At the end of a band’s life span one often sees their most beloved and favorited artists become out of touch and lacking in output. Coil surprisingly kept their weirdness up to date though.
Rooted in magic and mysticism the duo was always having new and unusual aspects of spirituality influence their music. It kept it interesting to listen to as a fan and always refreshing to come back to. Whether it was the harshness on more experimental albums or the 80’s pop infused songs off of their first few records, they always had their own unique sound. They even brought it into their live performances and created theatrical costumes and dances to go along with the music. As for their last release though, it was a little different.
The Ape of Naples came after the death of Jhonn Balance (one half of the duo) released by Peter Christopherson (the other half) in 2005. It compiled songs they had been performing live and working on in the early 2000s. Now that the stage has been set for the album, I can better detail my experience with it. In full honesty, I don’t believe it to be the holy grail of Coil albums that a lot of fans believe it to be. I find it far too random and off the walls. Even for Coil the themes are varying and hard to find for a lot of songs. Tracks like ‘Tattooed Man’ are easy to swallow and understandable while still creating an interesting atmosphere on xylophones.
Note the signature costume he wore
Instrumentally, the album is by far the best of Coil’s efforts. Leaning a little further from the more synthesizer based songs they did in the 90s it has more acoustic instruments. Specifically the xylophone, as mentioned before, was used a lot by Christopherson, the main producer of the group, in live settings and on the album. In live concerts Christopherson would try to shroud himself in darkness and long costumes to make Balance the center of focus. Furthermore on the instrumental side, I find these sounds on the xylophone make the album come together as a whole while still clearly being a compilation. The compiled style of the album is still fairly clear and an avid Coil listener can tell the difference between the songs that were started many years prior and ones made in the last few days of the band.
The separation is clear when you hear ‘Heavens Blade’ or ‘I Don’t Get It’ and then ‘Cold Cell’ or ‘Teenage Lightning’. The first two are much more electronic and the vocals are lost in effects and warbled tuning while the latter two songs are featuring acoustic instruments and have passages sung in a soft voice by Balance. Personally, my appreciation from the album definitely stems from Christopherson’s work on production. Although he claimed it was really Balance’s album, I truly believe the work he did on the back end was more impressive. It stands out so much to me in electronic music and paved way for a lot of future bands that took clear resemblance to a lot of their early 2000s work.
Peter Christopherson is once again shrouded in a large costume piece and you can see and hear the signature xylophone
After all is said and done though, this is still an impressive album. Passages are always interesting and keeping your attention with either a looped phrase liked “I swallowed the ones you buried” or a cool xylophone solo for a few minutes by Peter Christopherson. It’s hard to even critique Coil because they do as they please. They make art and use visuals and make it so much more than music. True creatives is what they are. If you enjoy electronic music, give it a try!
Sound Check Chuck 