So everyone was going on about how Bowie-influenced Suede were with their debut singles in 1992 while ignoring the slice of sheer drama from Mr. Connelly which was just as, if not more so. Huh.
But them's the vagaries of the music press for you, of course. At the time, Chris Connelly was just seen as the tall screaming Scot in various line-ups of Ministry, the Revolting Cocks, at one point Fini Tribe, and various other things. Then Whiplash Boychild came out and everyone started in with the comparisons to Low and "Heroes" and Scott Walker (covered "Amorous Humphry Plugg" and everything) and more besides. A perfect fix while the Thin White Duke himself was working through the final bits of Tin Machine, it should be noted.
Then a year later, this masterpiece, and it is one, flat out and then some. Without calling as much attention to it as you might think (sure, there are the drugs references in the title and the back cover art, but for some reason this relentlessly avoids becoming obnoxious), Connelly tackled some of the more obvious themes of Ze Alienated Modern Rock Artiste without ever once making you get tired of either the guy or the pose. Why? The music, my friends, the music -- and the lyrics, but more on that in a second.
Working with a great band -- Martin Atkins on drums, Chris Bruce on darn good lead guitar, Stuart Zechman on bass and himself on keyboards -- Connelly started off Phenobarb with a shimmering, hip-shaking art/rock/dance instrumental called "The Whistle Blower" which still makes me smile. But it's "July" that makes me burn, a molten seven-minute slow build of an explosion which just gets more and more frenetic as it goes while still maintaining a relentless careful pace -- not to mention a couple of key points where the music cuts out just enough. Connelly's voice rages over the whole thing, and while it's all very abstract, the mood hits you right.
From there it's a stylistic voyage out and around -- covering a Tom Verlaine song (wait, didn't Bowie do that as well?), the semi-flamenco into beatbox experiment "Come Down Here," the late-night jazz "Too Good to be True," the sprawling, snarling "Dirtbox Tennessee"…I could go on, but the point is that Connelly makes every one of these songs sound like the best thing on the planet right about then and there, and the whole thing holds together wonderfully. It's a perfectly arranged album, starting right, and ending right; the band is on, and Connelly's controlled croon is a beauty.
Then there's "Heartburn," and next to some of the songs off Roy Montgomery's Temple IV I've heard little quite so moving about the loss of a loved one in these past ten years. Stated nowhere on the sleeve beyond a general dedication -- understandably -- is the fact that Connelly's fiance killed herself during the recording of the album; Connelly has since confirmed this track is about her. Knowing the biographical background of the stately, understatedly anguished piano-led piece certainly adds to the extra emotion, but the advantage is that it stands alone without it, and that the cryptic lyrical statements about departure -- and notably his own personal raking over the coals about what he might have done to help -- have a masked power. The music builds, swells (Bruce's guitar here is especially just right), then fades out over a gentle figure on piano played by Connelly, over and over…and out.