Mellow album paints vivid images

By JAKE STUIVER
Collegian Arts Writer

Once upon a time, back in the late 1970s, three innovative young lads from England got together under the name "The Cure" and composed a number of brooding, melancholy tunes focused around smooth, rapid, one-string guitar licks.

Now, almost 20 years later, those same individuals are not quite so young anymore, nor nearly as innovative, and they spend more time putting on lipstick than making music. Their style quickly changed with the coming of the 1980s, and their guitar focus was quickly replaced with keyboards and synthesized string instruments. Lyrics about the passionate mysticism of teen-age romance shifted to cheese about Fridays on which they felt particularly in love.

There are those, however, who have asserted that the style from which those fellows springboarded, that other bands such as Echo and the Bunnymen and New Order picked up on, has not yet passed its time. Among those folks are Sordid Humor, five American boys with a few extra contributors, including Counting Crows frontman Adam Duritz.

Their debut album, or rather "project" as they describe it, titled Light Music for Dying People, carries some heavy influences from that era.

Recreating the quick, low-treble, one-string guitars of the first Cure albums, these guys sound rather retro. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is not exactly uplifting either.

The title is definitely appropriate. This is not the type of album one listens to in the morning to get the adrenalin pumping.

Not that it is all slow. Some tracks, such as the single "Barbarossa," actually have some louder, heavier sequences. Despite their pace, however, they still contribute to the overall reflective, pessimistic mood of the album, which actually serves to paint some sort of visible picture.

The image brought to mind various people described in different songs. They are vividly brought to life so the audience can feel their pain, their hopelessness and their state of being stuck in an emotional or a sociological rut. The imagery and symbolism here are phenomenal.

Aside from lyrics, some of which were contributed by Duritz, there are really no other elements of this album that are outstanding. The music is good, and for those who were into the late-1970s, British-gloom scene, this may serve as something new. For anybody else, it is what it claims to be -- Light Music for Dying People.