1992 was an exciting year for music. The mediocrity of the charts and the stranglehold of Madchester on the alternative scene was suddenly smashed by a slew of harder-edged bands, and as a disaffected teenager, the emergence of the likes of Nirvana and Rage Against the Machine was a revelation to me. It was the same year that Ministry released 'Psalm 69', and the year I first heard Therapy?. 'Teethgrinder' was like nothing else I had heard before. It was dark, heavy and sounded dangerous. 'Nurse' proved to be a stonking album, and I soon discovered their raw, feedback-filled back-catalogue. 'Troublegum' might have been more commercial, but nevertheless contained some dark moments as well as some cracking punk singles. Live around this time, they were awesome and seemed unstoppable.
Then they released the 'Church of Noise' single and blew it completely. On the back of that, I couldn't bring myself to follow them further, and it wasn't until about a decade later that I finally revisited Therapy? They were touring 'High Anxiety', and while the set bypassed most of their early career, they still demonstrated that they could more than cut it as a live act, delivering a set high on energy and volume. So, despite having only dabbled in their post-'Troublegum' output, I was inclined to agree that with the fans' sentiment that if any band should release a live album, and would do it justice, it would be Therapy?
Recorded over three nights at the Water Rats venue in London in March 2010, the track-listing for this double-disc release is refreshing, in that it truly does span their entire career and features many old favourites, including 'Potato Junkie,' 'Innocent X,' 'Dancing With Manson,' 'Skyward' and of course, 'Teethgrinder.' 'Nurse' is fairly well represented overall, as is 'Troublegum,' which is hardly surprising really.
It's a real pity, then, that this release simply doesn't capture the vibrancy or piledriving nature of the performances I know Therapy? can, and do, deliver. A lot of the problem lies in the sound and the mixing. The vocals are too high and too clean, the guitars too sludgy and the bass... where is the bass? The drums, too, sound leaden and lifeless. Ok, so I do think Therapy? lost an integral part of their sound when original drummer, Fyfe Ewing departed and took his rattly, clattering drum sound with him, but here, Neil Cooper's percussion simply sounds deadened.
Many of the songs suffer from a delivery that's too staid, safe, controlled, and the vocals in particular sound decidedly lacklustre and like Andy Cairns is holding back. The opening of 'Turn' sounds a little disjointed, and the audience's singing throughout threatens to drown out Cairns' vocals, turning this tense, taut moment of darkness into a terrace chant-along. 'Church of Noise' is just crap pub-rock punk.
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There are some genuinely awesome moments culled from the back-catalogue: 'Meat Abstract' is a dense mass of interlooping, layers guitar noise, and delivered with the twisted ferocity it duly deserves. Similarly, over on disc 2 we find 'Opal Mantra' - one of my personal favourites that's surely one of the great overlooked singles of their 'commercial' phase - dispatched with a real urgency that carries the slightly thin-sounding recording. Of the later tracks, 'Sprung' has a compelling bleakness, and 'Crooked Timber' is intense and claustrophobic.
'Skyward,' sadly suffers from a flat, pedestrian delivery and fails to get off the ground, let alone soar in the way its title suggests it should - even the cacophonous feedback finale is tame. But what's worse than this is Cairns' constant calling to the crowd - not only the frequent and unnecessary yeahs! but the disruption of songs to holler 'let me hear you! C'mon! Put your hands in the air!' On a track like 'Neck Freak,' it simply doesn't work, and repeated over numerous tracks, it becomes frankly irritating. It's not that I'm averse to a band engaging the audience or audience participation: there's plenty of that on 'Potato Junkie' and hearing a large crowd yell the classic refrain of 'James Joyce is fucking my sister' not only takes me back, but also sounds like bloody good fun, even if there's needless direction given from the stage. Mostly, though, I found myself wincing and wishing Andy would just shut up and play rather than endlessly shouting 'c'mon, make some fucking noise.'
The other gripe I have is that with a total of thirty-six tracks and a running-time of forever, given the similarity of the tone and tempo of the material, 'We're Here to the End' feels like a bit of a slog about three-quarters of the way through. Having made it to the end, though, I can't help but feel let down. It's because Therapy? do have so many great tracks - many of which are on here - and because Therapy? are a great live band that after twenty years of killer gigs 'We're Here to the End' arrives as such a disappointment.
Therapy? online
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