release date: Apr. 14, 1992
format: cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,52]
producer: Mike Thorne, Peter Murphy
label: Beggars Banquet - nationality: England, UK
Track highlights: 1. "Keep Me From Harm" - 3. "You're so Close" (4 / 5) - 4. "The Sweetest Drop" - 5. "Low Room" - 8. "Dream Gone By"
4th studio album by Peter Murphy follows a little more than two years after Deep (Dec. 1989) and sees Murphy and 'old' post-punk producer Mike Hedges co-produce this collection of ten new songs with one half written and composed by Murphy and keyboardist and composer Paul Statham. Murphy is exclusively credited tracks #2, #6, and #7. The album feature former UK Decay bassist Eddie Branch (aka Twiggy) and guitarist Peter Bonas (of Locust and Zen Attack), Mike Thorn on keyboards, and with drummer Terl Bryant.
Holy Smoke is generally mostly a bit of a revisit to a stronger gothic rock influence with bits of glam and equal parts of pop scattered here and there. Some songs are with distinct guitar riffs filling the foundation as more obvious electric rockers ("You're so Close", "Low Room", "Dream Gone By"), and then others take on a more polished tone with a certain influence from funk rock. Again, an influence from Iggy Pop is evident on a few tracks, I especially hear this on "Low Room". Two songs exclusively credited Murphy, mostly sound like outtakes from other albums - "Let Me Love You" could have been included on the final album by Bauhaus and "Secret Garden" share some of the more experimental traits as the songs on his debut. I'm not quite sure what to think of Murphy's "Kill the Hate" (track #2), as he's not a skilled instrumentalist, then how do you compose music with distinct guitar riffs, bass, keyboard, and drums, which all sound unmistakably as an Iggy Pop-paraphrase?
Holy Smoke is not a poor fourth, although critics didn't welcome it as a great new outing. The album was promoted with the following text: “You can’t pin down HOLY SMOKE, it curls and eddies in white and blue swirls, drawing a series of patterns on the brain, but just when an image begins to come into focus, the music mutates into something hypnotically new” [taken from the original press release, source: Peter Murphy's bandcamp site], and that's probably not far from the truth, as it sometimes takes you this way, and when you think you know where it goes, it has jumped in another direction! Some would claim it's incoherent, and it's not his best, but also, not his worst. A few songs definitely lift the album but it's also an uneven journey with several fillers. So, all in all, I'd say 'a decent one, Mr. Murphy. Perhaps, try just a little harder'. Front cover is credited Anton Corbijn.
[ 👎allmusic.com 2,5 / 5 stars ]
