release date: Mar. 1987
format: cd (1997 reissue)
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,32]
producer: 4-eyed Thomas [aka Ulf Lindquist]
label: EMI Records - nationality: Denmark
Track highlights: 1. "Ode to Billy Joe" - 2. "A Knife for the Ladies" - 4. "Abyss Revisited" - 7. "Searching Down in the Block" - 10. "Marguerita"
4th studio album by Sort Sol originally released on Medley Records, and the band's second album after renaming from Sods is released more than three years after the predecessor Dagger & Guitar (1983). Since then, the band has been expanded to a quintet with guitarist Lars Top-Galia (aka Lars Top Jensen, former member of Danish punk rock band ADS). The album title is taken from the title of a short story by American writer Flannery O'Connor.
Musically, the band appeared in search of a new expression after leaving Sods behind, and this serves as another example of the attempt to find a style of their own. The music is a alt. rock and a simpler version of their earlier post-punk.
Imho, the album seems strongly influenced by the music of The Birthday Party and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and although, it's not one of the their most original nor best releases, it's an album with a more coherent expression than found on the band's second and third albums.
The '97 reissue of the album contains a bonus disc titled "The Violent Bear It Away" - also the title of a short story by O'Connor. The bonus disc contains seven tracks of primarily cover versions, and truly improves the album release.
