Last updated March 14, 1998
From NME, February 22, 1986
The deep imponderables of life and death, metaphysics, pantheism, the sheer wearisome weight of "it all" seems to rest on Mark Hollis' muse like the temple pillar's on Samson's shoulders. The single 'Life's What You Make It' is, according to the press release, wonderfully optimistic. Some party - Mark sounds like a man yawning with a mouthful of glue.
Yes I know, they're not your common or garden pop slags with odes to the good life and the leg-over, but my idea of a good deal is not trading all-out vacuity for all-in turgidity. A generation of enforced gaiety and inanity has left the way open for the most spurious myth of all - the rockstar as the tortured artist. Either Hollis is possessed with an unbearable naivety or an overpowering intensity, either he's laughably misguided or studiously determined, but there's really no excuse for this cumbersome, allegedly 'impressionistic' waffle.
For a start it's all been done before by the Yeses and The Moody Blues and The Tulls and all those crappy dinosaur groups we can all do without being reminded of, thank you very much. And it's also plain dumb, arrested development stuff - sixth-form angst rendered as young adult marketing ploy. The first song shows what lies beyond - 'Happiness Is Easy', heavily ironic title, has the knives out for the priesthood for failing to prepare their childhood flock for life before the grave. Hey, just what the world needs; another messed-up Catholic sharing his burden with the public.
Talk Talk music moves so warily, so slow, sombre, and stilted that they seem to actively decry any drive or warmth. Bestriding the huge empty husk of progressive rock they attempt to piece together a sparkling, meaningful sound picture, but are trapped by the dreary Hollis poetry (all there on the sleeve in scrawny schoolboyish handwriting) and the way they make everything sound like a long, gruelling journey through Hades.
Still, they have the straining despair and moribund conventional approach that passes for rigorous intellect and challenging pop in some quarters. A sad reflection on the dumb, dull mega-market but Talk Talk could become this year's Tears For Fears.