I posted this about a month ago on one of the music lists but I have put it up here as there seems to be some interest- do let me know if you violently disagree (this is only the opinion of 1 set of ears [ as with all reviews]).
To those who aren't familiar with him, Julian Cope first entered the public domain in the late 70s, with a group called The Crucial Three (together with Ian McCulloch + 1). After this group split he went on to form The Teardrop Explodes, one of the most exciting and influential of the post-punk bands of the early eighties. He also gained much notoriety for the amount of LSD (and probably just about everything else) that he got through.
Since the teardrops split up, he has recorded several albums solo (of varying quality) with some chart success (notably 'World Shut Your Mouth' and 'Beautiful Love' off the St. Julian and Peggy Suicide albums respectively).
He culled his back catalogue earlier this year to put together the compilation album 'Floored Genius- The best of Julian Cope and the Teardrop Explodes' which is one of the best albums to have been released this year (I'm surprised no-one has mentioned it yet in their lists). If you're into great melodies, weird lyrics, innovative arrangements (theres a lot of brass in the early stuff) and gorgeous, smooth vocals then _BUY_.
Review of Jehovahkill (released in the UK in October)
On this opus Julian has gone for a more abrasive, stripped down noise than previous albums and it doesn't make for easy listening the first time through. Whereas on Peggy there was a subtheme of environmental-type issues, here the focus has shifted to the spiritual domain.
This album is deeply rooted in stone-circle/ pagan type mythology with which he has been obsessed over past months (Julian spent the summer touring the islands of Scotland to study stone circles and you can tell) with some pointed, cynical comments about organised religion and society. He has even seen fit to include a little pamphlet with pictures of selected stone circles and some verses [how sweet! Now back to the music].
The music varies between melodic numbers in pop and soul styles, stripped down bluesy tracks and unclassifiable stuff like the jazzy 'Poet is Priest' and scarily accurate Lou Reed soundalike 'Julian H Cope'.
As usual the lyrics set this apart from anything in the known universe (do they actually make sense, is he mad as the proverbial etc.?) and there is plenty of 6th form word-play; in fact there are plenty of words but at least he has something to say (although it may take awhile to work out what it is).
If you got into Peggy Suicide then you will like this (IMO) as its a lot more cohesive, and some of the dafter stuff seems to have been tossed out by quality control (for an example of this, listen to the B-sides of the single which are pretty crap- although 'Fear loves...' is very mellow, & tackles the knotty subject of violence in the home).
This album has actually grown on me more each time I have heard it and I am sure that I will still be listening to it in 10 years time- on these criteria it could well be his best so far...hopefully there's plenty more to come.
Incidentally Jehovahkill entered the UK charts at mid-20s then slipped out the next week and Julian was subsequently dropped from his record label. Such is life
