The quest to reclaim PFAYM

[tzb]

Yep, as others have said they spend most of their time reacting against what came before, they went sleek arena rock after GT, then angular after that, then more symphonic indie, then heavily produced, then very unproduced (or at least weird production) on KYE ("the enemy is what we'd become"), then ultra-sleek pop again on Lifeblood, arena rock again on SATT... and then they FINALLY made a decision to take their direction in hand, putting out JFPL which they need never have released but ended up an absolute triumph although it does kind of stand apart in their discography given the nature of the thing, and then they tried again with... PFAYM, specifically targeted as "one last shot at mass communication", which I hardly take as a "reaction" approach after the commercial nature of last album proper SATT.

I think the problem is most of the time they have no idea what they want, they just work from what they don't find comfortable - being outsiders, or being mainstream, or being commercially successful, or often the absence or legacy of Richey... and they end up making difficult and interesting records as they pinball around between those tensions. Then when they decided they did know what they want free from those elements (fame, mainstream success) they lost that drive before the project was complete and ended up making a bad job of it in my opinion. I'm quite happy for them to keep making "reaction" records as it keeps them on their toes, makes them fresh and interesting and, crucially, keeps them interested in a way that the whole PFAYM saga suggested they really weren't.