Search - Mission UK :: Carved in Sand

Exposed In Platinum

Bjorn Clasen | Rolléngergronn, Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, Europe | 01/16/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This album is an outstanding rock experience. The Mission is definitely one of the greatest - and most ignored - artrock bands of the 1990's.The opener »Amelia« is a frightening song about incest, recited by the abusive father. On the A side of the vinyl album then follows great melodic rock songs in breathtaking symphonic arrangements, ending in the absolutely outstanding »Deliverance« which till this day is one of my favourite rock songs of all times!Side B starts with a soulful song called »Grapes Of Wrath« (self-explanatory). The journey goes on, and this amazing album ends in the beautiful summer and love song »Lovely«.A fantastic album!"

Light and Shade

Captain Cook | Leeward to the Sandwich Islands | 01/31/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In my ignorance, I always used to associate the Mission with the Cult as I looked out across the musical spectrum. Both have religious overtones, both have a hard, rocking mystical sound, and when you have a Mission song title identical to a Cult lyric "Who would break a butterfly on a Wheel?" (Soul Asylum), this can only reinforce the impression. But there's a world of difference, and most of that difference is Wayne Hussey.



Ian Astbury always sounds like some hard-swearing, rough-assed rocker. Wayne, on the other hand, has a fluidity, a vulnerability, even a femininity, that infuses so much of the Mission's work with a feeling of flesh - sensual and suffering. There's actually something of Jesus in Wayne. And while that one's sinking in, there's a lot of poetic irony in the man, which relates back to the rich tradition of ballads, poems, and laments reflecting the Christian idea of death and resurrection.



`Butterfly on a Wheel' demonstrates this most clearly: Love both breaks and heals the wings. The flower crushed under the snow will rise again in the Spring. During the song, the plaintive vocals with their undertone of ultimate hope and the sweeping grandeur of the music, evoking revolving Suns and changing seasons, brings this resurrection motif quite startlingly to life.



The irony of `Amelia' the opening track, is of a more direct nature. `Daddy can love you more than Mummy can,' screams Wayne in the guise of an incestuous father. The impassioned vocals, full of evil, pain, desire and guilt, all at the same time, and the strong beat, relentlessly belt out the irony of lust masquerading as paternal love.



These two songs are definitely the highlights, and, in a way, are offset, balanced, and even enhanced by the album's flaws. What can you make of `Grapes of Wrath' a powerful Mike Peterish vocal, bursting with the kind of naive almost corny angst and idealism the Alarm are famous for. Nevertheless, like the Alarm, it impresses by its sheer sincerity.



`Sea of Love,' with its Beatlesque, sitar-flavoured psychedelic rock, has problems working as a song and works better as a meditation aid. As a quaint and intricate object, it functions as a kind of aural objet d'art.



The simpler songs sound the most Cult-ish, like "Into the Blue' with its driving chord changes and choppy rhythms; and the powerful, soaring `Deliverance'. This song - unrepentantly stopping for no one - calls through a web of Celtic imagery for deliverance, without caring if damnation is delivered instead.



The whole album, but especially the B-side is varied and erratic. `Belief' starts off like a piece of over-produced pomp rock, but the lyrics soon

start throwing dark, potent images at us:

`Masquerade as Jesus Christ and suffer the crucifixion'

And when the guitars kick in, scimitars seem to be flying. `Paradise Will Shine Like the Moon' is a jangly, acoustic rush that lunges into a kind of mad rockabilly finish. `Hungary as the Hunter' is a frantic, snarling, growling guitar bash, but with interesting blue pools of a more atmospheric sound that almost elevate this song to music Nirvana.



`Carved in Sand'is an album full of wonderful contrasts: from the album cover with its drifting dunes and rigid fossils to `Lovely' the last song - a gentle credo, devoid of irony, that by its very simplicity and poverty provides yet another delightful contrast with the richness and variety of the preceding songs.

"

Brillant dark passion

john_nik@yahoo.com | Argentina | 01/22/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"May be some critics want to say that The Mission has more influence from Led Zeppelin than from it self. That absoluty no true. And here you kind find a solid and profund argument to that. Here, in the music. Excelent lyrics, a very special voice, fantastic gotic guitars and a rock sound that make more powerfull the quartet in live. Then, they transform to a trio an they did really ugly music, but here (in their 3 first CD's)the do great dark."