Suicide are Martin Rev on electronics, and Alan Vega on vocals, and that's it. They're one of the first groups to be structured so, and a pattern that will continue into Eighties pop. These are not light-hearted radio-friendly pop, however.
Well, that’s perhaps not entirely true. Tracks like Cheree or Ghost Rider borrow a little bit from Fifties rock, but backed by dark repetitive synth beats that endow them with a sense of lurking menace. They’re a little like a stripped-down Velvet Underground in their White Light/White Heat style. There’s something about them that reminds me of French synth-pop, especially the more experimental side, like Stereolab. There’s also connective tissue between the music on here and, say St. Vincent – synth and vocal driven work that’s darker than chirpy pop.
“Electronic punk” is one term for it, and it’s got similarities to, say Ramones via krautrock. And then comes the ten-minute experience that is Frankie Teardrop. Rev produces a low pulsing sinister background over which Vega tells, rather than sings, the story of Frankie who is driven to madness by deprivation, kills his infant child, his wife, and then himself. The track then passes through a disturbing soundscape before Frankie wakes up in Hell. It’s Vega’s disturbing and sudden screams that punctuate the track that make it really un-nerving. At the end he tells us that “We’re all Frankie. We’re all in Hell”.
Without this track, the album is more of an interesting artifact; some good development of electronica that feels ahead of its time, but this one elevates it to dark and disturbing art, like a Walter Sickert painting.
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