1000. Therapy? / Troublegum. 1994. 5/5

By the time 1993 had rolled around, Therapy?, who hailed from Northen Ireland had moved along with a growing success over their initial forays into the music recording business. The band's first album, July 1991's EP “Babyteeth”, and its January 1992 EP follow-up, “Pleasure Death”, had been successful enough to earn the band a major label deal with A&M Records. Both albums were underground successes, hitting number 1 in the UK Indie Charts. Their debut record, Nurse, made its way into UK's Top 40 Album Chart in November 1992, while lead single "Teethgrinder" became the band's first Top 40 single in both the UK[and Ireland. With the grunge revolution still in full swing, the media began to draw comparisons between the genre of music and the band. This seemed like a popularist thing to do, and although the band apparently had characteristics that led the music media to do this, their punkish attitude along with the heavier guitars and drums seemed to disclude them from the grunge elements and have them in another direction altogether.
In 1993, the release of the “Shortsharpshock” EP catapulted Therapy? into the Top 40 once again, peaking at number 9 in the UK, and featuring the lead track "Screamager". The single led to the first of several appearances on the UK music show ‘Top of the Pops’. On the top of the increased exposure and popularity, Therapy? toured heavily on the European festival circuit and also toured the US as support for bands such as Kings X and Helmet.
With the amount of live shows and travelling that the band had done in a two year period, and with the success of the single ‘Screamager”, the anticipation for the band’s second full length album became a focus of intent. The three piece, consisting of Andy Cairns of lead vocals and guitar, Fyfe Ewing on vocals and drums and Michael McKeegan on vocals and bass guitar, could not have been better prepared to produce the performance of their lives. They did not disappoint.

The opening salvo still never fails to deliver. Part of its charm is that there is no pause between songs. Each keeps coming straight after the previous song has finished, or segues into it. It’s like one big long live set, with no pause for talking, just get into the next song. From the very beginning you are left in little doubt as to the direction that the album is taking. “Knives” comes at you wielding those glittering blades with anger and those crazy eyes. The vocals scream, the drums hammer and the guitars are guttural. There’s plenty of crazy in this song, and it is all the better for it. The alternative punk version of the angst-ballad comes next with “Screamager”, jauntily bopping away while Andy explains his taunts and echoes throughout. The catchy and simple chorus and fast paced punk guitar adds to the flavour. The segue into the hard core guitar riff of “Hellbelly” is then accompanied by the heavy hitting drums and ripping bass riff that crushes throughout the song. I love this song (but then again I love them all). The slightest of pauses leads into “Stop It You’re Killing Me” which continues in the same vein of what has come before. It’s hard hitting musically and lyrically, another great song to sing along with, especially when you are feeling aggressive. From here the wangling guitar riff opens into “Nowhere”, once again at a great pace that gives you everything whether you are at the gig or at home in the lounge room. This period of five songs to open the album is the equal of any other album I know. It’s non-stop, it gives you no time to rest, and it is adrenaline-inducing fun.
The middle of the album changes things up a little in places. “Die Laughing” has a different groove and different mood, rolling smoothly through the song rather than belting you bluntly over the head. “Unbeliever” is similar in a different way, where there is not so much aggression in the song. This is more the sad reflection on what is happening in life rather than being angry about that same life, almost like the slide on the other side of drunkenness as against the rise of the anger as the drunkenness is taking effect. Do I know this from experience? Perhaps. “Trigger Inside” perhaps has more of that anger involved, but is followed by “Lunacy Booth” that has a similar musical feel to the previous two songs.
There is a great cover version of Joy Division’s “Isolation”, which takes the angst of that song and revs it up a notch, giving the song the power it lacks in the original version. It’s fast paced and driven by the drum beat. Terrific. “Turn” and “Femtex” lead into the frantic and lost screaming of “Unrequited”, an amazing mixture of emotions as explained in the title of the song. The music and vocals mix together brilliantly in this song to accurately portray the subject matter, before exploding into the awesome guitar and drum fuelled riff opening of “Brainsaw”, a song that I have always loved… but have also always thought should have been better and heavier and louder given the opening thirty seconds of the track. That moment when it moves from the end of “Unrequited” into the start of “Brainsaw” for me is still just as brilliant as the first day I heard it. And let’s not forget the closing out of the album, with the quiet fade out of “You Are My Sunshine” that sounds like it is being played at an old fairground. An interesting touch.

In 1995 at the rain-sodden mud-soaked festival that was Alternative Nation in Sydney’s western suburbs, one of the bands I had marked down to see that day was Therapy? I had heard none of their music and knew of them only from vague articles and posters in unusual places (such as in Steve Buscemi and Adam Sandler's flat in the movie Airheads). Soaked to the skin with six beers and four pies in various pockets of my oversized jacket, I witnessed a set that impacted on me like few have, before or since. It was belligerent, raucous and quite awesome given the completely out of the way stage they had been placed on. I loved every song, and the following week I searched out the album that their guitarist and vocalist had said they were touring on. That was my introduction to Therapy? and the album “Troublegum”. The angst-ridden anger-fest that has become one of the most important albums of my life.
When Therapy? came along, I was at probably the lowest point of my life. I only say this here so that you can understand why I have such strong feelings about the album that others may not share. It was a six month period that I muddled my way through not exclusively because of this album, but with the help of this album being a majority shareholder nonetheless. Every emotion I was feeling in my life at that time was mirrored in Andy Cairns music, lyrics and vocals on this album. However, Troublegum doesn’t remind me of that time at all, nor does it make me maudlin or upset because of it. Certainly it is still the best tonic to put on when I get down, or get angry. It does still draw out any anger I have in me when that is needed. What it does do is make me smile, because this is one of my magic talismans; an album I can put on at any time and draw from it the good feelings or power or inspiration or whatever it is I need, just from listening to it.
Perhaps this album’s biggest problem is that it killed any chance for any other Therapy? release to get a fair hearing. With so much tied up in this album, any subsequent album had to be able to do these same things to me and FOR me to be considered close to its equal, and the band hasn’t been able to reproduce that. There are good albums yes, but nothing that can match what is on Troublegum. For the same reason I can understand (to a certain degree) when people say they don’t think this album is anywhere near as good as I think it is. That’s completely understandable considering what I have tied up in this album emotionally. Each song means something to me, and is tied to emotions I have felt in many different moments in my life. It still speaks to me today in the same way even though I don’t feel those same things anymore, because I remember what I felt at the times these songs remind me of.
Considering the journey music has taken me on in my life, it is fitting that an album that acted like a life preserver for me is the one that clocks up my 400th episode since I began THIS particular journey some 2.5 years ago, creating a podcast to not only allow me to share my love of the music that has made up my lifetime, but to offer it to the world and allow all of you to listen and judge on the albums and episodes as well.

755. Therapy? / Disquiet. 2015. 3/5

Another Therapy? album means another chance to compare the band's current material with that from their finest album, the now twenty years old masterpiece Troublegum. Yep, I know it is an unfair comparison, as it is with any band, comparing their latest material with that from an era when they could do no wrong in your eyes. But it is almost impossible not to here. Everyone would love another Troublegum, even though they know full well they are never going to get one. Such is the state in which we enter Disquiet.

This is a further step up from their last album, A Brief Crack of Light. The sound on that album was very stripped, an almost back-to-basics sound. Here on the next album, they have progressed from that to re-incorporate a similar buzz to the aforementioned gem in their crown. It isn't a copy. Nothing could ever recreate the angst, the anger and the pissed off nature that is encoded into everything recorded on Troublegum. Add to the fact that the band is twenty years older as well, and it wouldn't be right if they were still feeling the same thoughts this far into the future. So while the depth of feeling may be missing from the vocals, there is a certain amount of similarity in the songs through the drums and guitars as they are written, while A.J's lyrics still show a sense of the distraught, even if it may not sound like it as he is singing them. There is little of the gruff anger that laces the best of Therapy?'s songs, rather here it is the higher register moaning that takes precedence, which for me doesn't quite match what you would expect.
The band has obviously had time to get this album right, as they had to change record companies in the process. There are some standout songs, such as "Still Hurts", with the faster paced drums with grunge-like guitars and bass, and "Tides" which moves in a similar way. The remainder of the album blends together nicely, but without throwing any big punches that make you take notice of what is going on.

You know what is the toughest part in this day and age about me and Therapy? Twenty years ago I was angst-ridden and angry and pissed off and depressed, and Therapy?'s music struck the right chord at the right time. Now I'm older, wiser and generally happier, and it doesn't quite speak the same way to me now as it did back then. Is that what the missing element is for me now? Not completely no. The music now is not as frantic as it was, nor as heavy in the same way as it once was. It plateau's where once it flowed over in a sea of anger and heaviness, where now it reaches a point on the scale before it recedes back into its comfort zone. I love the frantic rather than the mournful. But don't get me wrong, this is still a very good album, much closer to the best that Therapy? produce.

Rating: This feeling is different, I want an easy mind. 3/5

589. Therapy? / A Brief Crack of Light. 2012. 3/5

It's probably not a good sign if your first reaction to hearing of a new release from one of your bands is "wow, are they doing another album!" with a slight touch of cynicism in your voice. Which is pretty much how I came into this album. Following on from their live release of 18 months ago which I had enjoyed, and their previous album Crooked Timber which had had its moments, I was still curious to see what the band could come up with in the new decade.

There doesn't seem like there are many more areas that Therapy? can strip back their sound. It's drums, it's guitars, and it's Andy Cairns' vocals and lyrics. And whereas in the recent past the waters have been muddied, it really does appear on this release that there has been a true effort to rediscover the real Therapy?, the one that came together in the early 1990's.

I couldn't tell you if it is a conscious effort on the band's past, but on a lot of the album it can be said to be successful. Everyone knows you cannot catch lightning in a bottle, so comparing albums over eras is just plain silly. But the overall sound of the album brings back memories of former days of triumph.

Songs such as "Living in the Shadow of the Terrible Thing" and "Before You, With You, After You" and "Get Your Dead Hand off My Shoulder" showcase the best that this band can offer. Others on the album seem far too over the top, as if they are trying too hard to prove a point. Still, the overall feel of the album is that there is a significant effort to get back to the basics of their craft.

For those fans that have fallen off the bandwagon over the past decade, this is worth getting back on the horse for. There is nothing new here, and almost zero experimentation. In a lot of ways, that is the best news most Therapy? fans could ask for.

584. Therapy? / We're Here to the End. 2010. 3.5/5

It has taken over 20 years for Therapy? to put out a live opus, but when they did, they crammed it full of every song imaginable - all 36 of them stuffed onto 2 CDs. Quite an amazing feat. And whilst I was looking forward to the album, I wondered how the material was going to hold up under a stern examination.

On my first listen I admit I was disappointed. Many of the songs seem to have been played at a slower tempo, and just don't live up to anger and angst that the studio versions emit. In essence, pretty much all the live versions of songs off Troublegum still just don't match up to those original versions, and that's after having seen them live, and having the live DVD Scopophobia and various webcasts and bootleg videos of the band playing live. This was another test of their performance, and they still can't bring the magic of Troublegum to a live setting.
OK, so stop harping on that and get over it. Listen again. Take in the performances. Feel the energy of the crowd, and how the band are feeding off that. Listen to the song streak of "Die Like a Mother Fucker", "Stories" and "Meat Abstract". Revel in the joy that is the live version of "Diane" without cellos! Sure, you can cringe through songs like "A Moment of Clarity", but be redeemed by "If it Kills Me" and "Knives" and " The Head That Tried to Strangle Itself".
The audience reaction/participation is at the forefront in this recording, and that does add an authenticity to it. Some bands these days try to remove the audience from live recordings - why? I don't know. On this live album the crowd is a member of the band and a vital part of the recording. They in fact enhance this release, because they are singing what you are singing while listening to it.

The band sounds great. Andy's vocals do not always withstand the clinical environment of listening to a live album in the home. When in attendance at the gig, his vocals blend with the crowd and thus sound great. Without the crowd in my living room, some songs are unable to withstand the sometime off-key vocals. But that's why live albums are never as good as actually being at the gig, because they can never completely recreate the live experience. Once again, I try to stop harping on it and just enjoy it.

This is a good live album that covers twenty years of the band's history. Fans will love it, detractors will not. I still sit on the positive side of the fence in the middle.

556. Therapy? / Infernal Love. 1995. 2.5/5

1994’s “Troublegum” had been enormously successful album, a real breakthrough internationally for the band Therapy? The angst-ridden, emotionally anger-charged album struck a chord with its fan base and then increased it exponentially. They toured the world, and saw an increase in the sales of their previous three albums on the back of it. Overall, it was a massive success. Then came the tricky part. How do you follow up an album such as that? Lyrically and musically, it had channelled as much anger and human emotion that you could possibly imagine. It was like Joy Division trying to find a way to make another album that was as bleak and starkly desolate as "Unknown Pleasures”. Given that Therapy covered a Joy Division song on that Troublegum album, the line drawn between the two parallels probably isn’t as obscure as it may sound.
The three piece which comprised guitarist and vocalist Andy Cairns, drummer Fyfe Ewing and bass guitarist Michael McKeegan had the job ahead of them. Cairns, as the majority stakeholder in the song writing, was the one who everyone was looking at as to what he would come up with next. What the band brought forward was a seismic deviation from the punk-metal alternative sound that they had produced on “Troublegum” to a sound that incorporated many different ideals and segues, one that almost completely differentiated it from the album that had brought them to international attention. The question that was to be asked was, did this album’s skewing of its sound have the potential to bring in more fans from a different base, or did it risk alienating all of the new fans they had just collated from their previous album. That question could only be answered once the album hit the shelves, which “Infernal Love” did in June of 1995.

There will always be unfortunate comparisons of this album to its predecessor, and that is especially true of the beginning o the album. Because the first four songs on “Troublegum” are insanely intense, fast, heavy, angry. They set that album up for what came next, dragged in the listener kicking and screaming, and kept them enthralled to the end. Most would have come to “Infernal Love” looking for exactly the same beginning, hoping it was just as marvellous.
The album does open at a cracking pace, with “Epilepsy” coming out of the speakers likely an angry Jimmy Page riff and John Bonham drum crash and smash. It ain’t Robert Plant singing mind you, and the lyrics are pretty sparse and deliberate, but it comes at you with the intensity you would be hoping for. It’s also a great bass riff through this song as well. Andy Cairns integrates that angst and anger straight into the mix as fans were hoping for, and it is a great opening to the album. This is followed up by “Stories”, the angsty warning against hope, the driven vocal line of “Happy people have no stories” creating the key to the song. The parallels to the same number track on the previous album are obvious, with “Stories” playing up to the same themes as “Screamager” on that album, the singalong chorus an automatic crowd pleaser, and the angst and desolation of the moody teenagers embedded in the track. So far, “Infernal Love” is two for two and sounding great.
The change in this album from the previous comes with “A Moment of Clarity”. This is more Joy Division than anger and heavy. It dials the music back, and Cairns showcases a different side to his vocals that we haven’t really heard before. It is a fork in the road, the point of difference that this album was no doubt looking for. Stretching out to six minutes, fading in and out of slight aggression to pure desolate angst, it is a story in itself, a moment where the band treads new territory. It also separates the fans in regards to what they were expecting and what they wanted. More of the same with “Jude the Obscene”, a more mainstream guitar and drum riff throughout and Andy’s vocals as well. There is less punky metal here than there is alternative, the short and sharp solo from Cairns is actually building to something significant before being cut short to get back into the verse chorus of the song. Then comes “Bowels of Love”, with more of the cello brought in, Andy’s angst crying vocals return as the cry for help he sounds like he is asking for on this album. There is more of the Joy Division styled here once again, perhaps overplaying the style for the sake of abandoning the metal style of the previous album.
“Misery” restores a little of the more recognisable Therapy? sound with a solid and recognisable riff and more exciting drum beat and bass line, with the vocals also being more proactive again with a forceful reply rather than a dry mournful rise. “Bad Mother” starts with another recognisable riff and vocal tone, with the depressing lyrics drowning in Andy’s distinctive sad vocal style. Andy’s guitar that again mirrors The Clash here is overwhelmed by the emotionally charged doubling of vocals through to the end of the track. The arrival of “Me vs You” is perhaps the most significant difference of music and songs on this album. This drains you of your will to live with the dire and post-mortem-like hopelessness of both the lyrics and music on this track. If you want a track that will send you to the absolute depths of depression, then this is the one. It is perfectly written for that purpose. And that’s great if that is what you are coming to this album for. And for me, it is where the album both succeeds and fails. Because I don’t look for an album to send me into fits of depression, I want an album to lift me OUT of that state.
“Loose” at least achieves that to a certain degree. It is very reminiscent of the kind of alternative songs that found their way into circulation through the mid-to-late 1990’s often on teenage movie soundtracks such as for “Empire Records” and “Can’t Hardly Wait”. If that was what they were aiming for, then mission completed. Then comes the most played and most popular song n the album, the cover of the Husker Du song “Diane”. But unlike the post punk original version, this is performed entirely with acoustic guitars and the introduction of the cello. And while this version of “Diane” has been regarded as a high water mark in the band’s career – well, it just doesn’t do it for me. To me it is the almost ultimate weak link of the album. Sure, it created yet another highlight of the different direction the band looked to try out with “Infernal Love”, and probably that’s why I’m not a fan of it. The album then concludes with “30 Seconds”, where the pace quickens up for one of the few times along the way, the band draws inspiration from the actual Husker Du catalogue musically, and while repeating over and over, “there is a light at the end of the tunnel”, is it only because the album has come to its final conclusion?

I was one of the people who discovered this band on their previous album. It was in that blackout year of 1995, when I was lucky enough to see the band on their only Australian tour when they played at the Alternative Nation festival at Eastern Creek in Western Sydney in 1995. I had gone to see them only based on the poster that hung on the wall of Adam Sandler’s characters wall in the movie “Airheads”, and they were awesome. Within a week I had bought their two previous albums, but I was completely hooked on “Troublegum” from the outset. It became an album that helped get me through that year and has been tied closely to me ever since. "Infernal Love" was released some three months after that festival, and having submerged myself in “Troublegum” for that entire time, this new album coming on so close to the time that I had first discovered the band was exceptionally good timing for me. Or so I thought.
So, I bought the CD, brought it home, and got myself prepared for “Troublegum” Part 2. That was a massive error on my part. The single, “Stories”, grabbed me effortlessly. But beyond that, I really didn't have a clue as to what I had stumbled upon. There were moments here that I could listen to and enjoy, but even those felt like they were… off. They just weren’t what I had come to love from the band. There was angst here, but the outright anger mostly seemed to have evaporated. And, as I was still in the year of 1995, I really wanted or perhaps needed that anger from the band. And it wasn’t here. And what really did it for me was the cover of Husker Du’s “Diane”, replete with cellos and saxophone and without the real power that the original gave us. I just didn’t relate and couldn’t connect with what this album was compared to the one I had just fallen into obsession with. So I gave it a dozen listens, and it fell into the pile of CDs that I had bought that then found themselves on the outer.
Over the years, I have returned to this album on any number of occasions. Because I really wanted to like it. I wanted to find what it was that had sparked the writing of this album and be able to connect with it on the same level as the previous album. And I have never been able to do that. It is simply a different album, heading in a new direction, and that’s fine. As a band, and as an artist, I imagine Andy was not looking to get pigeonholed in the style that had created such popularity for his band. I needed more from it when I first bought it, and since then I have WANTED more from it than it has to offer me.
It came off the shelves again this week as I sat down to compose this podcast episode, and once again I found myself hoping that I had changed enough to find where the secret of this album lay. I once again really wanted to like it, to be able to say that after 30 years I had cracked the code and found what makes this album one that is worth listening to. And once again I found myself disappointed. Yes, the same songs that I could listen to back when I first bought the album were the same ones I could find myself listening to again. But beyond that, it just feels like an average album. There’s nothing wrong with that, the majority of artists out there would kill to have an average album. I just wanted so much more for this to be better than that.
Therapy? is still going, and every album I am waiting for the next “Troublegum”. That’s extremely unfair on the band, but there you have it. They got close with a couple of albums down the track. And while “Infernal Love” is only an average album with a couple to a few songs that are worth listening to, no doubt at some stage in the future I will go through this charade again, all in the hope that I will find a love for this album.

492. Therapy? / High Anxiety. 2003. 3.5/5

I guess because I always have such high hopes for each new Therapy? album, I am more often than not wrought with disappointment when they finally come along. This all stems of course from the absolute magnificence of Troublegum and what that album means to me.

Here though is High Anxiety which has all the elements that could make it a superb album, but which fails to put them all together in the right way to achieve this. The good songs here are pearlers - the opening blitz of "Hey Satan - You Rock" which delivers musically and lyrically in a way only Andy Cairns can. This is followed by the gutteral "Who Knows" which continues to push the hardcore element. All of the initial tracks stand alone.
"If It Kills Me", the single from the album, is the stand out track, and is the perfect example of the best of Therapy? Everytime I hear this song I wonder how this band has not become bigger throughout the world.
The second half of the album tails off, and fails to ignite the passion that the first half of the album does. This is a bit disappointing, because there feels like there is something really good building until it gets to that point. Then, for some reason, it just drifts away and it is easy to lose interest.

And that is really the problem. So much potential, totally unrealised. I'm sure it isn't easy, but you can't help wondering sometimes whether they would be better off just releasing six song EPs, because for the most part it appears that that is as many good songs as they can put together at one time. Having said that, this remains one of their better efforts.

Rating: Could have been something really special. 3.5/5