ARTIST: The Legendary Pink Dots
TITLE: Your Children Placate You From Premature Graves
LABEL: Reachout International Records
GENRE: Psychedelic
BITRATE: 175kbps avg
PLAYTIME: 1h 02m total
RELEASE DATE: 2006-05-30
RIP DATE: 2006-06-02
Track List
----------
1. Count on Me 1:45
2. No Matter What You Do 6:55
3. Stigmata Part 4 6:55
4. Feathers at Dawn 5:12
5. Please Don't Get Me Wrong 6:36
6. Peace of Mind 5:27
7. The Island of Our Dreams 5:14
8. Bad Hair 7:52
9. The Made Man's Manifesto 7:46
10. A Silver Thread 6:44
11. Your Number is Up 2:24
Release Notes:
http://www.brainwashed.com/lpd/
http://www.roir-usa.com/
There comes a point at every single house party where, after the casuals have
trundled off home, someone will say "Put Dark Side Of The Moon on," and everyone
will sit around talking about how Digby, The Biggest Dog In The World is, like,
a metaphor for life while The Great Gig In The Sky plays in the background.
And this part of the house party is always rubbish. But we're digressing.
Legendary Pink Dots have been peddling this '3am talking shit' shtick for 25
years now, and the latest Legendary Pink Dots album Your Children Placate You
From Premature Graves is another yet example of this. Which would be annoying,
if only Legendary Pink Dots didn't do it so bloody well.
At first, listening to Your Children Placate You From Premature Graves by
Legendary Pink Dots is slightly akin to drowning in treacle; the album comes
with a quote from Legendary Pink Dots singer Edward Ka-Spel saying:
"This is an album about mortality and immortalityà Your victims are lining up on
both sides of the corridor, unborn yet forgiving. We are all pitifully human and
we all want to take everything with us at the end, but there is no endà"
And then, with a newly heavy heart, you listen to opening track Count On Me is a
listless piano doodle with a man saying "Are you able to tell us what it is you
have nightmares about?". It's like listening to an episode of Blue Jam without
the funny doctor bits, and it takes some getting used to.
Once you've altered your brainspace to accommodate Your Children Placate You
From Premature Graves by Legendary Pink Dots, though, it's a surprisingly
rewarding listen. There's nothing remotely catchy here - only the
lankest-haired, most red-eyed milkman will be caught whistling these tunes -
and, with an average track time of almost six minutes, nothing remotely
immediate, either.
Slowly, though, the skewed intricacies of Your Children Placate You From
Premature Graves start to show themselves off, and you can't help but be
impressed. Imagine a big Syd Barrett comeback album produced by Boards Of Canada
- that's the space that Legendary Pink Dots are inhabiting with Your Children
Placate You From Premature Graves. Feathers At Dawn couldn't be any more like
Effervescing Elephant if it tried, while A Silver Thread is so ambient it hardly
exists - a heartbeat of a drum pattern, few snatches of creepy saxophone and
Ka-Spel mumbling about something incomprehensible and menacing, like a version
of Pzizz designed expressly to give you giant shrieking nightmares.
Elsewhere, moments of Your Children Placate You From Premature Graves could
almost come from a proposed soundtrack of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me that was
rejected for being too unsettling. But that isn't to say that Legendary Pink
Dots are incapable of incredible prettiness; The Island Of Our Dreams is a slice
of pastoral loveliness, and any song that features the word "ostensibly" - like
Please Don't Get Me Wrong - is worthy of repeated listens.
Touchingly, Your Children Placate You From Premature Graves ends with one of the
Legendary Pink Dots half whispering the words "Thank you." The pleasure is all
ours.