Sometimes they come back. Even if always in their own way. That is, in the name of a precarious harmony between the two founding partners of the company, Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith. Well yes, Tears For Fears remain a decidedly peculiar duo. Some of their recent performances such as the one in Rome in 2019, with the two at a safe distance on stage and looking at each other almost askance, make us imagine what could happen with the Gallagher brothers on the Oasis reunion tour. Yet, despite the tensions and resentments, an underground feeling continues to flow between the two, which in this case takes shape in the live format. “I think a lot of people don't know that we're actually a good live band! – writes Smith when introducing this album – They see a duo and think that it's just going to be two people with some keyboards and some pre-recorded backing tracks, and that's all it will be. we have improved enormously since our heyday in the 1980s.” Orzabal echoes this: “We've never released an official live LP, so you could say this is an album 40 years in the making.”
And here we are, then, dealing with the first official live album distributed globally under the name Tears For Fears, “Songs For A Nervous Planet”. A title that reflects the chaos and neuroses of the contemporary world, filtered by that “quiet desperation” which in addition to being “the English way” (cit. Pink Floyd) has always been the trademark of the Bath duo. To arouse some further curiosity for the release, the presence of four (not transcendental, to be honest) unreleased songs, recorded in the studio: the single “The Girl That I Call Home”, Orzabal's tender loving dedication to his wife Emily Rath, presumably also mentioned in the third track of the album (“Emily Said”), plus the joyful but deceptive “Say Goodbye To Mum And Dad” (“Go tell all your friends that society has gone mad”) and the The art pop of “Astronaut”, an attempt at a new choral hymn to “Shout” which invites us to find peace in solitude. The cover must also have been inspired by the latter, which shows an astronaut in a field of sunflowers: an image evidently created with artificial intelligence, which has unleashed yet another (idiotic) anti-AI crusade via social media.
Yes, but the live? Taken from a July 2023 concert in Franklin, Tennessee, it includes numerous classics plus songs from “The Tipping Point”, the album which in 2022 was hailed (exaggerating) as a rebirth of the English duo, after the unfortunate restyling operation of the album from the reunion dated 2004, “Everybody Loves A Happy Ending”. In between, a tragic event (the death of Orzabal's first wife due to alcoholism) which tore the band apart again just as they were getting back on tour, followed by an accident for Smith which cost him four fractured ribs, which kept him box for a year.
If the songs of “The Tipping Point”, calligraphically reproduced on stage, remain standing above all with their mix of craftsmanship and sonic coherence, the only testimony from the aforementioned “Everybody Loves A Happy Ending” (“Secret World”) it's more stripped down and punchy, giving up the dense orchestral arrangement of the studio version (by Paul Buckmaster) and settling on a tribute to Paul McCartney's Wings version of “Let 'em In”.
But above all it is refreshing to listen again to the warhorses of the past, performed with good vigor and notable harmony by a solid band, which sees the British singer-songwriter Carina Round taking the place of the Woman In Chains Oleta Adams.
The 90s are rightly overlooked, marked by the breakup between the two partners, which led to Smith's departure and the publication of “Elemental” (here represented only by “Break It Down Again”) and “Raoul And The Kings Of Spain” (completely ignored in the setlist) with Orzabal supported by Alan Griffiths, the jewels of the 80s shine: among the enthusiasm of the Tennessee audience, timeless art pop monuments such as “Mad World”, “Pale Shelter”, “Change”, “Shout” alternate “, “Everybody Wants To Rule The World”, “Head Over Heels” and “Sowing The Seeds Of Love”. They are their usual stories of “quiet desperation”, between childhood traumas, psychoanalytic obsessions and primordial screams, which have given life to a real songbook, in the name of admirable writing and an original combination of electronics and “real” instruments.
“Songs For A Nervous Planet” is available on CD and Blu-ray and in various mixes, including three by the ever-present Steven Wilson (including Dolby Atmos, 5.1 Surround Sound and stereo). The release of the album is also accompanied by a concert film shot and recorded at the FirstBank Amphitheater at Graystone Quarry in Franklin, Tennessee, during their Tipping Point Tour Part 2: “Tears For Fears Live (A Tipping Point Film)” was presented premiering in over 1,100 cinemas worldwide.
And now that – to give satisfaction to Smith – we have had confirmation that Tears For Fears can do it live too, we are left with nostalgia for their writing ability, which, yes, unfortunately has irremediably vanished over time. But never say never: we wait for them, here in ours nervous planet.
26/10/2024
Antonio Santini for SANREMO.FM
