The Big Pink : A Brief History of Love :: Review
Unfortunately there are no Bob Dylan or The Band references on The Big Pink’s debut album “A Brief History of Love.” Those references would have elevated this mundane yet overly hyped retro 90’s shoegaze/industrial combo into something interesting at least. On “A Brief History of Love,” The Big Pink incorporate, or should I say rip off the original ideas of NIN, Jesus and Mary Chain, Ride, My Bloody Valentine on a turgid and overly misogynistic set of songs.
There’s little depth to be found on many of the tracks as lead Robbie Furze sings in Richard Ashcroft style about his relationship habits. To drive the Richard Ashcroft point home even further, Furze and his co-conspirator Milo Cordell blatantly swipe the stolen main lick from “Bittersweet Symphony” on “Love In Vain.” That’s an interesting point if you can make it that far while listening to this dreck. Every single track prior to that song has this faux NIN industrial introduction that quickly wore on me. The worst offender of the lot has to be “Dominos,” a song so insipid that the Machines of Loving Grace would have found it objectionable even when they were writing hits like “Butterfly Wings.”
Although the album has proved to be fairly dire thus far, “Velvet” isn’t a terrible track; it mostly simulates a U2 vibe that wouldn’t have been out of place on “Zooropa.” Other than that, the rest of the album becomes tedious on “Golden Pendulum” through the title track, which suffers from the same monotonous excess that killed this genre in the first place. “Tonight” and “Count Backwards From Ten” feel tacked on and by the time they arrive, I have already lost interest.
If you’re looking for a fix for this era’s sound, check out the originals and avoid this letdown.
Rating: 
