Dusk (Rm) [Original recording remastered, Import, Live]

"DUSK", can be considered as one of those albums that have a redeeming quality. The songs are simple to understand and empathizing, if one wants to mend one's ways, and are difficult and testy, for those who seek revelry and boisterous adventures to calm their emotional turbulence.

Uncomplicated, yet far from beautiful, the songs in "DUSK" have no catchy riffs, no flamboyant guitar displays, but modest tunes, which are made alive by Matt Johnson's confirming manner of singing, and his blatantly honest down-to-earth lyrics. This fact is made even more surprising by the fact that Johnny Marr, the main guitarist of THE THE, was a part of THE SMITHS, which is as known for Johnny's rich guitar-playing, as it is, for Morrissey's earthy lyrics & singing: Johnny's presence in THE THE is somehow overshadowed by its unassuming music.

With "DUSK", it is Matt Johnson, from head to toe. The number, with which the album kicks off, "True Happiness This Way Lies", gives a glimpse, or much more than a glimpse of Matt's strong presence as the force keeping THE THE alive: He instructs with his speech, rather than his singing, of the dirtiest desires of the human soul, and the answer to true happiness in life - call it cacophony, or haughty confidence in one's ability to convert the other. "Dogs Of Lust", along with "Slow Emotion Replay" are the only two conventionally catchy numbers, in the group of seemingly somber tunes.

By a long shot, not "Dogs Of Lust", but the album reaches its summit during "Lung Shadows" and "Bluer Than Midnight" - two of the most unusual songs ever created. While in one of these, Matt's whispers give a feeling of malaise of an evil spirit lurking in the darkest corners of one's house, whereas in the other, it seems as if the spirit has actually entered one's body and is whispering out aloud one's deepest darkest fears, which one loves to hide so cozily.

"DUSK" exemplifies simplicity: simplicity of music, simplicity of words: strong and honest. It is a perfect medicine, an empathizing entity, during days when one is feeling blue and needs just the right person to fill some sense into one's rattled head. Appositely titled, "DUSK" is as subfusc as anything can be, with the nature of a mentor, who seems to know the psyche of the listener only too well.

none the less...
i come back again and again.
so much knowledge and wisdom on this disc...

so much.

:)