Customer Reviews

Violent Acts of Beauty

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When mixing whiskey with beer one will get a deadly, but efficient, concoction. That's what we have in Violent Acts of Beauty - perhaps a more suicidal album (and less pleasant) than "Closer" of Joy Division. The singer/poet more disgusted by the life around him than all punk bands put together - and far more articulated, talented, vitriolic, venomous etc... Music? Mind-boggling, hypnotising, manic self-repeating chanting. Shouldn't be underestimated - "America..." just starts with primitive tribal shamanism, but soon the singer and the band explodes in a Wall of Sound. The whole concept is a bitter paraphrase of totalitarian art - very much in the spirit of "Laibachkunst". The philosophy is not romantic anarchism of 1968 - it's cynical nihilism of today. Artwork - is an achievement on its own, woth more than any exhibition of "urban art". Not an easy listening, not eager to please, but TALENTED! I keep on listening to it as a medication against an overdose of MTV

As Trent Reznor is to Nine Inch Nails, multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Sean Brennan is to London After Midnight, and the two have been at it for about the same length of time. Whether you have ever heard of LAM before is totally on you, but Brennan's first demo under that banner was issued in 1990 and further releases have continued to appear every few years. As for the NIN comparison, all I can say is that I'm sorry, but I can't help it. I hate to do it, but there it is. On a purely personal note, I can honestly say that the difference between the two acts for me is that I actually enjoyed listening to `Violent Acts Of Beauty' and will definitely keep it around for future spins, while NIN has never been of interest to me on any level and likely never will. Brennan has a good voice, which helps since it is prominently mixed over an array of synths, programmed drums, guitars, and various other real and imagined sounds. Ultimately, this is like a well-done score to a movie you watch over and over; it'll creep into your subconscious and possibly haunt your dreams.