Reviews
 What Happened?
The Lone Sharks
Nine Lives
Steve Winwood
Moneyland
Various Artists
I'm Not There (Original Soundtrack)
Various Artists
Home Before Dark
Neil Diamond
Toby Keith's 35 BIGGEST Hits
Toby Keith
It's A Shame About Ray (Collector's Edition)
The Lemonheads
About a Son
Otis Blue (Collector's Edition)
Otis Redding
Loaded
Wood Brothers
|
The Glove is actually a mock-up band consisting of The Cure’s Robert Smith and Steven Severin of Siouxsie and the Banshees, with help from a female vocalist named Jeanette Landray. The band name is lifted from the Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine,” which featured a blue glove as the ‘muscle’ for the Blue Meanies. They also borrow some artwork from the Beatles project, and take more than a little inspiration from the psychedelia of this project, with a natural tendency toward the “Blue” (read ‘dark’) side of the equation. The original album was released back in 1983, so it is understandable why numerous fans of the Cure or the Banshees may be unfamiliar with the existence of this project. Now that is re-released as a 2-disk deluxe package, that may change, although I don’t think they were missing much.
As side projects go, “Blue Sunshine” is reasonably interesting and a bit fun, especially when compared to the gloomy dirges of each member’s ‘day’ gigs, but it is hardly a ray of ‘blue sunshine’. Severin and Smith wanted to create something distinctly different from their usual fare, but their success rate is nominal at best. The difference lies in their approach to creating the music more than it does in the overall sound. The arrangements make the difference, featuring a semi-psychedelic approach to song structure that is simply too whimsical for either of those bands. Sitars, dulcimers, electric marimbas, and a traditional Japanese instrument called a Koto weave in and out of the recording, giving the project an unusual sound, but not enough to retain the listener’s interest. That would require memorable songwriting, and “Blue Sunshine” just isn’t up to snuff. Despite the aural hjinks, none of the songs here are particularly memorable. Psychedelic stylings cannot compensate for mediocre songwriting and uneven production (although Pink Floyd did get away with it for years…), which may explain why this release languished in obscurity as long as it did. More than anything else, “Blue Sunshine” resembles a bad Annie Lennox album (something that Lennox herself has never done), with Robert Smith providing a guest warble or two.
Lyrically, the subject matter stays pretty close to the Banshees and the Cure’s penchant for the dark, dismal, and dolorous, and it hardly makes a difference who handles the lyrics. On “Orgy,” the Severin-penned lyrics state that “A disease is under my fingernails, it stains me like a tattoo,” while the Smith-penned “Like an Animal” goes on about a “Tuesday in the sun, nothing could be worse. Not now, not ever not anymore…” Oh, there is psychedelic imagery to colorize things a bit, but the grainy, dull black-and-white songwriting never coalesces into anything memorable. “Blue Sunshine” may be occasionally interesting but it is peripheral at best. It is also ultimately (and utterly) forgettable.
Grade: 
 
|
More Music Reviews
More Movie Reviews
More Book Reviews
More Concert Reviews
Powered by Millennium Communications Inc.