All Of This And Nothing (1988) (Columbia FC 44377) (Canadian LP)
"'Don't believe in anything'... that's the line of theirs I like best and typically, that song's ["No Tears"] not on the compilation. It's not compiled chronologically either. Maybe that's a return to their early characteristic cutups, I don't know. But they're free now, these songs. They've broken out of their era with all their tender ferocity intact. They're still as alive and alert in '88 as they ever were and, though I greet all but one of them with the blur of hindsight, they still confuse my perspectives.
"Giddy, that's how 'President Gas' gets me. John Ashton's dipsomaniac guitar reels through Todd Rundgren's production... it's like dancing through wet concrete, too awake to the rituals, too broken to resist. [Richard] Butler was fond of referring to the era of the Talk Talk Talk album as a wall of melody as opposed to the first album's wall of sound. I just think of a juggernaut, juiced and out of control, a skid and a bruise and wonder what 'hell without the sin' will be like.
"'All That Money Wants' is the moorings loosed again after the sensible dialogue attempted by the Midnight To Midnight album. Having deliberately shed dimensions to see what it must feel like to be understood, The Furs have returned to abstraction with producer Stephen Street. It's a trim squabble alright, a rediscovery of certainty in doubt. 'I don't believe that I believed in you' indeed. Incensed thunder.
"The unequivocal purity of rage, that's 'Imitation Of Christ', betrayed by the death of the hippie dream, converting all that disappointment into a beautifully bitter piety. Mocking the aims it mourns, it is willfully unfocused, furious, sprawling and scolding with a noble hypocrisy. 'Sister Europe', also from the debut LP, broods, the kinetic calm before the mental storm. Blossoming like deadly nightshade, it slurs its seduction.
"Stifled by the small-mindedness of fashion-fixated Britain, The Furs recorded 'Love My Way' in America with Todd Rundgren – a nicotine crooner steeped in melancholy.
"It was the start of a change of heart, a desire to reach beyond the faithful, and 'Highwire Days,' from the Mirror Moves album, is indicative of that change. The image of a mind on the edge of sanity, balanced precariously, seeing through the fabric of everyday existence, knowing better yet, unbearably, incapable of changing anything, is probably Butler's finest. 'Get smart, get scared...' That way madness lay and The Furs moved on.
"'She has got it in for me/Yeah, I mean it honestly...' 'Dumb Waiters' is barbaric paranoia loosed to roam and groan through the sickliest saxophone imaginable. Butler was reading Martin Amis, obsessed with words not making sense or, rather, to release language from the thrall of common sense was his aim and 'Pretty In Pink', a sister song from the Talk Talk Talk album, was eventually his justification. Utterly misinterpreted by John Hughes it was turned into a pleasing but inappropriate movie and, re-recorded and re-released, gave The Furs their greatest hit.
"'The Ghost In You' and 'Heaven' were the poles reversed, energy piling towards the positive. Accepting that fulfillment means having to trust one's nature against one's better judgement, The Furs embraced romanticism and soared, cool and clear-headed. There's a brightness here, bold and certain. 'Heartbreak Beat', typical of the Midnight To Midnight album, succeeds in retaining personality against all odds.
"'All Of This And Nothing' is my private one, my own sweet problem. I always thought the debris around that room, the stuff scattered about that brought Butler to declare 'You didn't leave me anything that I can understand' was 'A roomful of your crash.' Now it turns out the word is trash, not crash. I adore the disease all the same."
Steve Sutherland, May '88.
Side 1:
1. President Gas
2. All That Money Wants
3. Imitation Of Christ
4. Sister Europe
5. Love My Way
6. Highwire Days
Side 2:
1. Dumb Waiters
2. Pretty In Pink
3. The Ghost In You
4. Heaven
5. Heartbreak Beat
6. All Of This And Nothing
