Album Review # 22 The Pale Saints - The Comforts of Madness

 

The introverted Stone Roses. I may be bucking a trend here but the Stone Roses could have done with a bit of introversion. A little humility. This sounds like music coming from a teenage bedroom. The Pale Saints hailed from Leeds and released a few, fine records on 4AD in the early Nineties. They received some acclaim at the time but are probably little remembered now. I posted their name on the Greatest Albums Ever website and received a blank.

 

I saw them with my long term musical com padre Andy at a small venue in Norwich in March 1990. The band played the best part of a hundred gigs in this year. They played with Lush who were also on 4AD. The Comforts of Madness is the band's first record and the only one I've owned and  really know.

 

 

It's all introverted and wistful but the guitars and drums pound hard enough for it not to be soft. It's echoey awestruck, spacey music. Surprisingly confident given that lead singer Ian Masters seemed to spend most of his time hiding behind his fringe. The first words on the record are, 'This is the way it has to be'

 

'Time will get you in the end
And take away the things
The things you thought you had
Time will take away your friends
And leave you all alone
Alone until the end.'

 

Bleak lines cushioned by the beauty of the music. There's real ambition here for indie kids. The group's first ep was entitled Barging into the Prescence of God. It proceeds like this. The vocals are weightless. It sounds like something you might associate with hearing in a cathedral. Masters comes across like a lost choirboy sometimes. It echoes things you know. My Bloody Valentine, New Order, Stone Roses, Felt, Cocteau Twins but it has an identity all of its own. At this distance hearing it for the first time I find it quite compelling. It has an assured, driven, melodic intensity. It made it to Number 40 in the UK album chart. A brief moment on the edge of the spotlight for outsiders.

 

The band come across as well read. Bedroom dreamers. There's something of Greek Myth about some of the sounds they sculpt out (sorry if that sounds posey but these are definite soundscapes and they're crafted). There's a cover of Opal's You Fell from the Sun which evokes the myth of Icarus.

The album is heading towards the band's big song The Sight of You This is I Want To Be Adored, sung and played by the dreamers in the playground.

 

 

I've enjoyed very much the day I've spent listening to and thinking about this. It has moments when it becomes a little trapped in its genre, that early Nineties guitar effects and pedal sound. But the Pale Saints were much better than many of the somewhat faceless guitar bands that were round them at the time. They had a bit of the grit of the North to set them apart. When the guitars gather and ring and chime three minutes thirty seconds into The Sight of You they have all the muscle of Television and Joy Division.

 

 

I recommend it and the band's website. A little gem.