Alan McGee and Joy Division have a lot to answer for. McGee for releasing this record, amongst others, and Bernard Albrecht/ Sumner and co for inspiring it. Mind you, I think JD have an excuse, they can't have foreseen that their music would inspire a whole Goth movement. And believe me, this is Goth with a capital G, just carefully disguised for the new Millennium.
It has taken me two weeks to write this review, because I keep coming back to "Exits" in the mistaken belief that hidden depths will emerge. There are none. From "Flight" onwards its extremely hard going, and by the time fifth track "The New Heavy" comes around, I'm sick to death of the absolute nonsense they're wailing on about.. "You don't seem to know your time is ours now" - who are they talking to, their publicist? "We're on fire, stand and fight, we could be in flight". Huh? "Inside, Outside, Inside your love". What about upside down? You missed that one out.. What does any of it mean? They sound like the words of a poorly paid 9-5 lyric writer, sat at his desk for hours on any searching for any kind of inspiration. Not those of a tortured poet driven by the desire to bear his soul (which I'm pretty sure is the intention..). And whatever happened to art in music? What about subtlety? (Surely the name of the next JD/New Order compilation?) This is real breezeblock to crack an egg stuff.
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OK, so the music itself isn't too bad in a nondescript kind of way, but there are very few tunes, in fact nothing memorable at all. Nothing. It really is a case of "We want to be popstars at all costs and we don't really care how we do it". You've probably guessed by now I hate it.
Heart and Soul? Neither.
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