Television Personalities - My Dark Places (2006)

British band formed in 1977, which have since released eight studio albums and have undergone numerous line-up changes along the way.

Dan Treacy and the Television Personalities have a big legacy-- a spot on the CV as godfathers of do-it-yourself pop, and a terrific 1980s back catalog of witty, eccentric new-wave and indie. Listening to Treacy's signature puppy/schoolboy voice-- the most vulnerable voice in the world-- and clocking the humor and whimsy scattered across those records, you'd hardly expect the guy to turn out a rock-star casualty; he's a twee-pop touchstone, not a sweaty romantic. But drug problems (and mental ones) don't much care for those distinctions. By the 90s, Treacy was missing and presumed dead; when he turned up this decade, it was while doing time on an English prison boat. When he was released, and told his friends he'd been writing songs all along, a lot of machinery sprang into motion to make this album possible-- from fans raising cash for studio time to the Brit rock label Domino signing the Television Personalities to its roster. Their press release calls the band "the original Babyshambles," but this particular wreck is a lot more human than stylish.

The first track we heard from this turned out to be perfect. The re-recorded version on the album is titled "I Hope You're Happy Now", and it's exactly the kind of song Treacy's always shined on-- languid, unassuming, unguarded, shambling-along guitar-pop, recorded in the kind of warm, naturalistic way not much heard these days. It was also perfectly placed in the Treacy story: The original title was "I Hope He's Everything You Wanted Me to Be", and the sense of fatigue, resignation, and disappointment in his vocals was awfully easy to connect with. Everyone must have been hoping that prison time had netted a whole record's worth of songs like this-- well-crafted, forlorn, and with a whole lot of very serious things to say, an unpremeditated "real deal" collection of intensely human stuff. A whole lot of people write a whole lot of earnest songs on guitars; sometimes it's nice to hear some that feel like one of them is genuinely struggling to express something honest.

But not quite. My Dark Places doesn't just uncover shadowy corners in its subject matter-- it's also musically unkempt, stumbling along and veering off in directions most bands wouldn't even be comfortable using as B-sides or jokes. "All the Young Children on Crack" consists mostly of a spare drumbeat repeating while Treacy sings the title-- interwoven with some fumbling handclaps and acoustic guitar wanders. "Ex-Girlfriend Club" is actively creepy, with Treacy speaking as the club's tour guide ("Help yourself to the salad bar") before singing bits of "Uptown Top Ranking", running in an odd sampled break, and talking about Puff Daddy over shapeless piano lines. Some tracks seem improvised, thrown-together, Treacy half-singing off a lyric sheet as the instruments around him try to find something interesting to do. Fans-only references abound: paisley shirts and miniskirts, "paradise is for the blessed," etc. Even the best songs aren't prime-time performances-- they're shambling in a worrying way, as if they only just barely managed to get themselves recorded at all.