Track Listing

1. The Mystery Of Love
2. My Friends Have
3. Crazy Love
4. Last Song
5. No Child Of Mine
6. Before The Poison
7. There Is A Ghost
8. In The Factory
9. Desperanto
10. City Of Quartz

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10815 in Music
• Released on: 2004-09-27
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
Often, attempts by more senior artists to make an album with a younger generation tend to fall a bit flat; Marianne Faithfull's Before the Poison is a shining exception. The success is due in no small part to PJ Harvey writing and producing half of the songs, with Nick Cave, Damon Albarn and composer Jon Brion making up the rest. Faithfull is by no means a great singer in the traditional sense but her voice has a distinct charm that takes on the personality within a song. For example, you can hear PJ Harvey in the lo-fi opener "The Mystery of Love" yet she doesn't sing a note; the same goes for Nick Cave and Damon Albarn.

For the most part, the PJ Harvey collaborations are gritty lo-fi guitar numbers and Nick Cave's are dark piano ballads--it's difficult to pick highlights as the quality is unwavering but the catchy chorus and rolling guitar hooks of "My Friends Have" and "No Child of Mine" are instantly memorable. The last two tracks differ greatly from the rest, both sounding like nothing else on the album. Nick Cave's "Desperanto" is a bizarre hybrid of guitar-based gangster funk, screaming rockabilly sax and a rabble shouting Jim Morrison lyrics, all topped off with a melody akin to Madonna's "Vogue"--it does sound as odd as the description but is a truly incredible piece of music. No less contemporary is "City of Quartz", a kind of Rogers and Hammerstein number voiced on a collection of clock chimes--again, incredible stuff. With absolutely no filler, Before the Poison is a truly great album that is quirky, cutting edge and ridiculously easy to listen to.--David Trueman

CD Description
Since 1979's BROKEN ENGLISH, when she began writing and performing original material in a moody, emotionally stark vein, Marianne Faithfull's image as a glamorous, '60s music-biz pop star has undergone serious revision. This album completes the transformation. Full of beautiful, honest songs and emotionally harrowing performances, BEFORE THE POISON is Faithfull at her most compelling and undeniable. Her husky, cracked voice, which has plenty of experience built into it, is applied to great effect here, with a world-weary edge that ispart artsong, part blues, and part alternative rock.
This last appellation is apt given the nature of Faithfull's collaborations. Nick Cave wrote three of the songs, including the desperately melancholic "There Is a Ghost", while composer/multi-instrumentalist Jon Brion and Blur's Damon Albarn (whose "Last Song" is one of the album's highlights) contribute a track each. But the strongest presence is PJ Harvey, who wrote the rest of the album, and also contributes guitar and backing vocals. Faithfull and Harvey make a great team, with the wisdom and texture of the former's voice fleshing out the latter's biting lyrics and icy angles. BEFORE THE POISON adds up to a poetic, deeply affecting experience, an album that weighs in as one of Faithfull's finest achievements yet.

Customer Reviews

Genius
Her best album since "Broken English", the whole record has this lush, dark vibe about it. It takes a couple of listens to get used to Marianne singing against the more gritty, guitar-based tracks, while others are more reminiscent of "Strange Weather". Having said that, there is not a single bad moment and she makes each track her own. Particularly brilliant is the Nick Cave collaboration "There is a Ghost" with its heartbreaking melody. Her voice is richer than ever and versatile enough to capture the emotion and story behind each song. She really just keeps getting better and better!

Marianne Faithfull, The Gothic Queen
Well, I think that most of us that love Marianne Faithfull were secretly hoping for this day. The day that she would do an album with PJ Harvey and Nick Cave. Well guess what! The day has arrived! "Before the Poison" is beautiful dark masterpiece. "No Child of Mine" written by PJ Harvey has a great hook. It sounds as if it could have been a Rolling Stones song. "There is a Ghost" is a beautiful eerie ballad written by both Marianne Faithfull and Nick Cave. Warren Ellis ( Bad Seeds and The Dirty Three fame) adds a nice mournful touch with his sad violin. And lastly, Jon Brion's magical "City of Quartz" puts the icing on the cake. It has been decided. Marianne Faithfull is the Gothic Queen. Maybe next time Marianne can work Sandy Dillon into the equation.

Melancholy and otherworldly outing
In Marianne's book Memories, Dreams and Reflections, the chapter Mind Movies discusses the songs & musicians on this album where she collaborates extensively with PJ Harvey and Nick Cave. There are three Harvey covers: Mystery Of Love, My Friends Have and No Child Of Mine, whilst the title track and In The Factory are co-written by them with Marianne contributing lyrics. Nick Cave features as music composer on Crazy Love, There Is A Ghost and Desperanto.

The style varies from the percussive guitar rock of My Friends Have and the tuneful pop ballad Crazy Love with its lovely piano & violins to the bluesy dirge for England titled Last Song and the slow mournful rock of No Child Of Mine with its complex and stirring vocal interplay. The title track was inspired by the 1995 Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway by a doomsday cult; it's so gloomy it would have made Nico of the Velvet Underground proud.

Equally mournful, the lamentation There Is A Ghost with its melancholic piano against eerie synths commemorates all the millions slain. Although more obliquely expressed, it shares the theme of The Faith on Dear Heather by Leonard Cohen and The Ghost of You by Siouxsie & The Banshees. The nameless dead are forgotten by all but the Eternal Divine whose sorrow & anger are so well explained by Abraham Heschel in The Prophets.

In The Factory is a slab of slow brooding rock with great guitar work and a melancholy chorus, whilst the rhythmic and uptempo Desperanto rocks on in an atmospheric drone of guitars, synths and a male choir. The masterpiece of this album is the last track, City Of Quartz. An eerie poem with enchanting music box sounds, it deals with the narcissistic or psychopathic personality that considers human beings as objects to be used.

As an elegiac song cycle in which grief and sorrow find other-worldly expression, this recording is the complete opposite of its predecessor, the optimistic pop album Kissin' Time of 2002. I do not think Before The Poison is on the level of her classics like Vagabond Ways or the Island records trio Broken English, Dangerous Acquaintances and A Child's Adventure, but Faithfull's fans will appreciate it.