DEMONS DANCE ALONE

RESIDENTS later career is as user friendly as it gets, as someone who was just recently became a fan, I think I can now distinguish the weirdness on different albums of this band. Somewhere in the 80's the material became less experimental and went with more focus on concepts and lyrics, as here we have something I would dare say is something like underground pop music, rather then the all over the place sounds of 70's albums.

So is the music good? Yes. There aren't any Not Available avantgarde epics but hearing RESIDENTS make this kind of music shows that they are still re-inventing themselves at every turn. For a change the lyrics are very understandable with less voice effects, and the female vocals are excellent. Long story short, it's vocal song oriented (more refined beautiful underground pop of later albums, "Life Would Be Wonderful", "The Weatherman"...) with instrumental parts which hint at the Commercial Album era ("Thundering Skies" for example but present in most of album).

This is actually a mostly serious concept album...yes serious. The Residents most of the time are always releasing albums that are lampooning and satirical of all types of music. But this time, the topic is dealing with emotions surrounding the attacks of 9/11. This is probably one of the more accessible albums by The Residents, yet it is handled very well. You still get a lot of the minimalism that you are used to, but the production on this one is very good which helps and some of the songs are very well orchestrated. You still get that level of weirdness that you expect from The Residents, so no they are not compromising much to get the message across.

The album is divided into 3 parts which are collectively preceded and followed by an introductory song and another summary song. Each part is separated by a few very short instrumentals/sound effects. Tracks 2 - 8 are Part I and entitled "Loss". Part two is comprised of tracks 12 - 17 and called "Denial". Part 3 is entitled "The Three Metaphores" which are tracks 21, 23 and 25 and are separated by 3 more very short tracks. The music is simple yet complex with the alternating strange and normal vocals and vocals are also lead by female vocalists in several tracks, which help with the flow of the album, making it not get stagnant or monotonous.

With all the albums in The Residents discography, this one is one of their best. You still get a lot of The Residents signature sound, but this time it is done with more reverence to deal with the subject matter. This album is still a great representation of the uniqueness of the avant garde prog sound, in that it is not typical music, it is still experimental and challenging, but it is also accessible. You could almost get away with playing it for almost anyone, but you might still get some weird looks from time to time. Anyway, as far as avant-prog, I consider this a masterpiece of mostly minimalistic and inventive music even though it is one of The Residents most thought out and accessible recordings. 5 stars.