Review Summary: Dedicated to the best and the worst month of the year.
The music on U2's third album 'October' is a reflection of the album's title. Except for Halloween, nothing memorable happens in October. What occurs each December, however, is etched into your psyche. It's all about Christmastime. The highs, lows, the gifts and the misery. It's all here.
'December' is an album that builds upon their debut Echelons in the same way that the month, December, build on the months preceding. It's a time to think about the past, aging and materialism. The big three, all at once.
So to say For Against are melancholy band would be an understatement. There are glimmers of light, but it's a dusty, winter light. It may be sunny outside, but it's cold and the trees are bare.
The album captures the inevitability of fading away rather and succumbing to your insecurities. In December, we can't escape it. We see the smiling faces on glossy advertisements, and buying gifts. The dutiful family dinners, and false love.
It's disappointing when the day arrives, because it's going to be a long time until the next one. The band manages to capture this peculiar mood, crafting cathartic soundscapes, piercing guitars, and vulnerable vocals that decay like leaves from autumnal trees.
But it's not all gloom. You're allowed to, in December, get drunk with your family and spill your beans. You’re able to reflect on the three-hundred odd days that have passed, believing you’ve made the most of it, eating your ham and Yorkshire puddings. And this makes you feel better. "How nice', you tell yourself as you take as you stuff your mouth, “I’m glad to be eating with my family, and not living on the streets.” But you know, as a proud miserablist that you’d like to feel this way forever; that happiness comes close but chooses to spare you.
And the music reflects these moods well, almost too well. It's up there with 'Closer' in terms of albums that capture a moment of your life. The kind of album you discover in your teens but understand in your twenties. 'December' is a moment, just like Souvlaki, Loveless and Heaven of Las Vegas.
The album opens with 'Sabres', a track that has all the elements of a solid For Against song: a prominent bass-line and vamped lyrics combine with dream-like atmosphere, to produce a furor. "I'm trying to / recapture the sense inside November." he yearns, attempting find meaning in rumination.
The guitars continue to chime and reverberate throughout December. 'Svengali', however, is a bitter tirade about a nasty ex-lover: "keep telling me you know everything..." sneers Runnings as the motorik rhythm soothes his pain. The final track on December, ‘Clandestine High Holy’ is rollicking track about a doomed relationship. The song provides some solid imagery with lines such as: “So lost and so empty / don’t stand beside me.” being delivered with just the right amount of malice and self-admonition.
The song, and subsequently the album, descends into a harsh dissonance. There’s enough noise to block out the somewhat troubling idea you will make a ‘brand new mistake’ to learn from in the new year, but you’ve made this mistake before, and you'll probably be fine for your remaining years.
