I'm Never Gonna Die Again

Album review

After releasing an impressively dark, moodily melodic, and starkly powerful album -- 1987's Get Lost (Don't Lie!) -- that firmly established Rowland S. Howard and his band of broken souls (drummer Epic Soundtracks, bassist Harry Howard, and keyboardist Genevieve McGuckin) as the true inheritors of the Birthday Party's twisted legacy, they went silent for far too many years. Howard came down with a nasty case of writer's block that basically sidelined These Immortal Souls until they came storming back in 1992 with their second record, I'm Never Gonna Die Again. Maybe it was the forced shut down, maybe it was just where their heads were at the time, but the album feels even more desperate and driven by demons than the debut. The songs roll and tumble violently like they are in the belly of a ship lost at sea, Howard croons and croaks like each word is the last he will ever sing, and he unleashes whirring shards of guitar noise like he's dashing a horde of attacking snakes against the rocks. It's not music for the faint of heart, but anyone whose heart might be broken, shattered, or forlorn might find that it captures the bleakness and pain of those situations quite well. Sonically, the album is a step up from the debut, with producer John A. Rivers working with the band to create more layers of sound as well as letting each instrument carve out its own space in the mix. Of course, Rowland's voice and guitar are out front, but the rhythm section proves to be almost telepathic and Soundtracks plays like a post-punk Keith Moon, filling in the spaces between notes with daredevil fills, thundering rolls, and thrashed cymbals, basically playing like he's the second guitarist. McGuckin's keys cut through the mix more this time, and she provides perfect touches of color and commentary that give the words extra emotional power. Not that more power was needed; much of the album teeters right at the point where it's almost too painful, too filled with angst. Fortunately, the band have the skill to pull back right at that point, cutting the dynamics and dropping in a shimmering chorus that feels like the sun cutting through long-closed blinds. "Shamed" is a beautiful example of this, as the clatter of the music drops away for a heartfelt, near a cappella chorus. Other times, they just hammer through the suffering at light speed, like on the supercharged "Hyperspace," until the bad feelings are washed away in a blur of speed and power. All the wracked ballads, noise-damaged rockers, and post-punk incantations lead up to the last song, "Crowned," which is the band's crowning achievement. It's everything great about them wrapped into one epic-length track that rolls through the tightly wound verses like a pirate on the prowl for treasure, blasts savagely through a hook-filled chorus, unspools huge swaths of intricate and gnarly guitar soloing, and ends in a triumphantly swaggering coda of thundering drums, jangled piano chords, and masses of destroyed guitar strings. Noisy, dramatic, death-defying, and life-affirming, I'm Never Gonna Die Again and the band who made it both stand as nose-bleed-level high points of the late post-punk/early alternative era.

© Tim Sendra /TiVo