But the song benefits from the crisper recording, which highlights impressive chord changes and structural twists that were previously buried. The new version represents what online fans feared for the band, with crunchy, overdriven guitar and full-throated yelps that are more indebted to Superchunk than Bauhaus. “Trespassers W,” originally a brooding post-punk love song with muffled vocals and a bassline ripped from “ Transmission,” justifies its inclusion with a full-band remake. Two of the album’s seven tracks are re-recordings of demos already familiar to diehards, padding a relatively short record with old material. “Lords of Tresserhorn” plays with the same elements-twinkling synths, thrumming bass, clipped vocals-but simmers them slowly, not so much building to a chorus as painting layers of scenery.īut these ambitious experiments are paired with concessions to an active fanbase that is terrified of change. With a propulsive bassline that gives way to shimmering guitars, “Science Beat” sounds like “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” as helmed by Pere Ubu’s David Thomas, Barrett’s atonal sing-speaking cutting through the blinding brightness. It’s nearly grating enough to make a new listener pull the plug altogether, which would be a shame- Sea of Worry finds the band honing in on the metallic sheen of goth rock, a subgenre consistently in the mix on previous records but never given its due.
The momentum of the triumphant, shout-along choruses on “Sea of Worry” is flatlined by “Dracula Bells,” a track rendered exhaustingly slow by awkward rhythmic shifts, multiple melodic tangents, and a painful dash of free jazz. On Sea of Worry, these shifts are more abrupt the pace of the record suffers as a result.
Have a Nice Life’s early work had a tendency to shape-shift, presenting as garage rock on one track only to unravel into ambient noise on the next.
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