...than dissipate into the night.

The premise is straightforward, and extensive elaboration is unnecessary.

Impeached, uprooted from their plantation, and forced to erect a farm on the threshold of the woods due to a somewhat ambiguous transgression, a family in the 1600s is forced to start their life anew.

Exiled, the cast-off clan encamp by a vast and darkened thicket of doomy trees.

The family dynamic is founded on dysfunction and infighting well before the eerie happenings arrive.

Ana Taylor-Joy as repressed and multilayered Thomasin (the eldest daughter) has perhaps the most interesting part.

The gloomy brood is comprised of Thomasin, son Caleb, and twins Jonas and Mercy – all of whom find themselves oppressed by the brooding gloom of their surrounds.

Caleb is an intrepid type who follows his father everywhere – that is until tragedy befalls the domesticity.

The twins and the family goat Black Philip are unnervingly inseparable – a beast that (ostensibly) speaks to them.

Something is not right – corruption!

The cast is rounded out by Ralph Ineson and Kate Dickie as a pair of overprotective and increasingly unstable parents and the performances are uniformly excellent.

Taylor-Joy is a revelation as Thomasin –angst-ridden and plagued by a desire to extricate herself from her overbearing parents, she grapples with guilt and shame – torturing herself to the brink of insanity as she questions her role in bringing such a predicament to her family.

Thomasin is embroiled in an unenviable conflict – here is a young woman who only wants to unshackle herself from the expectations and fixed beliefs of her kin and live a life of her choosing – but her waywardness and insuppressible desire for emancipation land her in unspeakable trouble. 

Seasoned thespian Ralph Ineson is well cast as austere patriarch William, his haunted visage and cavernous voice lends gravitas to the role. 

The sparse farmstead in 16^th century New England (though shot in Canada) is, to reiterate, afforded a lo-fi, perennially greyish look, and has a sort of entrancing quality that only renders the pivotal moments later on more forceful.

Crops fail and the corn is inedible, an infant is taken by something which absconds into the woods, and youngest son Caleb is lost in the forest following a hunting session only to return delirious, unclothed, in unspeakable agony, and clearly the recent subject of some sort of bedevilment.

To reveal too much would be a criminal case of unnecessary divulgence.

What can be said is that events (very) gradually unfurl like a ball of yarn being rolled about by an indolent cat – and it’s disquieting.

You’ll find yourself perpetually questioning, at times aloud even...as fingers are pointed, allegations levelled, in a frenzied bid to determine whom is culpable for the increasingly satanic practises occurring around them.

Discomfort grows as distrust balloons out of control.

Whilst for the most part, a very implicit film, it must be said The Witch  has more than a few shocking moments.

A crazed interloper lurking in the corner of a barn apparently latched to a goat is but one of many an image that’ll induce a wince or a shriek or both.

Eventually, everything within sight appears a threat or capable of violence, be it the not-so-benign farm animals wandering about, the growingly agitated William, or the abode itself

Critically, Eggers’ work is much more than mere visceral mood piece with a sole purpose to paralyse– the Witch is a multilayered enigma that serves as a fascinating epochal deconstruction – a meditation on the crushing nature of societal mores and misguided belief systems, faith and faithlessness – familial discord and disharmony.

For much of the duration, the film is an especial exercise in cinematic subtlety - a forceful testament to the power of suggestion.

Marc Korven’s starkly beautiful and magnificently haunting score is never manipulative or in-your-face, it arrives and departs periodically like the tide – contributing effectively to the film’s overall mood and atmosphere.

Eggers, clearly a future force to be reckoned with, has endowed audiences with a creepy picture that is very hesitant to reveal much.

So, eschewing cliché, The Witch manages to unsettle in the most frightening way, picking away at the nerves like a raven lingering about carrion.

This masterstroke will etch itself a permanent place in your mind and serve as a substantial meal for the imagination.

Expect it to gnaw at the insides for a while after the screen blackens.

9.0 

'Sharknado' (2013)

SHARKNADO: A Play-by-play Summary

As the movie opens, the viewer is treated to bountiful aerial shots of the Californian Coast. This is the final instance the film doesn't contain something ludicrous/outrageous. We're introduced to a fetching waitress shortly thereafter, who rebuffs an eccentric 'former surfing great' barfly's attempts to fondle her. She's also quick to dodge an inquiry pertaining to the most unrealistic looking scar since Potter's lightning bolt situated on her upper leg. She bristles at the mention of sharks. Meanwhile our protagonist is literally surfing up a storm out in the seawater, for an ominous and improbably fast moving storm begins to emerge on the skyline. When our protagonist starts a convo with a skilled fellow surfer, they have a fleeting comp to see who is the superior surfer. Then a shark is sprung and sadly sullies the low-key face off. The dorsal breaks the surface and the poor surfer is promptly dismembered. The man helpfully suggests to the ill-fated girl to "GET OUTTA THE WATER!". Yeh, that sorta isn't an immediate option considering that they're, you know, 100 yards or so offshore. 

Horrifying suspense.

Then the film scales priorly unseen levels of craziness as an arsenal of jaw-snapping, streamlined, computerized sharks bear down on the beach and start bowling over bathers left right & centre. The banquet is short-lived however, as it eventually occurs to onlookers that some hazardous shite is in progress, so they theatrically run away. Although you might observe some of the beach-goers tearing back & forth up and down the beach flailing their arms which is yet another bizarro element to this movie that can quite easily be missed. The viewer is then granted several shots of limbless, screaming people beachside before we go back into the bar. But not before the guy utters what might rival Casablanca's "Here's looking at you, kid" as the greatest line in movie history: "Sharks don't like Vegemite!"  Upon nursing his injured Aussie, jet-skier friend's wounds. 

Naturally, after witnessing the unspeakable horror just described, our band of main characters are joking and engaging in lively conversation back at the bar. Yes that's right, these people are bantering frivolously literally moments after the Carcaradon  carnage unfolded on the beach. Okay. Also, the main character simply chalks the shark influx up to 'just the storm', which would be like if I was playing monopoly and decided to rip the board game in two and throw the game pieces everywhere and proclaim that 'the storm outside made me do it, I'll be fine to carry on the game once the storm clears'. Anyhow, Included amongst this motley group is the self-described Tasmanian who was just mauled. Call me a pessimist but I'm a little unsure whether someone who less than an hour ago had a rapacious, mega shark latched onto his leg would be back at the bar so soon merrily joking with pals. However their repartee is curtailed by reports the storm is reforming and set to wreak increased havoc with sharks riding in its coattails. No sooner is this development imparted than a shark ploughs thru the establishment into the diner. No, really, that actually happened. I've heard of 'the customer's always right ' but 'the customers always BITE'?  The shark starts sliding itself around the floor snapping at patrons, before the aforementioned fetching waitress does the only thing you CAN do in this situation and impales the shark with a pool cue. Amazing.

Later, the Santa Monica pier is engulfed by the storm and the Ferris wheel rolls away, as our heroes attempt to flee the rapidly flooding city via car. It's upsetting to watch one of my favourite cities inundated but If I was that Ferris wheel, I'd roll away too, simply to escape the steadily worsening plot. The sharks are circling and apparently nudging at the car's underside with their noses, which is far too nonsensical to even flirt with scariness. The quartet decide to gun it, but not before the lecherous old eccentric coot from earlier is set upon and demolished by a shark/s. After roughly 3 seconds of feeling upset, they move on from his demise and push fwd, eventually seeking refuge at Tara Reid's house. Reid plays a perpetually pissed off ex-wife whom chastises her former husband as often as she can. It's a real acting stretch from Reid, whom delivers an award-worthy performance. And by award I of course mean Razzie award for the most obnoxious 'acting' of the year. Later, back at Reid's abode, and with raging floodwaters  torrenting outside, our heroes sit tight and try to wait the ordeal out. 

Attempts to convince Reid and her new boyfriend (a thoroughly loathsome character whom seems to naysay people before they even get a chance to say anything at all) that the streets are swimming with sharks prove unsuccessful. However the disbelieving boyfriend has no choice but to believe the sharky malarkey after he opens the front door only to be eaten immediately by a particularly nosy shark who thrashes its way across the threshold. The house begins to fill with water and The rest of the gang holed up in the house try to ward off their endothermic eaters-to- be, but their attempts to repel the ravening fish end up being quite, forgive me for this, TOOTHLESS. They eventually make for the partially submerged staircase to supposed safety. Later on, once they've left the house, they encounter a schoolbus of kids dangling precariously from a bridge with sharks dilly dallying about below. The less said about this scene the better, but our hero does manage to save people using elaborate abseiling equipment which was seemingly on hand the entire time. I guess the viewer isn't supposed to query why someone would randomly have a harness and various safety equipment with them on a whim. Then an aerial army of sharks are spotted twirling about in the atmosphere like propellers due to a tornado which is catalysing their skyward spinning. Wait a sec, tornado...+ sharks...= SHARKNADO! Now I know how they thought up the title, ingenious! Wait a go- portmanteau! Haha, I've heard of fly-fishing- but FLYING FISH! Boom

Later, they all happen upon a new hideout, a warehouse, which for reasons now unclear to me, is stacked to the rafters with various armaments. Some stuff then happens that give the term implausibility a bad name and eventually a helicopter scene occurs. Well, of course. It is hear where the cute waitress names the causer of her scar tissue- a shark- which in a heart-wrenching scene- she says the shark "grabbed my leg". There's a reference to Jaws here too, which is more of a filmic facepalm than nod considering Jaws' standing as one of Classical Hollywood's finest films and this film's status as valueless dreck. In a moment sure to induce quizzical looks, a hammerhead plummets from the sky and slams onto the torso of a man lying on the ground. Then the hero is swallowed by a shark holding a chainsaw which he uses to incise a hold in the shark's side which he climbs out of heroically. Embraces abound and Tara Reid finally gives us something other than a pouty, permanently displeased 'bad hair day' expression and truth be told I was actually happy for Tara. The movie basically sets fire to believability and throws its ashes off the end of the earth, so much so that I was half-expecting the film's cast to all link arms and perform a celebratory rendition of the song 'Car Wash' whilst twirling umbrellas at film's end. Alas, this didn't happen, I wish it happened

Best (worst) dialogue:

"Are they sharks?"

Bestest (badder) dialogue II: 

"I hate sharks."

Actual tagline:

Enough Said!

My tagline:

When the eye of a storm becomes the breeding ground for terror.

Movie Title Acrostic Poem:

Shit
Hilarity
As
Relatively
Klutzy
Ninnies
Adroitly  
Destroy 
Oceanic-beasts

Best character decision: 

I can't remember who it was but whoever decided to commandeer a chopper (that was laying around) and drop a bomb inside 'the eye of the tornado' deserves a Nobel Peace Prize. 


Conclusion: 
This film makes some of the most ridiculous movies you've seen look positively veracious. Once again, the titular creature is rendered a murderous villain which is also very irritating. Production values waver between woeful and very very mediocre and the performances leave a helluva lot to be desired. The dialogue is diabolical. So, yes, This is very poor tosh, but it's self-aware poor tosh, and it uses its ineptitude as ballast to draw laughs out of the viewer. Which it did. It was hilarious

Rating:

2.9/10

Grand Budapest Hotel (2014 film)

Wes Anderson's Grand Budapest Hotel makes an extremely strong (early) case for film of the year. Armed with Anderson's trademark quirkiness and brought to life with verve by a cast of terrific actors, Budapest is an original and frequently funny escapade that easily rivals prior films in the director's masterful canon.

 The film's events, which unfold at a frantic pace and hardly seamlessly, are relayed to the audience via the elderly 'Zero' (Abraham) who is narrating the backstory of the hotel to an unnamed author (Law). The film then jumps from the '80s to the point of view of Fiennes' Gustave H (perfectly cast), runner of the grand Budapest Hotel in the early 1930s whom talks in a rapid-fire fashion and wittily addresses his charges as he efficiently goes about running the establishment.

 A young emigre Zero (played by relative newcomer Tony Revolori) is the lobby boy who is serving an apprenticeship under H and does his mightiest to please his rather demanding mentor. When Gustave H is implicated in the murder of Madame Z, with whom he shared an unusual courtship, he and Zero are forced to evade authorities and ensure the survival and longterm wellbeing of their beloved hotel, after its inheritance by the devious son of the deceased (Adrien Brody). Included amongst all this is a very amusing, drawn out jailbreak, masterminded by a fellow inmate (Harvey Keitel). 

The film has all the markings of an Anderson film, an ensemble cast featuring many Anderson regulars (Bill Murray, Adrien Brody, Edward Norton amongst them), hallmark visual flourish (many shots resemble postcards, contrasted with yellowed, slight sepia look of others) as well as rococo intertitles, and an extremely dense (in terms of dialogue) screenplay which is consistently funny and quick-witted. The snow kart pursuit on an icy mountaintop before reaching the edge of a hazardous precipice, a high. 

Anderson's varied camerawork occasionally disorient and has the (welcoming) effect of swirling the viewer up in the maelstrom. Whereas Moonrise Kingdom was set on an isolated island, and Tenenbaums focused on the trials and tribulations of a family with a focus on kin relations and peculiarities, Budapest is an Odyssean quest of a film, globetrotting and regular changes of setting abound. 

The movie also benefits from the stentorian narration of veteran thespian F Murray Abraham who gives a further sense of what Zero was going through amid the chaos of the misadventure. Grand Budapest Hotel is a cut above, smart, amusing and dramatically involving, the sublime cast, distinct visuality and superb screenplay elevate this to 'excellent status'.

8.6/10

'The Smiths' by The Smiths (1984)

As far as debut records go, ‘the Smiths’ is a masterstroke.  An unqualified success, that nevertheless stirred controversy due to the, let’s say unorthodoxy, of the lyrical content. The product of a disillusionment or at least a semi-detachment and shared coldness towards early 80s Manchester context, a momentous, seminal band was borne. Here’s a band so unique, so singular, so...Smiths. It’s difficult to compare this legendary outfit to other artists simply because in many respects they’re pretty well a full-tilt subversion of the traditional ‘rock group’. Bombast and brash confidence are replaced by self-confessed “shyness”, unwieldiness and lyrics that delve into profound (but in terms of rock music, atypical) themes. Headlining the band is of course, Morrissey, the acerbic champion of all things awkward, lugubrious and even taboo. A terrific singer and a marvellously creative songwriter- Morrissey is able to fashion prosaic comments on day-to-day Mancunian existence into memorable, exceptionally witty parabolic melodies. Of course, Morrissey’s genius is only helped along by his extremely capable support- guitarist Johnny Marr’s furiously quick chord progressions and eternally novel riffs are an illustrious trademark of the quartet’s sound. Marr’s guitar playing is inarguably extraordinary, and in this debut record, it’s well and truly on show from the get go.

The Smiths was released in 1984- following on from the late 70s eruption of post-punk acts such as fellow Mancunians Joy Division, Public Image Ltd, The Chameleons, Simple Minds etc. the band were able to foster a totally original sound and a wholly distinct image and persona that will prove as enduring as any. A fairly bold move, one might say, is to begin your debut record with a cyclical, sprawling borderline 6-minute song. ‘Reel Around the Fountain’ get things underway and does so in a thoughtful, repeating fashion. The lyrics are evocative and historically have been misinterpreted, generating controversy and whatnot. Whatever the case may be, strong imagery is conjured in the form of a summertime setting, an out-of-the-way fountain, a desperate sense of longing, and quite apparently, deflowering of some kind.  The melody here is both catchy and tender, as is Morrissey’s drawn-out enunciations of the chorus and the line “People see no worth in you, oh, but I do.” In interview once, Morrissey said that “to caress the words” when singing is a virtue, and it’s difficult to argue with that considering the tenderness and sincerity he’s able to imbue in his vocals here. It’s also here that the following point must be stressed: The Smiths’ musicianship and vocals interlock like no other. They work in concert so harmoniously.

Once ‘Fountain’ dissipates (and it closes gracefully) the Smiths launches into the post-punk stridence of ‘You’ve Got Everything Now’, a matter-of-fact lamentation about how once subordinate classmates have now got much more to show for their lives than the song’s protagonist. Morrissey is oft as his most amusing here- curt admissions like “And what a terrible mess I’ve made of my life. Oh, what a mess I’ve made of my life” are wailed ruefully, but self-consciously over the top of Marr’s energized guitar play. It’s a rocky, fast-paced track and an edgy foil for its mellow predecessor. One of the band’s most schizophrenic efforts follow straight after- the randomly sped-up punk-rock of ‘Miserable Lie’. Don’t be fooled by its gentle introduction, for around 50 seconds in, the air of sorrow and pity turns to anger as Morrissey alludes to Wilde in his cynical critique on the shallow mindsets of so many. It’s a grower, this one, slightly off-putting and jarring on first listen, the song’s appeal rises to the surface through multiple listens. Morrissey also unleashes some falsetto at the midway point, which only heightens the sense of desperation when delivering lines like “I need advice, I need advice, nobody ever looks at me twice.”

The album’s forth track, ‘Pretty Girls Make Graves” has a sort of bouncy, undulating bassline and a biting, caustic lyric. It’s one of those oddly affecting tracks that has multiple play value due to its catchiness. The same cannot be said for its successor- ‘the Hand that Rocks the Cradle’ which is a superb song but markedly different and markedly less flippant. Slower, somewhat uncanny, and lyrically dense, images of changelings and Hammer Horror Films era and/or F.W. Murneau inspired monsters lurking about in the shadows come to mind here (“Ceiling shadows shimmy by. And when the wardrobe towers like a beast of prey...”), yet the vocals are delicate and affecting. It’s wonderfully tuneful and also sad, but also, as hinted earlier, rather eerie. Themes of obsession and an nonreciprocal affection seem to be the focal point here.

Before you know it, however, the moral murkiness of that song segues to the instantly recognisable, indelible riff of the hit song ‘This Charming Man’ (that is if you have the US version of the album, the track is omitted on other incarnations). Considered by many to be a standout in the band’s catalog, the song, in all its jangly guitar, semantic innuendoes and crooned vocals remains to this day a quintessential ‘Smiths’ song. Once the vivacity of the track fades, you’re once again assailed by a rip-roaring riff- punk-inspired and  thumping , it evokes the image of an aged steam engine ploughing down an antiquated rail-line, belching smoke and clanking its way towards  destruction. The song in question is ‘Still Ill’, a track that touches once again on disenchantment and hopelessness. However the song is not a downer, the lyric is at times cosmetically depressing but the song is still imbued with this sort of dark humour that propels the track into the stratosphere in terms of enjoyment, as Morrissey dispiritedly advises “And if you must go to work tomorrow, well if I were you I really wouldn’t bother, for there are brighter sides to life and I should know because I’ve seen them, but not very often.”  Faintly humorous, but heartfelt words.

The two-pronged attack of the classic ‘Hand in Glove’ and ‘What Difference Does It Make?” follows, and this twofer were (quite rightly) released as singles. The former particularly, is one of the band’s signature tunes, and features a line that Morrissey himself considers one his most cherished. Seemingly describing a special kind of relationship that transcends scorn from others and able to withstand external pressures, the protagonist speaks of fitting together with this other person,  as the title suggests, in harmony, or ‘hand in glove’.  Once again the track opens with this infectiously catchy jangle riff that is just so ‘Smiths’ in its sound, it’s very, very recognizable. What Difference Does it Make? is heavier, and denounces prejudice. The lyrics ring true, and the music is glorious, when those elements fire, what else need be said?  The mellower, sophisti-pop of ‘I Don’t Owe You Anything’ follows as the penultimate track, and it serves as a pleasant, agreeably midtempo  forerunner to the final song- perhaps the band’s most alternately sad and eerie work- entitled ‘Suffer Little Children’- a name inspired by a biblical passage found under the Gospel of Matthew. ‘Suffer Little Children’ boldly details  a harrowing and unspeakably tragic true crime case twenty years before (referred to as the Moors Murders) and is a tender tribute to those fallen, whilst saying that those responsible will “never dream” and that they’ll haunted by the ghosts of their crimes. It’s admittedly a very difficult topic to elicit yet alone write a song about yet the end product is effective. It’s haunting, uncannily touching and sad, yet at times unsettling, as sounds of someone laughing are embedded over the dark lyrics  (“They will haunt you when you laugh”) towards the back end. It’s a gloomy way for the album to bow out, but it works.

The Smiths made a name for themself big time with their eponymous debut and it’s easy to see why. Here were a crew of true originals. Endowed with a songwriter blessed with the remarkable ability to speak brutally honestly, but humorously too, about things that are often kept stored up within, and deputised by a trio of great musicians, The Smiths will endure for many, many years to come, and this record is as stunning a revelation committed to tape by any youthful group yearning to be heard. It’s a remarkable album, that warrants multiple, multiple replays, as it reveals a little more of itself with each and every spin. Never before have raw emotions and pent up frustrations, admissions of failings, challenges and inner struggles, unspooled to the tune of such wondrous musicianship.

10.0

Jacob Dunstan

'WIXIW' by Liars (2012)

WIXIW is a somewhat creepy record. Meant in the best possible way. Best enjoyed through headphones, the album trickles into your consciousness, imparting sinister asides and anxious pleas & admissions. It's Liars' first foray into electronic music and it's impressive, a sense of fragility and doubt is very vividly conveyed.

As soon as the shimmeringly inviting opener 'The Exact Colour of Doubt' gears up, you're drawn into what this band, and more particularly this singular record, has to say. However once the grandeur of 'Doubt' fades, you're assailed by the percussive jabs & throbs and unmoved vocals of 'Octagon', a sinister (yet superbly atmospheric) track very much unlike its forerunner. This is typical of Liars, a band renowned for their refusal to surrender to generic trappings or to stick to any one musical style or tone.

However WIXIW does have a continuum of relative quietude (especially when compared to their more clamorous output prior to this work), and it perhaps more effectively than ever before, sustains a sense of unease, foreboding and trepidation. More accessible and pleasing in a traditional sense is 'No. 1 Against the Rush' which has a lovely buildup and more overt hooks, however, the next track- 'A Ring on Every Finger' extinguishes any sense of familiarity or agreeability with its jolty, hesitant-sounding beat and vocal assertions like "You're no better than you were." It's perhaps one of the record's finest tracks in all its cutup sighs, white noise buzz and overall moodiness. The albums flirts with psychedelia on the title track before once again returning to darker, self-doubting, more mysterious fare on 'Flood to Flood'.

That track abruptly segues into 'Who Is The Hunter' which sees versatile lead singer Angus Andrew adopt a higher pitch to justify "I only blew my gun to see which beasts still run", underlaid by whistles, synth, ticks and subtle claps. It's an evocative, pretty and reasonably understated track, which means that In trademark Liars fashion, the ensuing track is sure to be markedly different. And it is- after a slew of subtler, textural, mood pieces, WIXIW poleaxes you with 'Brats', a high-energy, pulsating rave track wildly different from the rest of the record. It's also highly enjoyable, in it's standing as the clearcut black sheep of WIXIW- a thundering romp with a dance bent.

The comedown from the penultimate track is the relaxing 'Annual Moon Words', which in its acoustic strums and slowed vocals, has a sort of pacifying effect following the pulse-pounding 'Brats'. "I'm on my way down", indeed. WIXIW is essential listening, yet will likely fly under the radar. The album has been compared to the Radiohead masterpiece 'Kid A', and whilst sonic similarities are detectable, WIXIW is more introspective, and everyday in terms of the dilemmas it confronts, whilst Kid A tackled broader themes and issues. WIXIW comes highly, highly recommended, a fascinating, nervy and delicate listen that'll reward listeners with each and every play.

9.1 

Jacob Dunstan

'Closer' by Joy Division (1979)

'Forerunner to the goth rock genre is an undisputed masterpiece'

Closer is an album whose beauty and complexity is difficult to do justice in words. It’s a transcendent experience and will, for better or worse, have a momentous impact on the listener. Each and every track carries with it magnificent power, an unrivalled energy in terms of its lyrical content and musicianship. Whilst Joy Division’s extraordinary debut album Unknown Pleasures had a raw, spare and stark quality to it, it also bore a semblance of constancy, with each track not too dramatically different to the one that preceded it.  Closer, whilst equally mysterious, intriguing and laden with gloomy lyrics, is an album of jarring tonal and auditory shifts. From the machine-like drum pattern and delicate vocals of outstanding opener Atrocity Exhibition to the heavy, ear-splitting riffage and risible vocal shouts of Colony; from the funereal, sepulchral lowness of the glorious The Eternal to the stop-start dynamics of the increasingly desperate, despairing Twenty Four Hours, Closer is a marvellously challenging listen.

   

Whilst the casual listener not particularly well-versed in Joy Division’s oeuvre might be initially perturbed or take a while warming to the viscous layer of gloom that Closer is coated in, the album should be persevered with, must be persevered with even. Closer is dark and Joy Division aficionados can all concur that the record contains the band’s darkest work. However, what truly sets Joy Division apart and where the band’s inarguable genius shines through at its greatest, is the way they can meld melodic, occasionally light music with unnerving and often depressing lyrics, and make it work beautifully. The track Isolation attests to this, as despite its words (which serve as an insight into Curtis’ scarily insecure wellbeing at the time), the track remains catchy and almost danceable. It also serves as somewhat of a harbinger to the more synth-pop oriented music Joy Division’s members would produce post Curtis’ death as New Order. The way the band can so beautifully counterbalance the darkness with a radio-friendly musical vibe is evidenced perhaps at its best in the immortal classic Love Will Tear Us Apart (which, like Closer, was released after Curtis’ death).

Whatever one’s taste, Closer is a must-listen. It’s an album brimming with sorrow and pain, and remains not only the quintessential post punk record, but a record that should be heard by all and sundry, irrespective of musical predisposition. While impressive modern acts such as Interpol and The Horrors have partially recaptured the sonic uniqueness of this marvellous band, Joy Division will forever remain the benchmark for profound, endlessly moving gothic rock.

10.0

Jacob Dunstan

The distinctive drum-beat and haunting synth make for a brilliant marriage with Curtis' eerie, hushed vocals in the atmospheric Heart and Soul: