On Pain – earMUSIC
On Pain, the twelfth solo album from the troubadour and introspective lyricist Lloyd Cole continues his exploration of electronic soundscapes and blankets of oozing and brooding themes. While the jangly guitars and 80s college rock radio sound has been pushed to the background, the same concise ambiance and stories Cole has crafted over the last forty years remain. This is what makes him such a great artist – his ability to twist sounds but maintain the powerful weight of the songwriting.
On this new album, Cole is joined by former Commotions bandmates, Blair Cowan (keyboards) and Neil Clark (guitars), but the sparse ambiance is all Lloyd Cole. Ever since 2019’s Guesswork, his experimentation with synths and bleeps has produced some of his finest work. I do have a soft spot for 1991’s Don’t Get Weird on Me Babe and his 1990 self-titled solo debut… and two of my first vinyl buys in the mid 80s were from Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, 1984’s Rattlesnakes and 1985’s Easy Pieces. Still, Cole is an artist who continues to shift his lens and examine themes of love, isolation, and redemption from different musical perspectives, crafting an album as deep and strong as anything that has come out this year.
The first track and title track, “On Pain,” is moody and intimate, with Cole’s voice gently electronically tuned. Still, one can see how this track treated in a more conventional way would have been included in the early Commotions catalog. The anguish and bittersweet in the vocals reflect on years of examinations on life. Certainly, self-reflection is huge here – On Pain distributes the melancholy with wit and reverence as a way of healing and growing. Track 5, “You Are Here Now,” slowly builds in ambiance, with hints back to Japan and David Sylvian’s romanticism. The song lifts in the middle, as the beat churns upwards to a harder edged crescendo. Track 7, “More of What You Are,” is a tender rendering of a love ballad, with guitar strums engaging the bleeps – it shines with gospel-like choral background vocals.
Just a powerful exploration of the human psyche and of life itself.
Track listing –
1: On Pain
2: Warm by the Fire
3: I Can Hear Everything
4: The Idiot
5: You Are Here Now
6: This Can’t Be Happening
7: More of What You Are
8: Wolves
My favorites on this 8 track album are: 1**, 5**, 4**, 7**, 8*, and 3*.
– (h)earwitness