Concrete Blonde re-emerge after eight years in sound(less) therapy

After eight years of silence Concrete Blonde reunite on form on ‘Group Therapy’, a follow-up to the 1993’s ‘Mexican Moon’. And, it was initiated by a series of events: the trio’s singer/bassist Johnette Napolitano was going through a rough patch last May and needed a trusted friend so she turned toward her (former) band mate Jim Mankey. He got her to go and see psychiatrist that, predictably, led to the idea that music could be therapeutic, resulting in restoration with drummer Harry Rushakoff.

The resolve to work together again was strengthened with Roxy Music’s regrouping, the art-rocking Britons being Johnette’s No.1 fave band. (The opening track, ‘Roxy’, is direct result of seeing the band perform in LA last year.) If they could do it with dignity she knew her band also had tonnes of fuel loft in its fuselage. But then, she never stopped making music after the Concretes split in 1994: she was part of Pretty & Twisted, Vowel Movement and ‘Concrete Blonde y Los Illegals’ (1997, an album of rock-meets-Latino-music). Mankey worked on the last one, the two having been friends ever since 1981, their Dream 6 duo days that would eventually grow into Concrete Blonde.

During the 1980s CB were well respected among college and alternative kids due to the band’s music combining classic rock and gothic melodies that were more accessible than Siouxsie & The Banshees but more extravagant than The Pretenders. Twenty-odd years later we get some snatches of the past, the feistiness surfaces few times, but there is new found maturity that expresses itself more like a mood, atmosphere rather than bare aggression.

‘Group Therapy’ finds the band in confident light with music that relies on some past values, such as being primal and experimental as much as flamboyant and expressive, beautiful and emotional. Johnette leads with her raspy and rough vocal to where nothing is forced; highs are as momentous and the lows are as intimate as pain itself, both feeling equally natural. And ‘Violent’ is claimed to be an eerie prescient of the 9/11 tragedy.

But, in general, this really is a cathartic album as ‘When I Was A Fool’ demonstrates… There is also ‘True III’, a sequel to ‘True’ and ‘True II’ from the band’s self-titled 1987 debut.

Concrete Blonde are back and have learnt to play less, which is much more…

8.3/10