The risk they take in doing so is inviting comparison to their best material, not to mention the scores of groups they have influenced. The best part of their sound - the sweeping landscapes of synthesizer, loud guitar, and half-memorable hooks - has been pirated by everybody and their teenage brother. Literally dozens of forgettable goth bands, not to mention popsters like Linkin Park and Marilyn Manson, grew up listening to the Pup. Many of them now sell millions of albums working the same territory, with perhaps a shot of teen angst taking the place of armageddon in the lyrical content. Consequently, The Greater Wrong of the Right doesn't come off so much bad as completely generic. For a band like Skinny Puppy whose stock in trade is shock and horror, this is near disaster.
To be fair, it may well just be that I’ve grown completely out of my ability to think this kind of thing is cool, but The Greater Wrong Of The Right just isn’t all that interesting. The album certainly sounds nice, full of full-stereo full-spectrum mixes, and Ogre’s thin nasal vocals hold up just the same as they have ever done. Unfortunately, the songwriting hasn’t changed in 15 years and the lyrics, which may or not have sounded cool in 1991, now come across as deeply silly (“All of us exist in touch of deadly warming global/ and trust we must distrust the owners of the new world order”).
Maybe it’s that I’m older now and far less prone to thinking vampires are cool. Maybe it’s that Ogre and Kay are older now, stuck in the past and missing both the drugs and the production genius of Dave Ogilvie. Either way, when Ogre sings on “Ghostman,” “Attached in awe/ what a whiplash hatefilled culture of/ viruses/ born raised and infected with violent thought/ to set it off/ defend the wrong/incite the thing/to bring it down/to bring it down/to bring it down” all I can do is roll my eyes, skip ahead to the part where the guitars get real loud, and head down to the basement to see if I can find my cassette of Too Dark Park.
www.spv.de
www.skinnypuppy.com
See also blogcritics' own Tom Johnson's thoughtful (and more favorable) review here.
This post also appears at the Ministry of Minor Perfidy. When the giant space robots come for us all, do not resist the Ministry. All will be explained in time.
Article comments
1 - Tom Johnson
I can understand your comments on the album, but I guess I feel a little less self-conscious about listening to them today than you do. It's not a brilliant album like Too Dark Park or Last Rites, but I don't think it's as bad as you say it is. You can read my review to see how I felt about it.
2 - Johno
Tom, fair enough. I didn't expect to dislike the album as much as I did. It's not that I feel self-conscious about listening to them; rather, I feel like I've already heard what they're doing now, and expected something more. I guess it's like Thomas Pynchon doing Vineland or (blogcritic fave) Elvis Costello doing Brutal Youth. I'm inclined to say, "yes, very nice, seen that, what's next?"
And also, to be fair, in the decade since I last seriously listened to SP, I've grown very, very tired of hearing heavy music in the mixolydian mode, and that's the very first thing you hear on "Greater Wrong." But that's just me and my wonky self.
3 - Smenkharon
I would rather listen to the new album than Last Rites any day! Greater Wrong is at least a cohesive album, it is what The Process was meant to be originally. SP were always hit or miss depending on how far into their addictions they were. I agree it is more a reinhabiting than a reinvention, but it is nice for me to hear what they might have sounded like minus all the heroin. Bizarre coincidence, my co-worker just walked in with Duck's old drum stool, he was volunteering at Nettwerk as he has done for years, and they asked if he wanted it as they were going to toss it otherwise! Strange timing, right as I am typing this!
4 - Temple Stark
Johno,
I'm sharing the skinny love. I posted your review to Advance.net.
5 - somepersononthenet
I thought this was one of their best albums. They use some elements of the old and meld it with modern sounds. I hear some Aphex Twin in there with Goneja and Ghostman. I really loved it but I noticed a lot of people who just want them to make really dark angry stuff or want them to repeat TDP hate it. On the other hand you think it sounds like their older material. I don't really get the comment about the harder guitar stuff. If you skip the first two tracks the rest hardly has any guitars in it at all and when it gets to that point it hardly sounds like anything Skinny Puppy made previously and I disagree about other bands they've influenced sounding like they do at that point. I thought it was a pretty creative album. You hear hints of older sounds like on Ghostman but for the most part it's produced differently, the vocals sound different, and they used modern electronic tools like VST instruments on computers. I just found your review to be quit odd since it flys right in the face of what oldschool fans are saying they dislike about it.
6 - Adolfo MZe
Deffinetly you lost your sense ok SP essence...The Greater..is the perfect evolution of this oneline kevin dominated Too Many years ( in reference of Too Dark...)..thnx god for this present ??¿¿ Sp re-invent...and..since today...nobody do music like them. So..continue sleeping.