My Review 

Puressence - Puressence 

1996

Manchester, England

Producer: Cliff Martin

Label: Island Records Ltd

In the mid-1990s, Manchester had two disruptive musical fronts: post-punk and electronic music, with bad guys addicted to drugs and often violent behaviour.

The interest in Brit-pop was already diminishing, perhaps because it didn't define a specific musical genre, but rather a confused conglomeration that was destined, for this very reason, to give up and die.

The most interesting realities often came from the outskirts of the city, from villages, from small towns where there were different motivations.

But there was control by the few who had the power to decree the success of the bands. The abundant supply of quality was synonymous with a partial problem, which was quickly solved by supporting the ones that had 'important' contacts.

This is where the long list of unknown or little known bands began, bands that, even though they had almost always a crowd of loyal admirers, did not have access to a dimension of recognisability: in Manchester meritocracy and the apprenticeship were never the reason for success. There were a few exceptions, we have to keep in mind: The Smiths and James above all.

Here then that from Failsworth, a small town six kilometres from the centre of Manchester, Anthony Szuminski, Neil McDonald, Kevin Matthews and James Mudriczki, four lively, deep boys, anything but carefree, decided to try their hand at music. From their very first single (Siamese, 1992), everything was clear: the quality was immense and it was necessary to make room for it, at a time when the city was already living the frenzy of the less skilled and interesting, from a musical point of view, Oasis.

And before their debut album of the same name (29 April 1996), they had already released five singles. But there was no room for them.

The space went to others.

However, it is precisely the Mancunians' ability to understand their quality that has not prevented these people from falling in love with their music and creating a passionate devotion to them.

They are not to blame: they would have liked the Failsworth band to put wings and fly all over the world.

That’s not what happened    and these guys remained, alas, a secret that couldn't leave the casket into which they had been relegated by people unconnected with the propagation of an unquestionable class.

Their debut album is a gathering that, starting from Post-punk, circumnavigates minimalist electronic music, conveying Shoegaze splashes with that light psychedelia that doesn't bother those who don't like it but that makes the purists happy, to the point of including in the compositions seeds of that Soul that has inspired them in some passages.

All this always with a mask in order to make the whole thing an opaque canvas, however shiny. 

And then the melancholy, that like a Siamese sister lives in the unique, recognisable and crazy voice of James.

Everything revolves around this miracle: for some bands having such a voice is synonymous with success, for others it decrees the impossibility of giving space to the music.

We can see how stupid and damaging some listening limits are by listening to the 10 songs on this crackling debut.

An infinite delirium of explorations, with dark and descriptive lyrics about existential discomfort and loneliness, about desires, which are increasingly questioned.

Listening to this work one has the perception of fatigue, of nerves scratching the hands, of eyes increasingly close to the desire to know the end. The guitars are caresses, like devastating fists, searching for that area that can lead James to find a melodic line, often disorienting and painful. 

The moment to peer like hungry spies into the treasure chest has arrived: the ten songs I'm about to describe could find a place in your sensibility, giving them, posthumously, a notoriety they still deserve...

Song by Song

Near Distance

With a start reminiscent of the best of The Chameleons and the shadowy U2 of October, you soon get to hear James sing and the emotion explodes well before the sombre guitars rise in intensity.

A slow chiming of guitars like funeral bells with calibrated echoes create an almost dramatic atmosphere. Then it's a Post-punk crescendo that reaches complete exaltation without the need for deflagrations.

The Suppose

It's The Sound who appear in the first few seconds, then a dark hit with the razor-sharp guitar and the bass drum create the possibility of a grown up sound where the poignant vocals move us. The guitars become heavier and the voice rises in intensity. And it's a delirium of doubled vocals, intense drumming and we allow ourselves a stunning change of  mood.

Mr Brown

Here they are, thickened, chilled on the edge of the Irwell canal: we mean the tears that gathered after listening to this melancholic flow that generates lightning, thunder and lakes of drops from sad eyes. Between Shoegaze and Postpunk, the song reserves changes, surprises, with a guitar part, just after the middle, that reveals trajectories of dark tears that try to escape.

Understanding

Tenderness arrives, a piano and it is immediately enchantment: the heart finds an embrace in the ups and downs of a voice with feathers full of poetry.

You can breathe Manchester in this song: a certain slowness, a lassitude that becomes a merit, a quality, because the story of the lyrics offers an intimacy that opens the head and the heart, for a modern, intense ballad.

Fire

A cloud comes down changing its dress: it becomes a night rain and arrives first lightly and then as a tumult of the sky eager to make us soaked and without strength. One of the greatest qualities of Puressence is to create emotional tension with slow songs. But there is always the roar that shakes!

Traffic Jam In Memory Lane

An opening guitar reminiscent of Painted Black and off you go: the song is a train, it travels fast and is a velvety post-punk, it hides, but the bass and guitar here show that they have learned their lesson. Only vocals can separate themselves from any conditioning to generate a perfect combo.

Casting Lazy Shadows

Even when they indulge in more approachable melodies and modes, as in this sensual song, Puressence know how to amaze: the 80's are here, among graspable references, towards that pop on alternative bases that attracts attention.

 

You're Only Trying to Twist My Arm

The initial guitar is deceptive: it seems to be in an almost glam zone but then the song offers crystals of change in the making, like a trap that knows how to captivate sympathies. And it turns on itself: it's the guitar that leads everyone towards its hunger for slow power.

Every House On Every Street

How much Radiohead and Puressence have in common is only revealed by this song, but there are points of contact, although minimal. Many bands in the 2000s have benefited and were inspired by this track. An enormous list.

It conquers by being delicate without looking for a simple and banal refrain. Subdued, hidden, it shows its head just enough to be adored.

India

This is the case where  the masterpiece comes with the last track of an album.

We already had The Psychedelic Furs with a song of the same title that had enchanted us.

Here, God willing, it is perhaps even better.

The structure is an octopus, nervous, sharp, twisted, flirting in the same way as snakes: fate bewitches us and we fall into its mouth.

One of the most classy moments of their entire career, it teaches what Manchester is to the world: an open sky that gives every second an intensity that welcomes and develops ways and sensations to define the whole as a laboratory of friction and melodies that without anxiety lead to bewilderment. A tangle that establishes their abilities, escaping from stereotypes to find sap and solitude in their enthusiasm.

Alex Dematteis

Musicshockworld 

Salford

March 15th, 2022

https://music.apple.com/gb/album/puressence/1444055244

https://open.spotify.com/album/1PaFjTRJkrxfviZ1TzRHpV?si=gmy_s-Z1SXqe-UdxeiSlpQ