Review of Infernal Love (1995)—Towering Infernal!

by Paul Rees for Kerrang! (1995)

Therapy? prove they are the absolute kings of Punk Metal with a classic new album! Infernal Love looks set to catapult the trio into Rock history!

There was one moment on Troublegum when Therapy? promised they’d do more than kick your head in next time they rolled out of a studio. It came right at the end of Femtex, as Andy Cairns’ agonised grunt was joined by a piercing female voice, and a twist of black melody was instantly mixed into the Irish trio’s pig-snortin’-riff cocktail.

Infernal Love keeps that promise. That it’s a better album than its still admirably narrow-minded predecessor is abundantly clear after one listen to the teeth-rattling roar of Epilepsy or the jolly Punk nutting that Loose so gleefully administers. But that it’s also far richer in texture and considerably broader in vision than anything Messrs Cairns, McKeegan and Ewing have previously put their name to takes a while longer to reveal itself.

Cellist Martin McCarrick cutting eerily sharp slashes through Bad Mother—right before Cairns scales one of the album’s most imposing skyscraper hooks.

Bowels of Love, for instance, is initially as black and brooding as Nick Cave after the anti-depressants have worn off. The sting in the tail comes with the lyrics—as Satan’s Teddy Bear contemplates the delights of having ‘Eros maggots’ poured down his throat by a woman with ’festering arms’. It’s Cairns having a laugh at the Dark Lord Of Doom image he’d previously cultivated. Hopefully.

Then there’s A Moment Of Clarity and Me Vs You; ‘ballads’ by the ‘Cliche Description’ rulebook, but really heavily stylised set-pieces that carry a fully realised sense of sinister drama.

And much more… Cairns singing as opposed to cornering, threatening and finally mugging each melody. Cellist Martin McCarrick cutting eerily sharp slashes through Bad Mother—right before Cairns scales one of the album’s most imposing skyscraper hooks. Or the sax that honks happily away alongside the stomp-tastic (and very Wildhearts) riff that kicks Stories into gear.

Strip it all down, though, and Infernal Love is more than just a journey through Therapy?’s newly developed sense of adventure. Essentially, it’s a songwriting tour-de-force that runs the gamut from adrenalin-gobbling anthems to twisted torch songs.

‘Happy people have no stories’, they say on the single. Ironically, Infernal Love finds Therapy? beaming away like Cheshire cats at a joke-telling convention and knee-deep in cracking tales.

And there’s a significant number of points in between. Like Jude The Obscene, wherein Cairns parades his schoolboy nightmares like an open wound. Or the startling cover of Hüsker Dü’s Diane, with rape and murder recounted to bone-chilling effect against an incongruously sweet string arrangement. Or Misery, which has the sort of riff that makes you want to bounce around the room and hit people.

Or 30 Seconds, which asks “How did we get from the Blue Lamp disco to cracking up in San Francisco?”, and insists “There is a light at the end of the tunnel”, whilst galloping along like a good ’un. It also sounds a lot like a very fine Fatima Mansions song, but that’s another story.

“Happy people have no stories”, they say on the single. Ironically, Infernal Love finds Therapy? beaming away like Cheshire cats at a joke-telling convention and knee-deep in cracking tales. Quite simply, a classic.

Rating: 5/5.

Other Reviews of ‘Infernal Love’

Related Interviews