The Legendary Pink Dots, Seconds Late For The Brighton Line

By Hanna

Seconds Late For The Brighton Line is called the Legendary Pink Dots‘ 30th anniversary album, and while I can’t find anything specifically 30th anniversary about it, it does fit that title to some extent.

The album is not an overview of all their styles; in fact, it has a rather specific style, especially for an LPD album, but in other ways, it is extremely typical and in some ways, familiar. This is helped by the the fact that several of the songs were premiered during the band’s 30th anniversary tour. “Hauptbahnhof 20:10” and “Russian Roulette” were both very impressive live, and do not sound much different on the album.

The band’s last album, Plutonium Blonde, worked with wry humor and a contrast between dreamy pastoral music and alienating electronic music. Seconds Late For The Brighton Line is more straightforward in this respect, and more unified.

It has a minimalist feel, the result of an ambient approach to industrial music. The album plays a great deal with the sounds of machinery and the outside world, letting them fade into the music like background noise and then slowly take over. Natural life is present as a mechanism, working in cycles like a clock with hearts plodding away. Time is always a great theme in the Legendary Pink Dots albums, mostly as a mystic force, but here it has become menacing.

“Russian Roulette” lists numbers like a countdown or a nursery rhyme. “You thought you counted,” it taunts, although the tension in the music is strangely comforting in how it affirms a feeling of being alive.

“Endless Time” has a rhythm like a pendulum clock and talks of being left behind by time and the futility of human efforts, as though people were crushed between its cogs like Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times. But it also affirms the existence of beauty and new secrets.

Musically, “Leap of Faith” and “Radiation Day” both focus on the minor noise effects of discord to create an atmosphere of unrest. Sounding more or less alike, they deal with alienation and a desire to flee but feeling unable to.

“God and Machines” is on a more sublime level, using grand, reverberating noises to create an effect rather like the music of the spheres, if the spheres were rusted up and not functioning properly. The heaven it talks of is also malfunctioning, disused, and useless.

“No Star Too Far” is more techno-sounding and continues the theme of futurism and the ultimate futility of idealism, but instead of using belief in a spiritual world it talks about moral imperialism.

Again dealing with disappointed expectations, “Someday” is the only song on Seconds Late that has the wry cynical style which characterized Plutonium Blonde. The skipping effects on it reminded me too much of Momus albums of the last decade, though, so I can’t listen to it much.

“Hauptbahnhof 20:10” is grotesque, full of ribald and paethetic imagery which relates the tale of a homeless man outside the station who dies. It is very natural sounding yet obviously mechanical, with whirring sounds like insects fluttering by and a reflection of the muzak of the lyrics in the music itself.

“Ascension,” in a natural continuation of the previous track, sounds like a train speeding forward, providing a nice touch of hope at the end.

Seconds Late For The Brighton Line is a gorgeous and reflective album, and one that addresses many relevant themes now that a lot of countries in Europe are focusing on trying to go back in time, or are talking of time running out. Things seem to be thought of rather than people, and the almost Dadaist tone of mechanical life in this album is more political than it even states outright.

And still more important is the sound of a band reflecting not on its past, but on on itself and its own future.

Seconds Late For The Brighton Line was released on October 5 via ROIR. You can stream tracks and order the album from the ROIR website. Please check out the band’s website for newsletters and other information.

Legendary Pink Dots 30th Anniversary Tour Dates:
Fri Oct 15 – Biltmore, Vancouver, BC
Sat Oct 16 – El Corazon, Seattle, WA
Mon Oct 18 – Club Sound, Salt Lake City, UT
Tue Oct 19 – Gothic Theater, Englewood, CO
Thur Oct 21 – Triple Rock, Minneapolis, MN
Fri Oct 22 – Double Door, Chicago, IL
Sat Oct 23 – Rumba Café, Columbus, OH
Sun Oct 24 – Grog Shop, Cleveland, OH
Mon Oct 25 – Magic Stick, Detroit, MI
Tue Oct 26 – The Mod Club, Toronto, ON
Thur Oct 28 – Middle East Upstairs, Cambridge, MA
Fri Oct 29 – Le Poisson Rouge, New York, NY
Sat Oct 30 – DC9, Washington, DC
Mon Nov 1 – M Room, Philadelphia, PA
Tue Nov 2 – Thunderbird Café, Pittsburgh, PA
Wed Nov 3 – Local 506, Chapel Hill, NC
Thur Nov 4 – The Masquerade, Atlanta, GA
Fri Nov 5 – The Plaza Theatre, Orlando, FL
Sat Nov 6 – Orpheum, Tampa, FL
Tue Nov 9 – House of Blues Dallas, Dallas, TX
Wed Nov 10 – Elyslum, Austin, TX
Sun Nov 14 – The Rhythm Room, Scottsdale, AZ
Mon Nov 15 – The Casbah, San Diego, CA
Tue Nov 16 – Echoplex, Echo Park, CA
Wed Nov 17 – Sainte Rocke, Hermosa Beach, CA
Thur Nov 18 – The Detroit Bar, Costa Mesa, CA
Fri Nov 19 – Café Du Nord, San Francisco, CA
Sat Nov 20 – Café Du Nord, San Francisco, CA
Mon Nov 22 – Doug Fir Lounge, Portland, OR