Short review: this album features 20 songs and each one is amazing.
Long review: see below.
Peter Perrett is one of my biggest musical heroes. I remember how I first listened to "The Whole Of The Law" and thought I would never hear a voice as soulful and beautiful as that again. I remember how I spent several years of my life convinced that "Falling" is the greatest song ever written (is it not, though?). I remember how once in Madrid, around ten years ago, I had a bet with myself: by the end of the night, before I get back to my hotel, I'm going to come up with ten short stories all bearing titles of The Only Ones's 1978 debut. And, for the record, I did. (Imagine crowbarring plots into titles like "No Peace For The Wicked" and "Another Girl, Another Planet". To this day, I dread to reread the finished stories.)
Which is all to say: I have this odd personal connection with Peter Perrett, and it certainly helps that he is a fantastic songwriter who at the age of 72 and after years of heroin addiction, can release a double album as good as this.
Quite frankly, I loved the album so much on my first listen that for a while I was afraid to listen to it again. What if it doesn't hold up? What if this vulnerable power-pop fails on closer inspection? But no. The more I listened to the album, the more impressed I was. True, Peter Perrett has been having something of a resurgence lately (this is his third album in seven years), and the man has always been about quality rather than quantity (The Cleansing is only his eighth studio album as a frontman or a solo artist). But still I was not prepared for this. 'The album is in need of some judicial pruning', a Guardian critic wrote in his otherwise glowing review. Bullshit. There is not a second wasted on the whole thing.
The Cleansing is a work of great confidence and experience. There is a lot of darkness on the album (the haunting, piano-based "All That Time") but also a lot of light ("Fountain Of You" is one of those love anthems he could always do so effortlessly) and even playfulness ("Secret Taliban Wife" is a perfect pop song with a dark lyrical twist). And it is all infused with Perrett's melodic wit that has never really left him. Songs like "Do Not Resuscitate" or "Back In The Hole" will make you wonder if there are too many living artists who are able to wring freshness and charm out of the simplest guitar progressions. Andrew Marr and Bobby Gillespie are famous guests here, but I am especially impressed by the contributions from Fontaines DC's Carlo O'Connell who cowrote three songs and added this beautiful sinister edge to "Kill A Franco Spy" and the aforementioned "All That Time".
But I guess there is no reason to namecheck every song (see the short version of this review). The point is, Peter Perrett has released his quintessential album after 50 years of recording music. Consistent, tuneful, beautifully arranged. And, sadly, it might be his last (as the man himself has hinted on a few occasions). Lyrics of songs like "I Wanna Go With Dignity" certainly point in that direction.
Next year, he will be doing his brief tour in Europe, and the very last concert will be played at the start of March in Madrid. Sometimes the sheer symbolism of life becomes overwhelming, and I do not think it took me longer than a few seconds to realise that I simply have to be there. Some things just come full circle. The best things in life, perhaps. 'I'll go anywhere if it gets me home', indeed.
