It certainly starts off great with the goth-classic "She's In Parties." It's a great song with a nice bassline and there is a sense of some chemistry left between the band members. The next song "Antonin Artaud" also rocks, but reminds me of an old Doors song in the middle. Still solid though. The 17-second guitar exercise "Wasp," is pretty cool, then the 3 minute folk rendition of "King Volcano," consisting of a 12-string guitar, a tambourine and chanting towards the end.

Then the album goes kinda downhill.. "Who Killed Mr. Moonlight," a song by I think Daniel Ash, starts off with some interesting piano lines and a saxophone, which would be very nice, but it sounds SOOO 80s. Then after the chorus, there's a synth effect reminscent of Tony Banks/Genesis, before it goes into a subpar goth song with unconvincing vocals, and even worse lyrics. LEAVE IT TO PETER!!

Next is "Slice of Life," which starts off great with a transfixing 12 string arpeggio, but then the simple chorus kills the mood of the song. It just didn't fit.
"Honeymoon Croon," sounds like it should be on a Duran Duran CD.

The title track is 9 minutes long, and by now it's very evident that the death knell is ringing at Bauhaus' bell tower (no pun intended). It tries desperately to bring back the dark aura of "Bela Lugois's Dead," with Murphy singing very low with pretty dark and gothic lyrics, but it just doesn't add up to previous Bauhaus classics. It goes nowhere.

The last song "Hope" is a 3 minute instrumental w/ near indecipherable lyrics, ending all happily and optimistic.

I respect Bauhaus and them wanting to move to a different style, and these songs have POTENTIAL written all over them, but this album was rushed, and most of them come out sounding like rough demos and unfinished songs. Plus the band was falling apart at the seams with this record. Bauhaus was clearly over. A band that could've finished with a great album left the musical world with an album that doesn't ven remotely fulfill their potential.


End of a decade   July 1, 1998
 1 out of 2 found this review helpful

By Considering the post-punk movement as an explosion of music intending by its creators to be apart from the rules that commercial sounds give to industry(i.e.: new funk, quitschy techno, etc.) in those days, bands like Bauhaus, Soft Cell, Cabaret Volt., amongst others, re-discovered, re-invented with some of their songs one brilliant revival of what lately sixties tendencies were,and showed the influences that groups like Velvet U. Eno, Bowie and the Master of Disaster : Iggy Pop, represented into modern popular music.In my opinion, just a healthy intention to rescue pop and rock from its devariations made by progressive bands, more than a pretension to re-cover any of all those s..... devariations that in mid70s were made (Really cool now, but unnacceptable in early 80s, Remember?)were recorded or played. Obviously now, Bauhaus are ahead of their time,a brilliant career including collaborations made in solitaire wiht another musicians where never ever, drums or basses or guitar riffs had found in music a construction like they made there before. Anyway, if a resurrection made in old terms acomplishes its function, letting all these new desperate-and-bored hippies, grungies or whatever you might call those ignorant but loved teen-sheeps, to discover : Bauhaus. (D'you know kids where they get thy name?). (To continue)


Good album, but the deathknell of the band   November 15, 2001
 1 out of 1 found this review helpful

The fact that "She's in Parties" is on this album is indicative of how incredibly creative this band was, even when they were falling apart. Some really good cuts all the way around, but all things considered, it is at the bottom of my Bauhaus list (which you means you should buy it because it is awesome, but their others are even better).