Horrifying. Harrowing. Bleak. Terrifying. These are a few words that are going to come up whenever you hear about this album. I think it's necessary to mention it today since it better captures the dread and horror of its topic than any other album in the past seven years did: September 11, 2001.
On the album's best track ("Jesse"), Scott Walker imagines a conversation between the still-born brother of Elvis Presley and Elvis himself. They talk over horror-movie strings as "pow, pow" is whispered while they see "nose holes caked in black cocaine". The planes have hit the towers. You wait for a crash of noise, but there is only fading instruments and the phrase "I'm the only one left alive".
Considering the topics and destruction of song structure represented here, it's amazing how beautiful this album is. "Cossacks Are" starts the album with the illusion of convention: the driving bass and drums make way for that haunting voice. But on the second track, it all goes to hell. Swirling, detuned strings, thumping drums that sound like a violent beating, a song structure you can't predict the tenth time, and lyrics about a woman who insisted on being executed with Mussolini.
The album closes with "A Lover Loves", which has Scott whispering "psst" between phrases over a simple guitar rhythm. It's a perfect track to close a perfect album: it's haunting and uncomfortable, but you won't be able to turn it off.
If you are depressed and alone, don't buy this album. If you don't like the challenge of unraveling a complex masterpiece, don't buy this album. This one is not for the uninitiated. For the rest of us, it's an album to remember, and no better musical portrait of 9/11 was ever painted.
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