Review Summary: Returning the Siren's calls
The Opiates - Revised is the discovery of an ancient treasure; an artifact priceless in value and beauty reemerged from the dark abyss’ of the water. The Opiates began as a 6 year project between the members of alternative rock band, Anywhen, who pushed their creative limits to forge a magnum opus that would cement their legacy in alt-rock history. It would be this painstaking process that would end the band, however. Creative differences between vocalist Thomas Feiner and Anywhen’s remaining members would to the latter’s abrupt departure. Alone - Thomas Feiner would spend the next three years writing and recording the album by himself. In Feiner’s recollection it was a process that was filled with tension and discomfort, a journey of endless nights recording in isolation which ended with him as a nervous wreck.
The Opiates was released under the Anywhen name with depressingly desolate fanfare in 2001. With nothing left to lose, Thomas Feiner called it quits and abandoned the music scene to return to a normal life. It would be seven years later when musician and label owner David Sylvian came across The Opiates by chance; entranced by the contents of the record, he would personally track Thomas Feiner down to his workplace with the sole intention of remastering and re-releasing the record.
The Opiates drifts across a sea of anxious energy, sleepless nights, and depressive isolation constantly clashing with a gentleman’s baritone reserve. Much like the album’s opener, The Siren Songs, this record feels like the underwater descent into madness.
The album opens with the anxious sweep of strings, their delicate and innocent nature shatters in the impact of a slowly moving drumbeat and Thomas Feiner’s gruff voice droning over the words of vivid heartache illustrations.
Scars and Glasses expands the soundscape with a sparse piano arrangement and quietly inserted synths that elevate Feiner’s shaky falsetto into sublime beauty. Quietly he draws out the empty-ringing cries of longing for others beneath haunting piano outros. As Feiner's descent into the drowning waters of the siren's song continues the album finds itself exploring darker corners of his mind.
Its Feiner’s beaten frame that truly sets The Opiates apart as a classic. The sophistication of the supreme orchestral melodies featured on the album breathe layers of tightly woven personality into Feiner’s honest insecurity. They move about as an individual character in The Opiates story, animating the often dead-waters of Feiner’s psyche.
Yonderhead bites aggressively with an eight minute long assault of heavy pounding drums and repeatedly churning strings, crushing under the weight of Feiner's heaved mumbles. The orchestral arrangements bounce in reserve, careful to approach Feiner’s bitter display.
Mesmerene is quieter, Feiner is alone with a guitar and a small whistling synth at the beginning; as if abandoned by the orchestra that was exploding in the climax before it.
It’s pathetically fitting, as it alludes to the anger that Feiner feels as he calls out his desires to have control over powers beyond his stretch. This track introduces more elements as it progresses, drums pound softly while odd chanting begins to gradually build in the background. Feiner’s vocals grow louder and more desperate, buckling under pressure as he again repeats the lines of “If I could do more than hold you/If I could do more than watch your tears” as the backing vocals overpower the track.
For Now and
Betty Caine catch Feiner at his absolute vulnerable. Here production is quiet. The glamorous orchestra that was present beforehand is now completely absent. While
For Now passes itself off as a sophisticated late-night club piece with the slight flavoring of a skip beat drum and a daunting saxophone with minor hints of cracking, Feiner loses all reserve on
Betty Caine.
Betty Caine is haunting, all that remains is a piano that crawls painfully across the plains of Feiner’s desolate, whispery vocals. The lyrics recite the story of a woman “in hiding” while the imagery is thick, it doesn’t take a genius to pick up on Feiner’s absolute devastation. It's a moment in the record where the silence propels Feiner from out of the water and elevates him into the sky in sheer power. The closing track,
All That Numbs You is a sarcastic and bittersweet send-off that carries an introspective narrative for the drag of life numbing like opiates. It's a beautiful closer with soft instrumentation that concludes the album on a somber, if morbidly uplifting, closing note.
The Opiates is a haunting exploration beneath the waves of Feiner’s psyche. A product of years of frustration bleeding into musical perfection. There is no greater shame knowing that The Opiates is a record that will never see itself among the ranks of other singer/songwriter classics where it so painfully screams to belong. The Opiates is a treasure and one that is ever plentiful to those who take the time to sit down and listen to Feiner vent in the most beautiful of ways possible: Through the orchestration of a pained, modern classic.
