That Northern Irish band Therapy? was invited to make a remix version of the industrial metal band Pitchshifter's song Diable the year after Troublegum was released (1994) is perhaps not as far-fetched as one might first think. I have absolutely nothing against Joy Division and covers of classic bands' well-known songs often tend to float out into a tribute to the original version. That is certainly not the case when it comes to Therapy?'s version of Isolation. Here we have a band that, as intensely as they express their own songs, takes on others' songs in order to make them their own. This applies to both Isolation and Diable. Songs from very different sources, too.
It is perhaps a little sad. When I listened through Troublegum before this retrospective in order to refresh my memory, in hindsight it was probably nothing more than a few song titles and song orders that needed refreshing. If the album thematically deals with various phenomena surrounding teenage angst, it is just as suitable for middle-aged men. The lyrics, as well as the riffs and melodies, are imprinted in the cerebral cortex and flow as easily as the songs that pass by one after the other.
No rules are without exceptions. The sacred maxim for me that the perfect album contains 10 songs, no more and no less, holds true in this context only to the point that the follow-up question "which songs would you choose to leave out" appears. Now I may not think that all the songs on their own would hold up as great, but I still think that the whole thing this time deserves a full 14 songs. Even though the album is only 46 minutes long, the intensity of songs like Trigger Inside, Brainsaw and Knives would hardly have given the listener the same boost if they had all been surrounded by like-sounding pieces. In the same way, for me the top number Unbeliever is a top number, perhaps precisely because Die Laughing just before is the least successful on the album. At least to my ears. Perhaps the structure and the placement of songs are sometimes as important as the songs themselves.
In terms of genre, Troublegum is, in my opinion, quite unique. In any case, it is a riff driven album we are dealing with. Riffs that often smell of metal performed in a rock style. Guitarist Andy Cairns' vocal melodies are catchy as hell and, as I said just as rooted in my brain 30 years after the album was released. Although it is precisely these aspects that in my opinion makes the album one of the classics, one cannot escape the importance and intensity of the rhythm section. If the guitars are perhaps performed with an emphasis on accuracy without compromising on intensity, the opposite applies to both the bass (Michael McKeegan) and drums (Fyfe Ewing). That is; emphasis on intensity without compromising on accuracy. Something that the overall production pushes to the brim without flooding it.
This album was released on February 7, 1994. In June 1994, I visited Provinssirock in Seinäjoki, Finland for the first time and the reason was in part Therapy's presence and this album in particular. 30 years later, I can say that both the album and the concert are still among my absolute favorites.
Genre: Alternative metal, alternative rock
Rating: 5.9 / 7