The droney, Nico-esque intro of “Warsong” apart, you’d be exhausting pressed to identify many moments the place the Treatment push themselves musically. Simon Gallup’s bass strains are uniformly robust and low slung, bringing the identical rugged drive he has delivered on and off since 1979; Cooper’s drums have the juddering, tom-led depth of Lol Tolhurst’s work on Pornography; and the ghostly synth melodies on “Alone” and “Endsong” recommend the magical melancholia of “All Cats Are Gray,” from 1981’s Religion. Gabrels, the brand new boy of the band, with solely 12 years of service, comes closest to breaking new floor, though his suggestions and fuzz on “Warsong” and the tortured wah-wah on “Drone:Nodrone” inevitably remind the listener how a lot the shoegaze bands borrowed from the Treatment within the first place.
In contrast to, say, the Rolling Stones in 2024, immediately’s Treatment don’t profess any have to show their vitality or relevance. And why ought to they? It typically seems like all of us finally turn into the Treatment, because the band’s everlasting—and initially precocious—preoccupations about mortality, getting older, and doubt inevitably drip into our lives as we become old and frailer. And if we’re to bend to the Treatment, then why ought to the Treatment bend to us? The band has carved out its personal sound—gothic, epic, and but surprisingly minimal—and earned the suitable to stay there. Songs of a Misplaced World feels thick and necessary, a large oak tree of an album that towers over all the things it surveys. Each factor counts—each plucked bass string, rolling drum fill, offended guitar strum, or light piano observe feels important.
Songs of a Misplaced World might not be an enormous step up in high quality from the highlights of Bloodflowers, 4:13 Dream, or no matter your favourite is of the band’s post-Want data. (Opinions range wildly.) Nevertheless it seems like a report whose time is true, delivering a concentrated dose of the Treatment and reducing the fats that dogged their later albums. The album’s eight songs carry sharply potent tales of dying (“I Can By no means Say Goodbye” is concerning the sudden passing of Smith’s older brother Richard); mortality (the gorgeous “And Nothing Is Without end”); and the issue of being within the current second (“All I Ever Am”). Smith’s voice remains to be a exceptional instrument of launch in spite of everything these years, and his finest couplets (“And the birds, falling out of our skies/And the phrases, falling out of our minds,” from “Alone”) stay marvels of financial system and craft.
Songs of a Misplaced World feels at instances like David Bowie’s personal nice reflection on mortality, Blackstar, though the Treatment take few of the stylistic dangers that he did. A lot as in Bowie’s later years, it has typically felt like a brand new Treatment album would by no means arrive, the band’s momentum fatally stalled by the indecision of the 2000s. However maybe the best praise to pay Songs of a Misplaced World is that it already feels inevitable, a piece of knowledge and beauty that extends naturally from the second the Treatment took up their devices in an area church corridor all these years in the past.
All merchandise featured on Pitchfork are independently chosen by our editors. Nonetheless, once you purchase one thing by our retail hyperlinks, we might earn an affiliate fee.
