If this single is a huge departure from 1992's sparkling Between Happiness and Heartache (especially the emotional opener "I Never Know Where You Are"), this is hardly the sound of a veteran band on the wane! In fact, this is the most rocky, raucous, loud and harsh thing this formerly polite band has ever attempted, and it's a diabolically catchy, hands-down success. Dominic Appleton may be better-known for his cameos with
This Mortal Coil, but here the ghostly voiced, ever lamenting one is all too angry and plotting, especially near the end, as if he's been kicked once too many times, where a truckload of effects are thrown onto his voice. "I have no hopes, no claim, but I'll take you away...Everybody wants you...I'll have you yet," he sneers to the object of his desire, and one is left to wonder how healthy this fixation is -- there's that place where want and obsession, plain old lust and destructive rage blur, and that's all in his voice as these mean, cranky, and stomping guitars (and Ari Neufeld's bass sounds like a trash truck crushing garbage) steamroll behind him. It's an avalanche, a tidal wave of bludgeoning sputter, bluster and vituperative, caviling, captious, carping invective. Great performance, and one hell of a shake up. The B-side (not mentioning the edited version of the A-side: had they nothing else to add to this CD?) "Everything I See" returns them to more familiar territory: softer, more engrossed and enthralled, more hypnotic, and mildly downcast. More nice work. But it's that tempest-in-a-teapot A-side -- if this firecracker single ever sets foot anywhere near a single radio wave, listeners everywhere will be demanding, "Who is this?!?!?" ~ Jack Rabid