Customer Reviews

Full Moon, Dirty Hearts

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was recently blessed to have rediscovered this CD in my collection. I think many people shun this CD and almost anything post X, but this really shows a glimpse of a side of INXS that had never come out, and unfortunately wouldn't come out again.

Straight up, this was INXS attempt at moving into the alternative/grunge sound of the 90's. While it didn't fully succeed, and it was sadly overlooked, this is a great album. In it, we see a lot of experimentation and creativity from the group in one big jump. They blended a lot of the popular sounds of the era into their own and created an album that was all their own.

This is not an album to buy if you are just getting into INXS based on their hits. You won't find any true hits here. People were accustomed to what had become the standard INXS sound, and this album was shunned... even by me. However, there are some fantastic songs here.

If one can look at this album as something that is not INXS they will find an album full of excellent lyrics, music, and vocals. The album isn't very coherent, but I find that I don't have to skip any tracks to enjoy it. The music ranges from a hard rock beat in songs like Time, The Gift, and Make Your Peace to ballad like tempos with Full Moon Dirty Hearts and Freedom Deep. Freedom Deep is great because it builds to a nice climax with a slow crescendo that grows in fullness and loudness. The title track previously mentioned includes a great duet between Michael Hutchence and Crissy Hynde, and Please is a duet with the great Ray Charles.

If you like INXS, and you don't mind something that is quite a bit different from anything you're used to, put yourself to the challenge of Full Moon, Dirty Hearts.... Just be sure you give it a chance and don't give up on it too easy. I regret that it took be 10 years to rediscover its greatness.

This is a brave and daring album from one of Australia's premier rock bands.It is as good if not better than their successful "Kick" album. This is a vibrant foray that covers all spectrums of music.It is funky, moody and rock n roll. The album showcases the musical maturity of the band along with the power,passion and versatility of Michael Hutchence. There are many standout tracks including the duet with Ray Charles on'Please',the down and dirty 'Full Moon'and the funky 'Make your Peace'to name a few. It is an album that should be in any INXS collection.

I wouldn't say that this is INXS' best album, because there's Kick. But strangely, when at times when I long to hear their music, this is the album I miss most of all.

At the time where U2 had seemingly thrown out their rock sound and reinvented themselves, INXS to a certain extent did the same with Welcome to Wherever You Are. I thought that was a strange album. Without having gone through Kick and X, it would be a hard album to swallow. But as a fan who is more likely to give it a second listen, I found it to be a fantastic album.

This album came along, and their popularity plummeted. They became labelled 'has-been'. But I listened to it consistently, and found it to be the most touching of all their albums. For me, this was probably the most soul baring of all the other records. The edgy greasy sound was a probably their response to the grunge rage, but worked perfectly. The stripped down production also made the songs as they were meant to be: just songs.

Sometimes fans don't ever want their bands to grow. People dismissed Pop (U2). People will dismiss Full Moon, Dirty Hearts (well, see how many reviews this got), but I think this would probably be one album Michael Hutchence held close to his heart.

For some reason, this album often gets overlooked in the INXS back catalog. This is quite a strong album, full of good guitar grooves. 'Days of rust' is a killer opening track. 'The Gift' is full on with a great video. 'Time' has some great guitar. The four songs from 'Please' to 'Kill the Pain' are as good a sequence as you will find on any INXS album.

The album does suffer from inconsistency, a flaw that marked all of INXS's post Kick albums. By comparison to their previous albums, to me this album most resembles 'Shabooh Shabah,' perhaps due to the fact Mark Opitz is again producing (I think). An album worth a listen.

DUETS WITH RAY CHARLES AND CHRISSIE HYNDE.

Released in 1993, this is INXS's nineth studio album. It came as the group was on the downside of its popularity. It is 40 minutes long and has very good sound quality.

This CD is heavily influenced by U2's Achtung Baby. Many of ths songs on this CD sound like they could have been on Achtung Baby,with the crashing guitars and metallic sound. At the same time, it has that unmistakable Australian sound. You can hear it in all Australian bands, like Men At Work and even AC/DC.

Even though it is not original, this CD is at its best when the band copies styles of others, especially U2. There is also the duet with the Pretenders' Chrissie Hyndes (duets with Hynde was all the rage in the 1990's, with groups like UB40, Elvis Costello and Moodswings). The weak songs go back to the older pop style of the Kick days.

There are some great songs on this CD, like Kill the Pain and Days of Rust. There aren't any real bad ones either, although some of the standard pop songs do get a little boring.

I think where INXS got adventerous and experimental, they scored big. Fans of Kick might not like this CD. The best songs on it are nothing like Kick. The ones that follow the Kick formula are tired and not as good.

INXS really dug themselves a huge hole in the early 90's. The followed up their smash 'Kick' with 'X': a slick, calculated album designed for instant commercial success. It didn't sell as well as expected, and by the time they made the more interesting 'Welcome....' the mainstream had started to pass them by.

So the calculated grab for the pop charts didn't work, but the artistic experiment didn't sell well either, leaving INXS at a bit of a loss of where to go next. This uncertainty is evident in 'Full Moon...', one of their least consistent albums. On one hand, they seem to be going for a more stripped-down, rawer rock sound similar to 'Listen Like Thieves'. There are duets with Chrissie Hynde and Ray Charles, and INXS started touring smaller pubs and clubs, suggesting the band was taking a "back to basics" approach. However, the album also contains the sort of heavy production and experimentation seen on 'Welcome...', which doesn't fit, and only makes the band seem indecisive and unfocused.

Take 'The Gift': built around a raw, stomping rock riff, heavier than anything they've done since 'Kick'....but it's shrouded in an overbearing production that robs the song of its grunt. And that's the problem; instead of rocking, the production tends to make the songs plodding and stiff, which might be why some people claim it's influenced by grunge and alt-rock (it's not). It doesn't help that the songs themselves aren't quite as strong as before.

Either way, this certainly wasn't the comeback INXS were looking for, and sad to say it was no surprise the album flopped. There are a couple of good songs here (the opening two tracks plus the two duets), and a cleaner production would have helped, but this is arguably INXS' weakest album.

I loved the majority of Inxs albums, although this album, along with the X album, was to be their most bland ( or so I thought at the time), and I have long since traded those albums in.

However in hindsight both albums have grown on me again, with this one standing out over 'X'. With this album Inxs display themselves as a highly creative band, with Michael being quite introspective at times. Perhaps his forboding musings of "This is the end of rock'n'roll..." in the track 'Viking Juice' was prophetic regarding his own life perhaps.

This album was commercial suicide at the time of its release. The market had grown bored of Inxs after the 'X' album (their most over-produced album). The superb Welcome to Wherever You Are album followed 'X', but failed to reach the heights it deserved, and poor promotion of the album didn't help things either.
When Inxs came to record this album the band was in the doldrums commercially - their previous fans wanted another Kick album, while the new crowd of rock fans were digging the grunge scene, which excluded Inxs from the pack.

In any case I am now aware that this album deserved more praise than when it was released, and anyone who wants to know Inxs beyond their greatest hits would do well to purchase this album when they can.

UPDATE: I have since purchased both 'X' and 'Full Moon" since I originally wrote this review. 'X' remains over-produced and just as bland as I originally thought it was. 'Full Moon' on the other hand sounds quite fresh at times, and many of the tracks may suit today's audiences tastes better than those of the mid 90s. Strangely enough,and despite its Funk leanings as opposed to New Wave, I can now see a link with their early 80s material which was much less commercial than the Listen Like Thieves / Kick / X period that put them in the charts. Perhaps therein lays the appeal of this album

Summing up, 'Full Moon, Dirty Hearts' has been a great re-purchase for me, and I highly recommend it for any fan of Inxs

I just finished reading the thankfully detail-rich INXS autobiography STORY TO STORY and even the band hates 1993's much-maligned FULL MOON, DIRTY HEARTS. Don't let that (or the butt-ugly cover, featuring the band looking as serious as they possibly can in the back of a tour van, with guitarist Tim Farriss appearing as if he might be contemplating a future audition for Pearl Jam) deter you from checking it out; as far as late-era INXS, it just doesn't get much better than this adventurous, feisty effort.

FULL MOON was recorded on the island of Capri shortly after finishing WELCOME TO WHEREVER YOU ARE . I like to think of FULL MOON as a latter-day LISTEN LIKE THIEVES following THE SWING. Where WELCOME was lush and exotic (a la THE SWING), FULL MOON is sweaty and well, dirty (LISTEN LIKE THIEVES was this in spades). It sounds as if INXS were issued this edict: make a kick-ass record or you're not leaving the studio. Or, at the very least, producer Mark Opitz threatened to leave the air-conditioning off until a modern rock opus was completed.

At just under 40 minutes, FULL MOON is as tight as a washboard stomach. "Days Of Rust" starts things off with a Clash-influenced bang, gang vocals elevating the track to gorgeously bone-crunching heights. Midnight Oil had to be proud of their fellow countrymen. "The Gift," the bold first single, which approaches near-industrial audio damage, is the sound of INXS likely losing faint-of-heart fans but gaining points for taking chances. "Make Your Peace" (like "The Messenger," which appears late in the record like an urgent phone call after you're already well asleep) is a perfect marriage of rock and funk that would've been a huge chart hit had it been released in the late 80's or early 90's.

"Please (You Got That") and "Full Moon, Dirty Hearts" are successful duets with Ray Charles and The Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde, respectively, that effectively highlight the strengths of both the band and the featured singers, a rarity in pairings of this type. "Freedom Deep" and "Kill The Pain" could have easily appeared on WELCOME and are as breathtakingly beautiful as anything on that record (or ballads on any of their other records, for that matter).

"Viking Juice," a speedy, spoken word funk jam, finishes things off on an exhilarating, yet foreboding note: "It's called the end of rock `n' roll." And that it was. Barely anyone bought FULL MOON and INXS took three years off before unleashing the slightly underwhelming ELEGANTLY WASTED to a completely disinterested public. Soon after Michael was gone. FULL MOON, DIRTY HEARTS is how I like to remember him (and INXS).

I thought this was a great album. I was impressed with the video for the single "The Gift" but I had no idea the end was near. This album found INXS slowly getting away from their Pop & New Wave sound of the 80's. This was pretty much a straight forward Rock album. Some stand out tracks are "Make Your Peace", "Cut Your Roses Down", and "Time" (which was also a single). It also includes two duets; "Please" featuring Ray Charles & "Full Moon, Dirty Hearts" featuring Chrissie Hynde.
INXS released only one more album after this one but it did not come close to the rocking sound of this one. Unfortunately, we lost Michael Hutchence & INXS became a shadow in the wings of Rock music, though they have left the door ajar just a little bit for a new frontman to emerge.

I have been a fan of this band since the late 80's, but up until only recently had just a couple of their CD's, Kick and X of course. This is one that I always surpassed based on negative reviews. It is not a bad CD at all, I remember having this in my hand at a used CD store years ago and put it back on the shelf. I am glad that I came to my senses years later and picked it up. While it's not my favorite by INXS, there are some really good songs on here. My favorites are I'm Only Looking, Full Moon Dirty Hearts, and Cut Your Roses Down, but all of it is decent. I would recommend this to any fan of INXS, I haven't been able to stop listening to it since I got it. There are some new sounds from the band as well as more familiar sounds. I like to have this playing in the background as well as cranking it in the car. Why did I wait so long to get it, it is great.