Customer Reviews

Seasons of Love/Mad at the Wor

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

 

 

This was a groundbreaking release for its time. Frontline was a brand new label that was willing to take chances on something new and different. MATW is second only to DA's "Fearful Symmetry" in the sucessful combination of innovation and artistry on those early releases.

I LOVE the fake British accents!!!

And finally just for the record, The Mad at the World is predated by The Seventy Sevens, whose first album, "ping pong over the abyss," was recorded in 1982.

Between the two disk set, it blows my mind that the same group is responsible for both! My five stars go to the first disk (Mad At The World). If you like Depeche Mode, chances are you'll LOVE the first disk too. If you like Metalica, (I don't!) chances are you'll enjoy the Seasons Of Love disk. I will listen to Seasons Of Love when I want to bang my head against the wall. How did Mad At The World go from one style to a totally different one is quite disapointing. I can't get enough of their original sound!

5 Stars for the self-titled release, fewer for the others. Please ignore the comment about "Without this band there probably wouldn't have been 77's..." Problem is, the 77's have been releasing CCM records since 1982!!! Nice try kid, learn your history.

I was first introduced to Mad at The World by hearing some tracks on college radio many years ago! I couldn't believe that they were a Christian band! From their wild hair and make up, (borrowing some fashion and vocal tips from The Damned's Dave Vanian) to the deep, evil sounding goth vocals from Dave Rose, to the high flying synths throughout most of their debut album Mad At The World ( which by the way is the only record I'm reviewing on here, NOT Seasons of Love),. Needless to say, I was hooked, so much in fact, that I rushed out to buy their great 2ND album Flowers In The Rain. Though not as synth-driven as Mad At The World, Flowers in the Rain still kept the classic Mad At The World sound intact. On Mad At The World, you will hear many distinct elements of artists like Depeche Mode, Erasure, The Pet Shop Boys, etc..imagine if Sisters of Mercy went synthpop,and then you'll get a better idea. If you might be hung up on not liking Christian music, Mad at The World delivers their message without sounding too preachy or "in your face". I appreciated that.



On Flowers in The Rain, also highly recommended, Dave starts to imitate more well known 80's and classic new wave acts like Jimmy Somerville of the Bronski Beat with his high falsettos (at times) Morrissey of The Smiths, The Cult, etc.. It was a dumb move to package Seasons of Love with Mad At The World, it should have been packaged with Flowers in The Rain, this way it wouldn't be such a HUGE jump from Synthpop to hard rock! I see they also did it again with Flowers in the Rain & Boomerang. Oh well, you can't please all of the people all of the time. All in all, Mad At The World & Flowers In The Rain are 2 classic new wave / synthpop albums that you gotta have. Buy Mad at The World and Flowers in the Rain separately and skip the box sets and you won't be disappointed!

How can these two totally different sounds be from the same band? Artistic growth? NO. Pressure from the Christian Music Industry (which, FYI, is not controlled by Christians.)

Witness MATW's eponymous first CD. Pure musical creativity, dazzling keyboard crafted techno-pop reminiscent of Tears for Fears or Dead or Alive. A rarity in the world of CCM, to be sure; the same was true of the band's second album, "Flowers in the Rain"; though a bit grittier, the synth-driven melodies were still intact.

Then quite abruptly, loyal fans such as myself lay down their hard earned cash for this coaster called "Seasons of Love." Suddenly, Mad at the World became Mad at the keyboards, following the early nineties trend of Christian music: if you're not a) mellow, b)hard rock, or c) rap, don't expect the CCM business to back you. I interviewed Rose at a concert, and it was clear he was disappointed in the "direction" the band had been forced to take. So an inventive band becomes just so much mosh-pit background noise. Thanks, CCM industry, for so narrowly defining what we were allowed to listen to then.

My Rating:
MATW- 5 stars, Seasons of Love- 0 stars.

So I was at church one night talking to my friend Kevin and I mentioned liking Depeche Mode and other synth pop / new wave bands ... he asked me if I listened to MatW, I said no and he told me I should check them out as they had a really really nice new wave sound. I ran off to the local Christian bookstore and picked up the only thing they had which was "Boomerang" on cassette. As soon as the music started my only thought was "Kevin, what the heck is wrong with you?" He failed to mention [or maybe didnt know] that the band had made a radical shift in musical styles. Eventually some of the songs grew on me, but I wish I had found their first album instead.

I remember first hearing the first album in this set (Mad at the World) while I was in college and being blown away by it. At the time I was very much into the Christian Contemporary Music scene, but when I listened to secular music my tastes tended to run more towards New Order and Front 242 (Odd combination -- I know!) I was completely blown away by the fact that here was a band that sang undeniably Christian lyrics but that were driven by an industrial/goth beat.

OK, so the album is a bit rough in spots -- mostly due to Roger Rose's not being able to write a ballad -- but overall it turns out pretty well. It's aged at least as well as most of New Order's work, and certainly sounds less dated than a lot of other Christian bands from that period (compare this album to say, Whiteheart's Emergency Broadcast and you'll see the difference).

I look upon Mad at the World (together with Steve Taylor) as being the genesis of the entire Christian alternative rock genre. Without these guys breaking this ground there probably would never have been the 77's, jars of clay, or sixpence none the richer.