New Despair EP - Dark Publications

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Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

Merritt does it again, goth style May 30, 1999
16 out of 16 found this review helpful

Stephin Merritt is perhaps the finest pop songwriter that no one knows working today. His records with the Sixths, Future Bible Heroes, Magnetic Fields and the Gothic Archies are all almost uniformly brilliant. Merritt mines the dark side of life and comes up with terrific three minutes chunks of songs that are as catchy as can be, no matter what instrument he chooses to use. Gothic Archies is another in this fine line, although, be warned, it is short, VERY SHORT, like 17 minutes short. But, as always, 17 minutes of Merritt equals 75 of nearly anyone else in his field, so it's well worth it. These songs are "gothic" in the sense that they are ominous, foreboding, but still contain the trademark hooks of Merritt. The acoustic "Your Long White Fingers" is my favorite track, and tells of how someone's fingers frighten children, etc., like some Nosferatu figure. However, all seven songs are well worth your time and money, and I strongly recommend yet another excellent effort from the reclusive New Yorker. Rumour has it that his next effort will be a three disc set called 69 LOVE SONGS. I can't wait!

4 out of 5 stars

Merrit's self parody June 4, 2001
9 out of 10 found this review helpful

I think this album is something of a self parody, as well as a parody of a genre he sometimes flirts with - gothic music. Though not really goth, Merrit's voice has that tone and his lyrics are usually very bleak. But they don't get much bleaker than this. Perhaps the saddest most depraved song on the record is the Tiny Goat, where a goat's live is so pathetic that he places himself on a stove - with lye nonetheless! It's useless to struggle is an apt begininng to the album, perhaps describing where you'll be while listening to it - wanting to turn away from Merrit's depressing rantings, but not able to because their too darn funny. Cave ridicules the goth genre and himself with lyrics too depressing for the likes of even Ian Curtis on Andrew Eldrich. Sad, sick, twisted, depraved, depressing - but very very funny.

5 out of 5 stars

It's useless to not buy this album. February 3, 2003
7 out of 7 found this review helpful

Tracks such as "The Tiny Goat" and "City of the damned" are monstrously fun for sing-alongs at work while "Ever falls the twilight" and "it's useless to struggle" offer a wink and a nod to Joy Division and Siouxsie and the Banshees, and how can one not go wrong with an album where the last intelligible lyric is "The world's a leech crawling down one's throat. / One would rather be a tick than be a tiny goat"?

3 out of 5 stars

Worthwhile - But not for Beginners August 17, 2001
6 out of 11 found this review helpful

Stephin Merritt has yet to make an album or EP not woth owning, and this one's no exception, but bew warned that this is a dark record (even by Magnetic Fields standards). This was Merritt's intention; the Gothic Archies side-project was created specifically for the release of his most depressing songs. Mission accomplished: The tracks here are hilariously bleak, and the lyrics intentionally over-the-top (from "The Tiny Goat": "The tiny goat was really very ugly/ And like all ugly things it fell in love/ When 20 years of waiting came to nothing/ It swallowed lye and laid down on the stove").

There are a few catchy tracks ("Abandoned Castle of My Soul" and the minute-and-a-half "City of the Damned"), but nothing that would qualify as classic or essential.

Once again, it's worth owning, but if you're still in the process of building your Stephin Merritt collection, you should make this one of your last purchases.

5 out of 5 stars Hilariously bleak... November 26, 2000
4 out of 4 found this review helpful

This number is a great little EP from Merritt... hilariously depressing and lyrically destroying all that is good and nice with its hopelessness, you should play this one for your black-eyeshadow-wearing-face-painting-ever-complaining goth friends and really honk them off. Perfect for its length, a variation of this was originally released for the Hello CD of the Month club, which is a rare find now. Either way, it's a great, tiny album.

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