Positively Spooked by Band Of Holy Joy
LP and CD released on Rough Trade.
Digital release on Radio Joy in 2012
As ever, the manic-depressive Holy Joy sing tales of love, drink, and loss. Unlike the claustrophobic feel of the previous albums, Positively Spooked is far more optimistic, something the band attributed to touring the former Soviet republics. Written in the so-called second Summer of Love, songs such as "Real Beauty Passed Through" and "Evening World Holiday Show," whilst not exactly rave music, reflect the upbeat dance culture of the time. The "up" mood of the album is best reflected by "Freda Cunningham," where the happy-go-lucky heroine is revealed to be the same tragic single mother in the single Rosemary Smith. According to the NME, Positively Spooked contains the greatest Band of Holy Joy song, "Bitten Lips" -- a song dedicated to Kay Kent, the deceased Marilyn Monroe lookalike. Although the distorted fairground element is still prevalent, a definite dance element is apparent, or as the song says, "Look Who's Changed with the Times."
[Christian Smillie, www.allmusic.com]
Tracklist
| 1. | Real Beauty Passed Through | 3:32 |
| 2. | Evening World Holiday Show | 2:52 |
| 3. | Because It Was Never Resolved | 3:04 |
| 4. | Unlikely Girl | 2:40 |
| 5. | Shadows Fall | 4:47 |
| 6. | Bitten Lips | 5:50 |
| 7. | Here It Comes | 3:59 |
| 8. | Hot Little Hopes | 4:07 |
| 9. | Freda Cunningham | 3:24 |
| 10. | Torch Me | 2:23 |
| 11. | Positively Spooked | 4:03 |
| 12. | Look Who's Changed With The Times | 3:20 |
| 13. | Chantel | 2:39 |
Credits
License
All rights reserved.
Band Of Holy Joy have mutated endlessly since their origin as a kind of trashbin industrial folk collective, through early experiments in an intensely poetic form of ambient postpunk, to near chart-contenders on a then-failing Rough Trade, free of bitterness but with greater heart… and more recently onward to a series of albums of gently anthemic social culture and political critique.