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Album Reviews
Album Review: Death Of The Neighbourhood – Death Of The Neighbourhood (ATIC)
By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 10 November 2008
‘Death Of The Neighbourhood’ is an album that stands on the edge of a precipice looking down upon the havoc below, and upon doing so takes out its notepad. It sees the modern world as it is now drowning in a decadent, self-absorbed moral void, where negative tabloid culture rules and the self-centred, whining celebrity is our daily bread. When you put this into perspective you reach one conclusion: the death of the neighbourhood. Stephen Jones (of Babybird fame), doing his best to bridge the gap between a ‘Dispatches’ documentary and socially conscious music, follows the billowing confusion of this ‘death’ and the result is something really quite bizarre. Often haunting in a disturbingly cinematic way, this album is an extraordinarily crafted piece of musical theatre, from the twisted and dark ‘Cokeholes’, to the beautiful, mesmeric ‘Bruised Brain’, it never fails to make you think. What Jones does so well is create something that is often quite difficult to listen to but rewarding at the same time. Contempt towards the listener is a vital organ of the album; we are harangued by distorted voices, yelps and even burps; the noises are often the most intriguing part of the track as it whisks the listener away to Jones’ darkened, hazy view of the world. Lyrically, it is splendidly perverse with such magnificent lines as “I’ve got a straw stuck up my ass saying ‘Where’s the coke?”’; it’s hard not to find some source of visual enjoyment. In places it is thoroughly enjoyable and is both beautiful and disturbing in equal measure. ‘Death Of The Neighbourhood’ however does border the line between being atmospheric and almost too cinematic which at times can take some perseverance to reap the benefits. SJS
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