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Felt “Crumbling The Antiseptic Beauty” (Cherry Red, 1982)

While it’s foolhardy to generalize about Felt fans, one thing seems certain: Most consider Ignite The Seven Cannons (i.e., the one with “Primitive Painters” on it) or Forever Breathes The Lonely Word as their best album. I beg to differ. For me, this British band—who issued 10 albums and 10 singles in 10 years throughout the ’80s—peaked with The Strange Idols Pattern And Other Stories and this perfectly formed mini LP. I know—shocking, right?

There’s nothing really crumbling on Felt’s debut, but there’s plenty of antiseptic beauty. And while that may seem like damning with faint praise, I mean this in the strongest terms: Crumbling The Antiseptic Beauty is utterly sublime, lack of grit be damned.

“Evergreen Dazed” instantly sets a tone of spangly grandeur, courtesy of the rococo guitar leads by the classically trained Maurice Deebank. An instrumental that plucks heartstrings in the key of gee whiz, “Evergreen Dazed” exudes a most brilliant crystalline poignancy. On “Fortune,” frontman Lawrence’s voice sounds like a perfect merger of Bob Dylan’s sneer and Lou Reed’s sardonic deadpan, while the music saunters and glints with casual elegance. This isn’t rock as most know it, but rather some English back-garden reverie or a drawing-room samba. One imagines Lawrence, at this early stage of Felt, wrinkling his nose at the vulgarity of most rock. The swooning continues on “Birdmen,” whose languid psychedelia gyres around a glacially chiming, hypnotic guitar pattern.

“Cathedral,” which has been one of my favorite songs for over 30 years, is absolutely worthy of the title. The intro’s a majestic brandishing of silvery guitars, and then Lawrence and co. swoosh in with those intimate-yet-distant vocals and a gently undulating unrock attack, marked by Deebank’s jangly guitar shimmer. The last half of the song contains some of the greatest spidery guitar calligraphy this side of a Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd duel. The Deebank-written “I Worship The Sun” is Crumbling‘s most propulsive tune; it actually builds up a rocking head of steam. As with all of the other tracks, though, drummer Gary Ainge only seems to use the toms, because as Lou Reed sagely noted, cymbals eat guitars. Still, it’s odd not to hear any kicks or snares over an entire album.

“Templeroy, another Deebank piece, ends the record on a somewhat anticlimactic note. This one meanders a bit too close to the Earth compared to the preceding five songs. Plus, Lawrence sounds like he’s suffering a panic attack, and not in a good way. If I were sequencing Crumbling, “Cathedral” would conclude the disc, so we could all exit the theater with tears in our eyes and our souls inflated to bursting point. Nevertheless, Crumbling The Antiseptic Beauty maintains a porcelain gorgeousness that, if current trends hold, will never fade. -Buckley Mayfield

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