eMusic

Start Your Trial

We Are Him

by

Angels Of Light

 
  • Pick
We Are Him

Rate it!

Avg: 4.0 (129 ratings)

AoL's Instant Menacer.

  • We Say...

    Review by J. Edward Keyes

    There is such a thing as holy terror, a kind of deep-down dread that stems from coming face-to-face with the other side. Moses felt it when he went to get the tablets, felt it so real and so deep that his hair and beard went white. Christ felt it at the Crucifixion, the sudden absence of divine power. There's holy terror running all throughout We Are Him, the seventh record from Angels of Light.

    Head angel Michael Gira is no stranger to that great blackness. He trafficked in horror and cruel despair all through his tenure with Swans, the furious NYC art band/fiery apocalypse that promulgated acts of sonic terror for the better (and I do mean better) part of the '80s. There, though, he roped his disgust to sufficiently intimidating music; Swans songs knew no mercy or compassion. They were ruthless and relentless, a long cold stare down mortality's gaping double-barrel. With the Angels of Light he's turned down the volume but kept the menace at full blast. The result is a kind of sickening dissonance, a child's nursery decorated with Francis Bacon prints.

    We Are Him continues that long study in unease. Album opener "Black River Song" peaks with Gira and a team of female backing vocalists shrieking: "Fading! Growing!" while the whole song lurches and churns toward its conclusion. The presence of the female voices — Eszter Balint and Gira's wife Siobahn Duffy — adds a ghostly quality to the record. They function as a chorus of sirens, ominously warning of black skies ahead. On "Not Here/Not Now" they low icily in the background as Gira drags his fingers over a brittle acoustic guitar. "Sometimes I Dream I'm Hurting You" moves like a medieval plague ballad — steady, downcast strum, funereal organ and a gently twirling guitar line. By the time it explodes at the finale, you can almost taste the ash from the incinerator.

    More than ever, Gira draws a kind of dark magic from repetition. Most of the songs on We Are Him are built around a single melodic phrase repeated over and over and over and thrive on the mania the monotony causes. Even the theoretically upbeat "Sunflower's Here to Stay," which starts out with a big, bright melody and twinkling piano, eventually turns wild-eyed and feral by the 17th go-round. With its feints toward country music and its legions of screeching violins, We Are Him is a snapshot of scorched Appalachia, a hovering death spectre with a menacing grin. "I am the god of this fucking land!" Gira bellows during one particularly hellish moment. Only a fool would disagree.

  • They Say...

    Review by Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide

    On Angels of Light's fifth album, leader Michael Gira offers arty Americana-like tunes that aren't too far removed from Nick Cave in the way they're both written and sung. Gira isn't as strong, or scary, a singer as Cave; in fact, at times he sounds a little like a latter-day counterpart to Lee Hazlewood with some Leonard Cohen thrown in, especially on the most country-oriented of the songs, "This Is Not Here." But certainly this is much more tuneful and subdued an affair than many would expect from the former band behind Swans, the noisy post-punk group for which Gira will probably always be most noted and notorious. That doesn't mean it's an average alternative rock record, as Gira brings a dry, sardonic edge to his vocals, and still occasionally leans on grinding rhythms to drive his points home. More often than not, however, these are reflective if fairly downbeat songs with a slight country-folk feel, which combined with his slightly drawling elongated vocal style sometimes make it seem like a record that should have come out of the Southwest, not Brooklyn. It's not all in that vein; "Sunflower's Here to Stay" is surely as happy and poppy a tune as Gira's likely to come up with, indicating there might be a Kinks and early Pink Floyd fan underneath all that art damage. Judicious use of female backup vocals also lightens the mood, though even the brighter tracks are still something of a candy-coated poison pen given the dark sentiments they often cloak. Even in this mellowed state, Gira's still never going to be a majority taste, but Angels of Light come up with a thoroughly respectable and diversely arranged vehicles for his vision on We Are Him, traipsing through an array of interesting moods without diluting the leader's offbeat visions.

  • You Say...

    Write a Review

    I would like to say...

    Artist: Angels Of Light

    Album: We Are Him

    Review Title: (maximum 50 characters)

    Your Review: (maximum 1,000 characters)

    Cancel

    Please keep your comments to the recordings themselves, and be courteous and respectful. Thanks! For further info, read our Community Guidelines.

“ The indie iTunes — Hardcore music fans are migrating to eMusic, the iTunes Music Store's cheaper, cooler cousin.”


Rolling Stone
Start Your Trial

Recently Viewed

Back
Forward

© 1998-2009 eMusic.com Inc. eMusic and the eMusic logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks in the USA or other countries. All rights reserved.

All Music Guide © 1992 - 2009 All Media Guide, LLC
Portions of content provided by All Music Guide, a trademark of All Media Guide, LLC

Facebook®, YouTube, Flickr™ and Wikipedia® are registered trademarks of their respective owners, Facebook Inc., Google, Inc., Yahoo! Inc. and Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Neither Facebook Inc., Google, Inc., Yahoo! Inc. nor Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. are partners or sponsors of eMusic. eMusic uses the Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and Wikipedia API but is not endorsed or certified by Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and Wikipedia. eMusic does not pre-screen, monitor, endorse nor assume any liability for websites, contents, products, services or claims made by Facebook, YouTube, Flickr™ and Wikipedia®.

Legal or copyright question regarding Facebook, YouTube, Flickr or Wikipedia content on eMusic? Please email us.