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Virgin Prunes, "The Moon Looked Down and Laughed"
In 1986 the Virgin Prunes released The Moon Looked Down and Laughed, an album that turned out to be the band's swan song. (The group released a collection of outtakes and rare tracks later that year, but never again entered the studio.) Considered in context with the rest of the Prunes' albums reissued by Mute, The Moon was clearly a concerted attempt at a much more commercial sound than anything the band had previously attempted.
Produced by Soft Cell's Dave Ball (and engineered by Flood), there is a distinctly pop veneer on many of the album's tracks, which stands in stark contrast to the demented, abrasive experimentalism of past albums. Layers of synthesized strings and crisp, multi-tracked production takes the place of jagged, wailing guitars and jackhammer drums. The Moon also found Gavin Friday edging ever closer to the sound he was to adopt for his solo material; emotive ballads and darkly romantic torch songs rather than the anarchic, confrontational material familiar to the band. For all of these reasons, this album will likely seem a strange departure for those more familiar with the Prunes of ...If I Die, I Die. However, fans of Friday's solo outings, Dave Ball's In Strict Tempo or Marc Almond's solo material will find much to like in the album's skewed pop sensibility. Like Almond, Friday and the Prunes freely borrow from the French chanson singer tradition, or Kurt Weill-ish 1930's Berlin cabaret. The synthesized strings also add a dose of Hollywood soundtrack style to many of the tracks, best exemplified by the Bernard Herrmann Psycho string stabs on "Our Love Will Last Forever Until the Day It Dies." As a lyricist, Friday is in fine form, transforming the disturbing imagery of "Sons Find Devils" ("Blood of baby must be spilt/To make up for our Daddy's guilt") into a rousing Irish sea shanty. The haunting melancholy of "Alone" is arranged to sound like an Ennio Morricone spaghetti Western soundtrack, an odd choice, to be sure. My favorite track by far is the utterly divergent "Just A Lovesong," with Gavin singing over a minimal arrangement of improvised piano and randomly strummed guitar. The song seems entirely improvised; an impromptu outpouring that entirely eschews melodic sense in favor of a direct, childlike emotional appeal. J.G. "Foetus" Thirlwell pops up on the title track, contributing snarling guest vocals to another classically theatrical Prunes composition. Though the mainstream pop aspirations of The Moon will doubtlessly turn off many listeners, it fits in very nicely as a bridge between earlier Virgin Prunes and the later solo work of Gavin Friday.
