Disco de Bauhaus: “Go Away White [Bonus Track]”

To me, this is how Bauhaus would sound if Peter hadn't gotten sick and had completed Burning from the Inside. No Love and Rockets as we know it, no Tones on Tail, no Peter Murphy solo projects...or at least not as early as they had arrived. The boys seem to have picked up where they left off, but with 25 years worth of maturity and experience under their collective belt.

While they seem to drift a bit to somewhat familiar waters with a late 90's Love and Rockets feel to "Too Much 21st Century", every song after that gave me that same quiver in my stomach I got when I first picked up "In The Flat Field" as a college kid in the '80's. Each song is mystery to be discovered and unwound with each successive listen. Trace elements of the scars of their 25 years journey become evident to the truest of Bauhaus fans and that's ok because they've never strayed far from their roots in any of their incarnations. So here we have it. The final album. It IS Bauhaus and it's Bauhaus as they have always been and will always be.

It's impossible to think that after a 25 year absence, that Bauhaus would return to make a studio album of (almost) all new material. Sure all of the performers have had another things to do like Tones On Tail, Love & Rockets, various solo albums, and even working with Perry Farrell, but Bauhaus, as a whole, hasn't recorded since 1983's 'Burning From The Inside.' 2008's 'Go Away White' almost feels like if the four guys got together and said, "hey, what if we decided to fuse Love & Rockets, Tones On Tail, and some of Peter's later solo albums into one record with almost no traces of our work as Bauhaus 25 years ago?" I can even hear some traces of Dali's Car, an obscure Murphy/Mick Karn side project. The results are satisfying, but confusing at the same time.

The first five tracks are all guitar riff-driven glam rockers that are closer cousins to 'Kundalini Express' than to 'Double Dare'. 'Zikir' particularly sounds like something off of Murphy's album, 'Dust', with its droning almost-Dead Can Dance sound. 'Saved' is a very interesting artrock drone, catching them at their most gloomy since 'Mask', where 'Black Stone Heart' is the closest thing to Tones On Tail since, well...Tones On Tail. Lyrically, Murphy might spew out a few references to crimson spots or burning bodies, but the lyrics are definitely more lightweight than say, oh, 'Stigmata Martyr'. 'Endless Summer Of The Damned' even refers to global warming; very 2008, Pete. Soundwise, the album moves like a downward spiral, starting out with the Bowie-esque rockers and spiraling down to the atmospheric dirges ('The Dog's A Vapour' makes a reappearance after being a bonus track before, in a re-recorded form).

Overall, I still don't know if I'd consider this even as strong as any of the original albums, or even as solid as 'Express' or 'Pop' but shouldn't totally offend fans of the bigger picture of these artists. Bauhaus stalwarts who thought Love & Rockets was too poppish or Tones On Tail was too unfocused might not enjoy this newest effort as much. If I could give it 3.5, I definitely would have.

This work is an inspired piece. From the first strums to the last note, the band rediscovered themselves. The songs are better than the last two cds they did, and it ranks with Mask and In the Flat Field.

Endless Summer of the Damned should be on the list of songs new "bands" should listen to in order to see how a song should be written and performed. When the song kicks in, all four members are working as team -- and the power of rock comes through to the listener. Passion comes alive inside one while listening -- no matter what. The song has all the basics of what rock should be, but it is new and fresh. Besides the Pixies way back when, there hasn't been a proper rock song like that released until now.

Saved can move one beyond words and Peter's words are the perfect paint to the music canvas.

All the songs are great and worthy of an rock fan to buy.

To the band:

Please put pettiness aside. You guys have a gift -- share it.

After the long awaited "Resurrection Tour" a decade ago (could it possibly have been that long?), the promise of new Bauhaus material beyond the haunting cover of Dead Can Dance's "Severance" (on

) sadly never materialized.

Sure, "Dog's a Vapour" (from the

]) whetted the appetite of fans hungry for a scrap (which "Dog's" was... in every sense of the word [we could, however, just drop the "s" and call it crap), but a new album didn't appear likely. It would seem that

would remain the official swan song from messrs Ash, Haskins, J and Murphy.

Now, 25 years after their final A&M release, fans are treated to an 18 day "spontaneous" session (as Peter Murphy would call it) by a briefly reunited Bauhaus from 2006 that results in the recently released GO AWAY WHITE.

Beginning with the almost perfect "Too Much 21st Century," an art-rock pop gem that showcases everything that was, and is the best of bauhaus (the groove created by Daniel Ash's minimalist guitar, David J's strangely funky and slightly jarring bassline, and Kevin Haskin's stripped down kit is just too good for words), GO AWAY WHITE shows great promise.

Songs like "International Belletproof Talent" and "Endless Summer of the Damned" are evidence of a bandmates having fun again, taking the best of everything learned from solo projects, and re-energizing a sound that was, and still is, uniquely Bauhaus' own. The progenitors of goth (a genre that took shape in the late 70s, but a title that would have been new to the band itself at a time when they were most vital) are once again making music influenced by the glam of T. Rex, the punk of the Pistols and the Damned, and the art rock of David Bowie and Roxy Music, but, embarassingly, for a group of musicians this talented, it is only the aforementioned tracks that stand out as stellar.

Should GO AWAY WHITE have been released as an EP with "Too Much 21st Century," "Endless Summer of the Damned" and "International Belletproof Talent" as the only tracks, the angel that graces the cover of the album would truly be leading us to some sonic promised land where dark things decadently dance and everyone can wear black and pretend they're nocturnal immortals all over again.

But the spontaneity of this brief reunion also results in the overindulgence of songs like "Saved," "Mirror Remains," and "Zikir." As an "album" WHITE is a mixed bag of songs that you will not only skip over on repeated listens, but finding yourself getting angry with, knowing that 18 days in the studio could certainly have resulted in much more than the usually spot-on Peter Murphy doing a really bad Peter Murphy impression (in multiple overdubs at that!). Perhaps too much is expected because so much time has passed, but a better producer could have put the brakes on this uneven ride and perhaps shaped a true "return to form" as REM has recently done with the career-revitalizing

.

For fans, GO AWAY WHITE is essential, but flawed.

For newcomers, steer clear, and go find yourself a copy of

.

My first listen through, I was disappointed, even worried. I commented that it made me think "This sounds like just any ol' rock band with Peter Murphy on vocals." It sounds like some of the complaints are like this.

But sometimes, it takes the right moment, and on a lone country road in south Georgia, when there was a revelation of sorts. As the album played on, it crept more and more into my mind. We turned it up. By the time we got to our far away destination and final tracks played, we were dancing in our seats and I was able to proclaim, "Now, THIS is Bauhaus!"

It's not Mask - or any other of their albums - but it grew on me, and isn't the trainwreck I feared it would be. It became groovy. I'd hum licks to myself at work. Cool.

I've loved them even since the first roar of "Double Dare" was blasted at me at my friend's house in 1986. This isn't their best, but at least upholds the love. Dark, dripping bloody, batty, vampire, bleh bleh bleh!