Furniture — Food, Sex And Paranoia album review

FURNITURE
Food, Sex And Paranoia
(Arista LP / Cassette / CD)

FURNITURE'S STORY is one to savour. Clambering upon the launch pad with 'Brilliant Mind' some three years ago, they appeared fit for lift-off until their label Stiff stiffed and record contracts became a nightmare cocoon of legal impossibilities. When Furniture finally freed themselves of the courts, Arista swooped in for the kill and the splendidly titled 'Food, Sex And Paranoia' is the happy ending. Great tale, eh?

And so it should be. Furniture are immensely gifted storytellers, working on the old premise that from small aches, monstrous agonies grow, the quartet relish their emotional traumas, hating their desire to confess yet refusing to cower behind a shield of lyrical metaphors.

Not content with wearing their hearts on their sleeves, singers Jim Irvin and Tim Whelan have emotions splattered across their shirts; Irvin's the moody one, swooning over the sensual swirl of 'Slow Motion Kisses', groaning about biting, trembling and shiny sweat, and miraculously enough never sounding anything but deliciously seductive. Whelan is less restrained, more visibly heated, howling "come back to me" through the shuffling jerks of 'Taste Of You' with an almost embarrassing lack of masculine pride…

Both are obsessives, wrapping themselves in their personal tragedies and finding comfort in sympathetic musical canvasses; 'On A Slow Fuse' is barely breathing, a sorrowful stroll with mournful instrumentation; 'One Step Behind You' sees scattered thunder hang threateningly over sinister promises; 'A Plot To Kill What Was' brings together jazz-like twitches with savage romantic intentions for a wickedly unsettling ceremony.

Furniture always fall for the unorthodox elements: the shimmering economic guitar contributions, the fidgeting bass lines, the low profile yet hard hitting rhythms, even the mysticism of the Far East. All of these add up to an immensely graceful, cruelly smooth swoop through the historical song book.

Soft souls and sharp tongues. Comforting sounds and dangerous desperation. 'Food, Sex And Paranoia' is an exquisite oddity. (8)

Simon Williams