Peter Murphy – Ninth (2011)

(From Pop Matters)
Saying that Peter Murphy is a slightly ridiculous performer is probably not the most controversial opinion one could hold. This is, you’ll remember, a man who has willingly performed suspended upside-down like a bat. Yet, Murphy is hardly lacking for substance; he has an impressive enough back catalogue to prove this. Murphy’s vigor (and slight ridiculousness) is apparent as soon as “Velocity Bird” opens his latest solo release, Ninth. It sounds like the Stooges fronted by a yabbering and forgone for the very last time Iggy Pop. Somehow—like much of Ninth—it works.





The last we heard of Murphy in recorded form, it was via a reformed Bauhaus on 2008’s Go Away White. Ninth appropriately follows that release more closely in sound than previous solo releases, which were far more subdued. It seems as though few of the originators of goth deign to be labeled as such, but after a certain age has been reached or looms ever nearer, and the jet black hair dye seems more and more mandatory, those artists make similar stylistic regressions. Although their return does not see a full embrace of goth, the revival of youthful fixations and darkness is significant. Think of how Nick Cave balked at balladry and went back to singing about either finding or being denied entry into ladies’ undergarments with Grinderman. Now Peter Murphy has done and gone back to being glam and feral.