Review of Infernal Love (1995)—Tender Loving Cairns

by Lisa Verrico for Vox (August 1995)

When Therapy? released their fourth album, Troublegum, less than 18 months ago, fans of their first two, independent LPs—Babyteeth and Pleasure Death—and even their Top 30 major-label debut, Nurse, accused the band of selling out. The Larne trio, they said, had abandoned their early hardcore roots and punk perspective in favour of a less abrasive, more commercial sound. In fact, Therapy? had simply learned how to hang hooks on their brutal, speeding hard rock songs. Troublegum tracks such as the first single Nowhere, Die Laughing and Femtex clearly carried on from where the band’s debut hit, the Shortsharpshock EP’s Screamager had left off. Infernal Love heads further in the same direction.

As with Troublegum, the album’s title is a slightly twisted, childishly simple play on words. Both LPs even open with similar lines: Troublegum with “My girlfriend says that I need help”, from Knives and Infernal Love with “I got a problem”, from the textbook metal rock song Epilepsy. Like first single Stories, Epilepsy comes on like classic AC/DC meets Metallica, combining repetitive riffs and squalling solos with simple lyrics and an intense, persistent beat. On both tracks, however, the melodies outweigh the metal, and Therapy? retain their ability to appeal as much to the pop and indie fraternity as to hardcore fans.

A cover of Hüsker Dü’s Diane, a child rape tale written in the first person, exchanges the original’s crashing guitars for spiralling strings to nightmarish effect ….

Oddly, the band’s slower songs make for Infernal Love’s most menacing moments. A cover of Hüsker Dü’s Diane, a child rape tale written in the first person, exchanges the original’s crashing guitars for spiralling strings (including cello by Siouxsie And The Banshees’ Martin McCarrick) to nightmarish effect, while on Bowels Of Love, Andy Cairns sings like Nick Cave, the guitars goes down, the orchestra comes in and emotional screams turn slowly into a painful, achingly personal, lament. Equally powerful is A Moment Of Clarity, stadium-friendly rock which thankfully avoids lapsing into bland Bon Jovi balladry or crass cock-rock posturing through intelligent lyrics and Nirvana-esque juxtaposition of slow, low verses and loud guitar-driven interludes. The brutal, scary Me Vs You continues the Cobain comparisons by alternating blasts of cascading noise with Cairns’ soft snarled vocals. Infernal Love is, in fact, Cairns’ most demanding and diverse performance to date.

At times, however, Therapy?’s mish-mash of alternative styles cancel each other out. Both Jude The Obscene and Misery are little more than simply structured, formula heavy rock songs, lifted out of the pedestrian only by Fyfe Ewing’s precision drumming and Michael McKeegan’s insistent bass. Much more memorable are Bad Mother, with it’s relentless rhythm coming close to classic indie and its lyrical content continuing Cairns’ fascination with religious imagery; and 30 Seconds, the superb, speeding, Wild West-influenced romp which brings the album to a close. By far the weakest moment is Loose, which starts out like Green Day’s filtered-down punk pop and continues throughout on the same, largely uninspired, three-chord tune. Cairns claims Loose, based on an Ecstasy experience with his girlfriend when the pair ended up trying on each other’s clothes, is the happiest song he has ever written. He should stay off the drugs in future.

Infernal Love’s radio-friendly melodies may well break the band in America—as both Nurse and Troublegum were predicted, but failed, to do. Certainly, their increasingly stadium-suited songs now come closer to Sugar’s intelligent angst-pop than Big Black’s power punk, perhaps their most relevant early reference. In this country, however, Infernal Love will undoubtedly both consolidate Therapy?’s mainstream status and alienate the purists, who are sure to find the album’s so-called hardcore simply too soft.

Rating: 7/10.

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