Love... Is Like Dying
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Love... Is Like Dying | ||
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| Studio album by Theatre of Ice | ||
| Released | 1986 | |
| Genre | Deathrock | |
| Label | Orphanage Records | |
| Professional reviews | ||
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See article. |
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| Theatre of Ice chronology | ||
| The Resurrection (1986) |
Love... Is Like Dying (1986) |
In The Attic (1987) |
Love... Is Like Dying is the sixth album by the American deathrock band, Theatre of Ice and their first for Orphanage Records.
Orphanage Records, an American label with a solid reputation in the Gothic Rock and Deathrock music scenes, offered to re-release The Resurrection; but were unable to obtain any of the masters, except for the two live recordings, from Demented Mind Mill Records. So Orphanage Records asked the band to re-record 7 of the songs from the album, one from The Haunting, two from Beyond the Graves of Passion, 5 new originals, and reuse the two live recordings. These 17 "new" songs were released in 1986 as Love... Is Like Dying. Even though John Johnson is credited as playing on the album, it is a known fact that he had previously left the group and only appears on the two live recordings.
Love... Is Like Dying was an immediate success for both the band and for their new label. With Songs as diverse as Dreams of Fire and In The Attic, the album greatly increased their fan base and for the first time put them on the radar of college radio stations across the country. This opened the door for the band to tour parts of the country it had never played live to, it was just up to their label to assure them that "nothing bad would happen" if they were to go on an extended tour.
Contents |
[edit] Musicians
- Brent Johnson - Vocals, Guitars, Effects, Drums
- John Johnson - Guitar, Synthesizer, Keyboards, Percussion
- Dale Garrard - Guitars, Vocals, Ice
[edit] Track listing
- Gone With The Worms
- She Sleeps
- In The Attic
- Dark Haired Lady
- Somewhere Anywhere
- You Don't Know What You're Doin
- Funeral Games (live)
- Under a Cold Blue Moon
- Livin in Fiction
- Dark Horizons
- Dreams of Fire
- Crawl
- Golden Girl
- Hungry For Ruin
- Creature
- Santa Claws (live)
[edit] Reviews
- OPtion Magazine - The title says it all -- gloomy, overdone Halloween music. Moanings through delays, delayed guitars, morbid lyrics, spooky synthesizer, and drum machine. I think it's great, in the same kind of way as a Herschell Gordon Lewis film. I'm not sure how much of the cheesiness is tongue-in-cheek, although I suspect quite a bit of it is, but either way there are some great sounds here, and it's thoroughly enjoyable to listen to. Come Halloween I'm gonna play this out my window, watch the little kids run, and save myself some money on candy. -- Scott Lewis. [1]
- Gajoob, Utah - Side Alpha of this album skirts we-dare-you-to-like-this territory a little too closely, but side Omega is absolutely great! The thrash songs are derivative thrash (most thrash is though), but most of the songs on this album aren't and therefore manage to avoid any lables. Listening to this I got the impression that these Provoans were truly attempting to bring something out of themsselves that had not been brought out by other people. At the same time, they don't fall into the trap of being simply original for originality's sake. If you want an album that truly shows the possibilities of independent labels, get this one. But be prepared: "doom pop" from returned Mormon missionaries is a pretty scary concepts if you think about it.
- New Times - This synth-and-guitar trio of tinkerers from Provo play what is generously termed "doom" music with "pop" overtones. (Just what "doom-pop" really is, nobody can say, but your average big-hair teen knows it when he hears it.) In this case, "doom" means bad songwriting and "pop" means a hee-haw attitude that prompted the band to subtitle this bunch of self-consciously demented tracks "Radio Version". The Utah ghoul group relies heavily on its sense of black homor -- the bou\ys describe a yuletide slay ride on "Santa Claws" and eulogize dearly debarted debutante on "Gone With the Worms." But like so many death-gloom groups, the thespians of Theatre of Ice are better at thinking up funny song titles than they are at providing tunes to go with them. Hey, gang -- let's not put on a show!
- Virgin Meat - Ah... this album has been my first outing into this band which has been highly recommended to me. "Should be your kind of music!" and damned right they are! Yea... I like creepy crawly spooky scary kind of music and yea... this album could easily be the soundtrack to my gloomy moods. Opens up with "Gone With the Worms", an open wound of a bizarre psychedelic tune -- a great song it is! Probably my favorite off this album along with "She Sleeps", "In the Attic", "Crawl", "Hungry for Ruin". All great songs! The music is poppy atmospheric moody tunes (with some great guitar!) gone on a bad trip hallucinating melody. I've noticed that each time I listen to this album it gets better. Let the worms cruise your head with this!
- Sporadic Droolings - So I set up this Halloween display outside my house and on the soundtrack my choice was obvious. While I had heard some of the material here before, the unreleased material sufficed for the warrant of this release. It would seem that the songs were dominated by an increased drum attack than some previous material. I felt that the bolstered percussion rendered the music more accessible, if Theatre of Ice can even approach that. Chant like vocal proceedings with an indifferent and even unfeeling touch maintain the freight level. Yet I've noticed that certain songs are just not designed to frighten. Instead these approach experimental pop of a sort with more of a lean to the experimental instead of the pop. All in all, another winner for the Johnson brothers. [2]
