Scott Walker - The Drift

Genre rock Publisher 4AD External Links Official Scott Walker Website Official 4AD Website

To start, a confession: I have never listened to Scott Walker before. Oh sure, I know of him. I could reel off a list of details, from his heart-throb status as one of The Walker Brothers, his more ambitious solo career, his reclusive nature, the length of time from his previous album, Tilt, and this one (eleven years), or many other little snippets of information. But I've never listened to any of his records. Now, I could have rectified this by putting myself through a crash-course on Walker, but instead, I decided to come to The Drift an innocent.

A confession, part 2: I don't particularly like this record.

An explanation, but rewritten to make sense: which isn't to say that it isn't brilliant. I don't need to go any further than "Clara" to discover that; in a moment that will live in musical infamy, Vanessa Contenay-Quinones sings Clara's lament? Lines? Soliloquy? Each description roughly fits, but like that annoying jigsaw piece, not enough to be the correct one. As she sings, percussion plays in the background. Generated by beating into a side of pork. A side of pork.

Genius. Madness. A bit of a giggle. As serious as radium poisoning.

"I'm the only one left alive"

That'd be Elvis singing about his stillborn twin, Jesse, and dreaming of 9/11. You laugh. Actually listening to "Jesse," however, is a different story. It may not make any more sense, but the sense of horror embedded into the song is inescapable; an iceberg of despair, thawing out and leaking into the wider world, a black hand of shadow reaching out of the speakers.

A confession, part 3: this is an album that leads itself to paragraphs like the above.

A thought, in an idle fashion: how can you review an album that wants to inspire revulsion? Well, I'm revolted, so it's doing its job. Four stars. Or perhaps three.

A question from the audience, possibly delivered in an exasperated tone: "Yes, but what does it sound like?" I couldn't possibly comment. Oh, if you insist. Like a long-serving frigate being brought into an Indian shipyard and torn apart with acetylene torches. At times. As the Voice of Fate, Walker delivers his vocals in a manner so mannered that it goes beyond manners themselves. Perhaps he's being rude. Or just too angry and filled with bile to be anything else.

"Does that satisfy you?" The retort from a smug reviewer, lying back in his chair. "Not really," comes the response. "But thanks for trying."

A confession, part 4: I'm scared to listen to this album at night. The noise in the background of "Hand Me Ups" sounds like footsteps. Footsteps with an insidious intent that will do much more than leave you sprawling on a pin. Footsteps of death. Of decay. Of "Buzzers," the next track, with its refrain of "Polish the fork/And the fork in him." A horror that creeps, pounces, and devours.

A moment in time (from "The Escape"): it even makes Donald Duck sound like the apocalypse.

Words of parting: "This is a waltz for a dodo."

Words of parting, part 2: Well, Walker says it, not me. I, being the reviewer, would use this last paragraph to sum up the review, to affirm my recommendation or dismissal, and leave you on your merry way. The Drift defies that. It is, unquestionably, a work of genius. But you might hate it. I hate it. But yet, I keep listening to it, finding new fractal layers of depth. Again, and again.