(2010)
Antony & the Johnsons return with with a fresh, cleansed feel on their latest full-length record. This album will also be available alongside a collection of Antony’s writing, painting, and photography. The premier track Everything Is New reflects this clean sense of renewal and wonderment akin to just opening one’s eyes after a long, deep sleep on a crystal clear day swelling with uplifting simplicity. However, all is not so new in this latest installment. There is an uncomfortable sense of repetition. While Antony remains consistent to his sound and universe, there is a certain stagnancy that remains throughout this somewhat frustrating latest effort. His previous releases dealt with a sense of immediacy, strong emotions of sorrow and overwhelming hope of rejuvenation. At times, this veers uncomfortably into easy listening territory, especially when the acoustic guitars are brought in.
Ghost steps outside the bounds of the first two songs, which more or less blend together murkily. Here we can revel in the expertly evocative vocal range as well as a continuously rolling melody. It is a glimpse into the very first album’s more eclectic diversity recalling Hitler in my Heart. From here, there is a brief hope with a more diverse and upbeat tempo of the ultimate letdown titled I’m In Love, whose vocals only save it from corny sentimentality. There’s just something disappointing when an artist gets happy (as good as it is for that particular individual), good art does this not always make. Conversely, constantly singing from the depths of despair can also be quite tiresome (another sometimes frustrating proclivity of Antony & the Johnsons). I would be equally as annoyed with this song if it had been sung by Rihanna.
Baroque orchestral elements running throughout offer an interesting and welcome relief, though all too brief. However, it shifts back to murky meanderings in the title track, drifting through drone and reverb just to come back to the same solution of adding some violins and percussion. The vocals warble and ramble, but nothing is ever quite crystallized. It overall just comes off as a long, meandering noodling at experimentation that would have best been left to a B-side release, definitely not a title track.
Fletta, a duet with Björk, is a particular stand-out track of the album, offering a welcome change from monotony. Both are singular, visceral vocalists and their voices braid and curl around one another like vines. The feeling of this song is so immediate and instinctive that it serves as the true jewel of the entire record. It is singular and absolutely original. It follows up with the delicate and glistening Salt Silver Oxygen, suddenly giving a whole other resonance to the album’s originally austere and bogged-down introduction. It focuses on the theme touched upon previously in the song Hope Mountain (found in the Another World EP) of the idea of a female Christ figure, bestowing humankind a feminine concept of spirituality and existence. The overall feel is operatic and would make Mozart proud.
The final song, Christina’s Farm creates a somber bookend to the opening track. After the brief gleams of the possibility of branching out into other melodic options and directions, it all goes back to the same somber and plodding timber of the first several previous songs found earlier on the album. Something just doesn’t gel, and coming from an artist as visionary and prolific as Antony Hegarty, this is a mighty disappointment. It is an unfortunate slump in the midst of a transitional phase of a truly gifted artist.