Sydney Morning Herald on Endless Wire

[Brian Cady]

http://tinyurl.com/y7dkfo

Endless Wire
Bernard Zuel, reviewer
November 7, 2006
An album with guts to match its grace. The Who are far from f-f-fading away.

The Who - these days just Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey - might appear to have avoided the mockery that accompanied tours and albums by their contemporaries the Rolling Stones by simply not releasing a studio album since the early '80s.

But Townshend's songs have always had more intellectual meat and emotional depth than the work of Messrs Jagger and Richards. This meant that on their regular reformation tours, Daltrey could avoid parading as a perpetually horny, if rather wrinkled, teenager and the Who, at least since Keith Moon died, could pull off rock'n'roll shows that possessed both energy and dignity.

That's also why Endless Wire not only holds your attention through 19 tracks, the second half of which is a mini opera based on a Townshend novella, but actually engages with you as something fresh.

Fragments opens the album with a Baba Riley-like keyboard figure. There's a gentleness here even as it calls you to attention. But with the spiky Man in a Purple Dress that gentleness disappears, lyrically at least, for musically it is a measured folkish ballad. At first the barbs appear to address the storied ranks of religion, those "men above men or prats? / In your high hats" who like to lecture us on all matters. "How dare you be the one to assess me in this God-forsaken mess / You, a man in a purple dress".
However, you can't help but assume it's also aimed at those who launched into Townshend during the ugly public spectacle of his (subsequently dropped) child pornography charges. Certainly, Daltrey's husky tones - his upper range is constrained these days - carry a deeper pain.

The flipside of this harshness comes in another finger-picked folk tune, You Stand by Me, where Townshend sings of the love of those who stood by him, who did "take my side / give me back my pride ... you carried me home". Both songs are outstanding.

"Side two" tells the tale of miscommunication and failed ambition between a multi-ethnic trio of young men and an older observer. Emotionally and musically, it's tied to the trilogy of operas Townshend attempted in the late '60s, Tommy, Quadrophenia and (the never realised) Lifehouse. The songs range from banjo toe-tappers and elegant acoustic numbers to synth-and-harmonies tracks, from driven rockers and country turns to classic Who charging pop.

There's nothing about Endless Wire that suggests sixtysomethings staggering into the light again. It feels like a satisfying album with guts to match its grace.
 
-Brian in Atlanta
The Who This Month!
http://www.thewhothismonth.com



 
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