Joy Division. Joy Division! Joy Division Joy Division Joy Division Joy Division! Are you still reading? Good. You get it. You get that sadness is the world's greatest art form, and that Michelangelo only painted the Sistine chapel roof because he couldn't cry upwards. So get a strong grip on the wasteland of reality, put on your blackest mittens and abandon all hope.
It's not going to be alright. This is Former Ghosts.
Almost a supergroup, the ghosts are primarily the outlet of Freddy Rupert, because This Song Is A Mess And So Am I just wasn't depressing enough, or something. When Jamie Stewart (Xiu Xiu) and Nika Roza (Zola Jesus) join the party, well, let's just say that all the happy kids have gone home. Alone. To an empty house on a windy evening. Also, their fishies have died.
Fleurs isn't an album that is going to swerve around like a drunk bus driver; if you are in for track 1 you are in for track everything. On one level its almost a pop album: there are plenty of catchy songs, it never really tries to fuck your brain over and everything is always rather simple. Musically it all feels very similar, like they mapped white noise to a keyboard and played it with a dentist's drill. Hell, some moments can only be descibed as downright cute. So, apart from all the droning reverb, sounds perfectly accessible yeah?
Ha, excuse me while I cry wine into a cup and drink it in front of you.
The sadness, I beleive, doesn't lie directly in anything you can hear. It's the feeling, the soul destroying hollow empty feeling. Like if you've ever known anyone who has been fucked over really bad, and they still come to your parties and they look ok on the outside, even smiling and laughing sometimes, but you just know. Their heart has been shredded into pretty pink ribbons and their eyes are like looking into an oncoming truck. You just know.
That feeling is this album, in 12 bite size peices. It smothers the music and haunts every corner of every song. In a ghostly way, a sad way, I find it really beautiful. As if everything is somehow reversed if you only think to embrace the hollow. As if everything will be ok.
Yeah, like fuck it will.
