Customer Reviews

Peace & Noise

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
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Patti Smith has always been renowned for her willingness to face the darkness--and in her earlier releases she relentlessly questioned the nature of God and God's relationship to man, often in the most violent and blasphemy-laced manner possible, working her ferocity into high art.

In the 1980s, after a period of silence and following the deaths of such close friends as Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe, the quality of her work began to undergo a change: she continued to face the darkness, continued to question God and God's relationship to man, but the tone was increasingly introspective, deliberately thoughtful, increasingly controlled. Then in the wake of her husband's death she reemerged with GONE AGAIN and PEACE AND NOISE. Both find her as passionate and often as outraged as ever. But here the questioning carries with it the sense that the answers are just below the surface.

Like most of Smith's work, PEACE AND NOISE is extremely hard to take in on the first listening, and my initial response to the thing was that it was one of her lesser works. But over time, and after repeated listenings, I find it every bit as powerful as the best of her best. True, as some have noted, there are no single "standout" cuts here--nothing that suddenly jumps up and bites you the way that such Smith classics as "Gloria," "Because The Night," "Dancing Barefoot," or "Gone Again" do. But the album works as unit in a way that many Smith albums do not: it is not a matter of variety here, playing jarring cuts against quieter moments, but one of long consistency.

The opening track, "Waiting Underground," is a powerful piece, bitter, outraged, and yet curiously hopeful--and the strange combination of these qualities persists throughout every selection here. While Smith remains as attacking as ever, condemning the less savory aspects of human nature with every fiber of her being ("Dead City" is a classic example), it is now the outrage of someone who perceives that reality could be substantially different from what it is, that mankind as a whole could rise above the ashes in which we wallow.

Perhaps the single most obvious statement here is "Spell," a strange, hypnotic, chant-like piece in which Smith considers the world and finds everything in it "Holy," an aspect of the God she so persistently probes. But if everything is Holy, why isn't everything different? This is the hard question she poses--and the answer seems to be because we will not have it so. We are unwilling to try hard enough. Ultimately, the album presents us with an equation of life as "noise" and death as "peace"--and the ultimate answer. It is the way home.

This is such a driven, bitter, delicately balanced recording. And while Smith is often memorable for her musical extremes, she offers none of them here--there are no screaming, rioting guitars, no nail-driven drums; it is instead a slow build of tension that coils tighter and tighter from selection to selection, relying more upon Smith's vocals and remarkable lyrics than upon instrumentation. PEACE AND NOISE is not, perhaps, the ideal album for a first-timer; it really has to be considered in the overall context of Smith's body of work. But it is a remarkably fine one. Strongly recommended.

--GFT (Amazon Reviewer)--

When a reviewer for an ostensibly "alternative" newspaper in Dallas admitted that grunge-rock's original geigercounter Patti Smith deserved at least one star for actually showing up for the recording of "Peace and Noise" it was perfectly obvious to those of us here who are looking for a little more out of music than the apelike growlings of Matchbox 20 that the official version of the counterculture has been all but consumed. Patti Smith, who rekindled her career with "Gone Again" after raising her children, is here once more--with "Peace and Noise"-- to give us a few reasons why. "Waiting Underground," the first cut on the recording, drifts into the consciousness like an antebellum ghost across the floor of a fire-charred church, its spectrally distorted acoustic piano ciphering something chilling on its way back to us all. One gets the impression that the Cold War has just begun, or that the dead of the Confederacy are circling around the ridges of hills where they died in hails of bullets, only to have resurrected as corpses. Regardless of this theme of death that unifies "Peace and Noise" (which is dedicated to the late modernist and beat writer William Burroughs), the strange life in Smith's voice tells us much, much more. "1959," which was nominated for a Grammy for Best Female Vocal, and is also the supposed "hit" of the album, leans toward snide sarcasm--voicing as it does the sentiment of many who question American consumerism in full bloom at the end of the century--as it bends into perspective that which has been said far too often before: As horiffic things were happening in the rest of the world, Americans were content to play with their toys. "Don't Say Nothin'," a short and catchy piece about apathy and passivity, then, comes as a bit of advice. Overall, while "Peace and Noise" is less mordant than her earlier "Gone Again," its sensibility is much more public than private. The deaths of several great archetypes of America's first great cultural revolution, according to Patti Smith, are either omens or a commentary. We should listen.

Classic power and passion, always positive-proactive-even at its toughest. More rock then punk. No whining, screeching, thrashing; she is in control. Guitars sing out with soaring purpose. Rhythm section is rock solid, confident, never pushed. She growls, paces, gestures, preens gloriously, even when she struggles. She is never a victim. Back to basics. Velvet Underground/CBGB tough-lyrical voice of a sensate woman wrestling with the city. One of her best.

This album gives me a sense of November weather. From the opening of Waiting underground to the amazing 10 minute track memento mori and ofcourse patti and michael stipe bringing it all back with the closing track last call. I love this album, her lyrics are at full force with 1959, painting images that leave marks all along the eyes and hands.

I actually enjoy this one more than Gone Again. But then again, I love all her albums.

Patti Smith follows up "Gone Again," a masterpiece, with an almost equally brilliant recording. Where it may not possess as much raw pain and power as it's predecessor it is equally outstanding in it's writing and performances. Smith is in fine voice, both written and sung, and the band, led once again by Lenny Kaye, is equally terrific. Peace and Noise and Gone Again are two of the greatest recordings of the nineties. Patti Smith, one of the greatest voices of our times. Perhaps one day she will get her full due. Highly recommended...Simon

Although Patti Smith has generally been regarded as a radical rocker and a founder of the punk movement, a deeper look at her classic albums of the late 1970s will reveal someone who was not a radical feminist by any means, but a much more traditional rebel akin to Radclyffe Hall or Sylvia Townsend Warner's partner Valentine Ackland. Further evidence of Smith not being any radical feminist can be seen in the way Patti married in the 1980s and stayed away from music apart from one low-profile late-decade recording to raise two children.

It was only when her long-time husband Fred "Sonic" Smith died that Patti returned seriously to music with 1996's Gone Again, which was especially well-received as a comeback from a woman already aged fifty - when most rockers have long become irrelevant. I red quite a bit about that album without ever becoming curious, and the same was true when I read in newspapers like "The Age" about "Peace and Noise". It was only when I had a more serious look at Patti's earlier work that I was even curious as to what the music she did after her major comeback in the 1990s was actually like. From the reviews I found in major publications, "Peace and Noise" seemed like the first of her later albums (I bought the first five as a box set for a very cheap price) to try, and I cannot say I was disappointed.

It is hardly to be expected that "Peace and Noise" would rock so hard as Radio Ethiopia or Easter, but it more than compensates by the power of her voice which shows not the slightest loss with age. Opener "Waiting Underground" must rank as the best song she has done since "Easter", with a furious yet amazingly soft vocal and solid yet fiercely intense playing from a band that retains two of the key members of the original Patti Smith Group in Lenny Kaye and drummer Jay Dee Daugherty. "Whirl Away" is rather more conventional rock, yet as with "Waiting Underground" Patti manages to have her band - for the first time minus trademark piano and featuring acoustic guitar - play with an intensity one expects from Slint or Godspeed You Black Emperor. "1959" is more conventional - and generic - again, as it tackles the Chinese occupation of Tibet, but there is little loss of Patti's trademarks, especially in the talk-sung passages.

"Spell", a tribute to Allen Ginsberg, is amazingly warm and quiet considering the character of the poem and the controversy it caused: indeed it is truly soothing. "Don't Say Nothing" begins with a whirling rhythm that, like the best parts of "Ain't It Strange", is able to maintain an amazingly gradual crescendo, whilst tribute to William Burroughs "Dead City" is the closest "Peace and Noise" gets to hard rock, but is far too atmospheric to fit with that genre even with the extremely dark, brooding lyrics. "Blue Poles" and "Death Singing" are even deeper and darker, conveying a genuine mystical despair at the way in which America has developed in the decades before "Peace and Noise" came out. There is also a return to the stark rock of "Whirl Away" with the background acoustic guitar being very much worth listening to. "Memento Mori", the longest track, is an attempt to replicate "Radio Ethiopia" on a completely different level, and is no easier to listen to, but is more melodic and oh so fierce. Closer "Last Call" is a quieter acoustic piece that continues the dark, pessimistic but hopeful trend of "Peace and Noise".

All in all, it would be hard to find an artist of the age Smith was when "Peace and Noise" came out finding such good form and making their best album for over two decades. Not since "Radio Ethiopia" has Smith sounded so compelling and powerful, and even that album was never nearly so dark and emotional as "Peace and Noise" is.

I listened to this the other day having only listened to it once before. I was not thrilled the last time I heard it but this time it really opened my soul to her retrospective views on life and death and the human condition. This offering made me start playing her again and because of this CD I also purchased Trampin. She is still writing some great music,she is someone that has lasted when others have burned out or take the public on a ride trying to squeeze out mediocre material just to pay the rent. Highly reccomended.

I was walking in the park tonight, a warm dark summer night. Momento Mori came on the MP3 player; I was totally captivated - I hadn't heard it in a long time. When I got home, I gave P&N a careful listening. "Don't Say Nothing" ranks with my favorite Patti songs. Her recital of Ginsberg's "Footnote to Howl" is worth the price of the album. P&N has a hypnotic, almost trance-like quality, more than her rocking earliest, brilliant works. I think the negative comparisons to "Horses", "Easter", are entirely fatuous and don't take into account the maturity of the artist. Maybe I am getting older, but I really dig the tone of this album and the incredibly meaningful, poetic lyrics in every song. My family are big fans... My daughter has an excellent tattoo from the cover of Easter.
Finally, I LOVE YOU PATTI!!!!

Out of the four Patti Smith albums I have, which I all enjoy (Horses, Easter, Peace and Noise and Twelve), I probably listen to this one the least. Spell, which sparkles, is probably my favourite, though the word holy is given a rather wrested meaning, the point it makes is illuminating. Michael Stipe appears on the last track on backing vocals, but if one didn't know, one might not know through realisation. The improvisation in Memento Mori is a keen feat too, improvisation in the hands of Patti is a marvellous thing.

Patti Smith's 1997 album has a beautiful insert booklet with black and white pics and handwritten notes, that serves primarily as a tribute to William Burroughs (1914 - 1997). There is a good rock sound throughout, but none of the songs really stand out like for example Gloria or Redondo Beach on Horses, Because The Night on Easter or Dead To The World and Ravens on Gone Again. The lyrics are up to her expected high standard, but I think the songs lack gripping melodies. Perhaps it's just a matter of taste, but to me Smith represents those impassioned, melodic anthems that transport the listener to the lofty realms of rock. The best track here is Memento Mori with its impressive instrumentation and its improvised lyrical meanderings. Much as I adore the inimitable Patricia, I cannot recommend Peace And Noise to the casual listener. So, this is not the place to start for those who wish to investigate the genius of Patti Smith; rather try Hoses, Easter, Wave, Radio Ethiopia or Gone Again to experience the best of her soaring, poetic songs.