The Mission - God Is a Bullet (Cooking Vinyl)
3/5
By: Chris O'Toole
During the 1980s the rules of normal human interaction were suspended. Suddenly subtlety and craft were removed from song writing and demure, attractive performers were replaced with peroxide dolls on a one way trip to rehab. Gold watches and shoulder pads were de rigueur for aspiring socialites and being as garish as possible was actively encouraged. Margaret Thatcher was in power slashing away at the welfare state, claiming there was no such thing as society and in the process turned brother against brother in a bucks fizz soaked orgy consumption. Car phones were the size of cars, planes were still for rock-stars and the furthest a person could hope to go in their lifetime was the south of Spain.
For a short period this ungodly mixture was held together by a centrifuge of cocaine. Nobody notice the floor had collapsed from underneath them and the whole soulless lot was in fact falling into an inescapable void. By the time anybody woke up Adam Ant was walking into a Camden bar with a shotgun, George Michael on trial for egregious facial hair and Boy George was sweeping the streets of New York after calling the police to have himself arrested in a panic stricken, drug addled haze. Things really had hit the buffers. Yet for some there was hope. Sisters of Mercy had burned across the sky above the carnage maintaining a modicum of respect from those sober enough to make a judgment and were still standing when everybody else was being sent to jail. Seeing that the time was right, founder members Wayne Hussey and Craig Adams jumped ship and formed their own band; The Mission.
Twenty one years later they are still going. The horrific memories the decade the conceived them have been buried by years of psychoanalysis and the wounds have begun to heal. The band has got a new album out, 'God Is a Bullet', and things are looking rosy. However, some ballads die hard and the music could have been released anytime in the intervening years. Essentially the album is a collection of Cure-light pomp rockers, all jingle-jangle guitars that have been polished till you can see your face in them, brooding bass and mechanical drumming. These musical strands weave together to create a platform for the real star of the show, Hussey, to step forward and offer his thoughts on premature ejaculation, cross dressing and Liverpool FC. Like a mixed bag of sweets but each one is a flying saucer filled with sea salt.
Opener 'Still Deep Water' is all crumbling cathedrals in the twilight, the band are caught in faux gothic posture as their stare into the fading moon. The song is a rose for a princess with poodle hair, she smiles as the camera pans round and bats fly from the cloisters. It is soundtrack music to a budget version of 'The Crow', melodramatic without focus, generic and overblown. For some people this will be life affirming, fist clenching joy, for the under forties it is faintly embarrassing. Yet the next number, 'Keep It in the Family' is comparatively fresh, even vibrant. The fact can't be denied that this band have sold four million records worldwide over the last twenty one years while some of today flash in the pan acts don't even manage four singles or to ever leave the country. Having said that the track is a cheese-fest of the highest proportions, swirling guitars that would make even the peppiest incarnation of Robert Smith blush and a vocal refrain repeated till death do us part. Yet, if you can suspend your cooler-than-though credentials, not to mention your disbelief, the track could be a pleasant enough road tip number. 'Belladonna' carries on in a similar theme, plasterboard grandeur quickly assembled and semi-disposable, but briefly beautiful; akin to a sedated Meat Loaf during his 'difficult years', i.e. anything that wasn't Bat Out of Hell. 'To Love and To Kill With the Very Same Hand' is slightly less poppy and shifts focus, albeit, briefly to the mechanical drumming that shapes a large degree of the album.
As the album proceeds numbers and words blur into a spinning haze of leather and black hair. Only fragments can be heard. 'In Silhouette' sounds like latter day Echo and the Bunnymen single; ribbon and glitter guitar with a chorus in every line. Indeed Echo and the Bunnymen are a pop version of what is presented here, in possession of a stronger singer in Ian McCulloch and a virtuoso guitarist. 'Dumb' allows the listener to think they have survived another before returning with fresh vigour after the three minute mark. Instead of tiring toward the end of the album the Mission seem to have found their stride and are exchanging meaningful nods to each other signifying one more number, one more encore. By the end, the aptly named 'Grotesque', the Mission are still going strong. You would think this was the first album the group had ever recorded, desperate to squeeze in as many ideas as possible. Thirty years down the line fifteen tracks suggests at least a lack of quality control, at worst aggressive arrogance. Either way 'God Is A Bullet' is bloated, pompous and outdated.
However, there is a case to be made. These are quality musicians crafting tracks over a number of decades. They have honed their technique and fine tuned their style, polishing it until not a hint of dust remains. For those who have been on the journey with the band over the years this will be a welcome addition to the collection. For the rest of us 'God is a Bullet' provides some slight guilty pleasures but is unlikely to make it into regular rotation.
View YouTube samplers of 'God is a Bullet' via the links HERE.
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