Imagine yourself waiting for 8 years a new album by a band you've always considered above many and many others who have always received the global praise they never did; imagine yourself at a certain point throught this space of time wandering (resigned?) if maybe you don't have to consider them "formers" since the prolongued silence from their camp, and then, one day, after already you've been warned about its plenary pomp by the person you trust the most, you bump into the magic sparkling of the well named Crystal comeback single: so brilliantly made, spinning, a showl of beauty put over your shoulders touching your heart, and blame me if I didn't start to drip out of my mouth, impatiently asking for more.

This is the helluva of an answer, it's called "Get Ready", and it comes hissing like the sound of a meteoritis destined to impact your world, in every inch as good as a kiss from a gorgeous witch.
Hindsight, acknowledging how good this record is, you can just blame yourself for having lost the patience while Sumner was joking around with Electronic and Hook was caught into his trips, but ehy!.. 8 years are many, and so let's just thank God they're back and gazillions of times better than they were at Republic times.

The ingredients still all there: a music which doesn't think synth -pop is a bible (like all do nowadays, messing everything for the will to be trendy and adding electronic anywhere, mostly where is not requested at all..), but knowing exactly which effects a skilful injection of drums machines and keyboards can add to a guitar song. Then NO have those lyrics still, so simple and so truthful, so shocking cos you could think all can have them into. It's just that they say them using the right kind of melody for them.
It's not easy at all, and "You shock me to core" one can say, imitating what they sing in Crystal.

Not many tricks.. it's all about being honest and have lived many things in your life. From there comes the wisdom and the bravery to tell it like it is, from that experience you escape the risk to sound banal with words many have sung before you.. but not quite in the same way NO do.
And the words in Get Ready talk mainly about just one thing: PASSION.
Passion shaped within every aspect of life, love, relationships; passion about trying to be real and accepting the mistakes you've made, and the chances arose from the ongoing mystery which is everyone's existence; passion about the soul you've got, and the downs and the highness you feel through it.

In this raucous, scalding, fierce celebration of life, one subject is always in the middle, the crystal gaze which makes everyone feels dumbfounded sometimes, but Bernard sees the transparent magic of it: "Here comes love, it's like honey, you can't buy it with money"
So just shake with it, let yourself dance the force of it while perceiving Crystal breaks your internal walls and make you willing and looking for someone.
The one you have, the one you could have, like thunderbolts in a dark sky, Crystal enlightens your mind.
There's no the melancholy of Joy Division here, though you can recognize an hint of them places itself between an intro or a bridge, but you escapes melancholy, the groove always makes you arise and run.

The second track, "60 Miles An Hour" could suggest you just one thing: to get straight to your lover, and be with him/ her for about the whole day: "I'll be there for you and you want me to, I'll stand by your side like I always do, in the day and night it'll be alright, cos I'll be there for you and you want me to".
Rock with poppy feeling at its best , with a flattering chorus, and that guitar line sticking in your head, and it's only energy, energy, energy which pumps the power of yourself gets in the stratosphere, and an insane, joyous optimism about the day you could live conquers all your spirit.

But it's at track number 3 that you absolutely will be sure you've bought a treasure in notes.
You hear the silky, dump-sharpened voice of Billy Corgan over the vanishing halo of gentle music at the beginning, so twisting and melting with the rhythm of your breathing and his, and you suddenly 1) miss the Smashing Pumpkins like you never did before and 2) you bless NO for their choice for a collaboration.
And the song has practically yet to start!
Horns and beats of ancient dreams put in the background, then the guitar comes and so the awesome lyrics are spread... and only the kind of voice Corgan has got can make the song be tearful and at once sexy and arrogant too.
"Take my hand, don't tell you go, trust this man, the love it floats
Don't take me down, cos I'm not done,
Don't steal my crown..."
And the main point, the whole song is like a 2001 years My Way of Sinatra
"I don't wanna be like other people are, don't wanna own a key, don't wanna wash my car"
These men know they are destined to something else, and you fly with them , and their self consciousness becomes yours as well:
"Don't wanna run like other people do,
I wanted to be free, I wanted to be true"...
Oh my, what a splendid track... And I repeat, it's Billy's voice giving exactly that ultimate touch for making it a masterpiece, his voice like a demon in search of a place in the above sky, the seductive anguish of those who sees more than normal people do, and who knows this implies suffering and awareness at the same time.
The outro, after such a declaration, it's the thoughtful "I thought that I was right", so stabbing, so to start, you feel pushed back by the weight of your proud and will, and still.. you stand up for everything you said, cos the music keep on shaking.

After this, an hymn about making love.
It starts like a delicate intriguing caress, it's tempting, tipping like a fixed idea in your mind, and other instruments come (while you are starting to think that's an instrumental song), the tumbling keyboards, the guitars, it's the game of love which starts, then it stops, like you need to take breath hold, just like when you watch the object of your desire be at one millimeter from you, waiting for that moment to come, and so, all music grooves back again, and suddenly the words arrive too: "I feel like I am on fire, if you only knew the chilling out from desire"
It's the perfect song for a hot kind of night... remember the advice, it'll work...
"I keep hangin on, I keep hangin on.." he sings constantly, and over the waves created by the riffs, you see yourself rolling over whatever kind of surface rubbing and connecting to the lover you want, and whose feeling the same fire you do.
The music is definitely like an heartbeat, that fastened fluid one you have while making love, it's like you can sweat and shiver over this song, and still, the guitar and the bass line can be seen as romantic too, sometimes almost humbly remissive and tender, so that when everything stops before the drumbeats come again, you think "It's they wanted to create a space for let lovers scream during the song?"
The doubt, well.... could be really near to the answer.

But if you think you can rest, well, you're out of reality: Primitive Notion won't let you relax at all.
With a powerful intro, moody and cheeky, you feel like you're at a petrol pump station getting loaded before a master journey into mystery and perils.
You'll feel like these are the grunge-y NO, and you'll love this shimmering dusty haze the song gives you.
The lyrics are like the voice of the bold, naive, pure kid who still live in the core of you, and personally they are my favorites.
The guitars in this record are then so greatly cackling and amazingly bustling you feel fulfilled of good vibes immediately.

Slow Jam is probably not reaching the gilt greatness of the previous, but it's optimum pop anyway, the kind one can always dig, and the kind you can sing over, while the hooky bass line will put you on a floor and glide a bit and then a bit more.. and more.. ehy! You'll dance over this , you already are. "Well this has to be a life, not just as a survive, just give me one more wish, I can't get enough of this"
It's not the deepness and the mystic vision of True Faith, let's admit, but it can work.

Actually, the only song which COULD disappoint its the 7th, Rock the Shack. But this if you starts from the assumption that hosting there Bobbie Gillespie, you should automatically obtain a mixing between Primal Scream and New Orders skills, creating the absolute.
Well, you wont, but the result still acceptable thought not groundbreaking at all..
The risk youre gonna find anyway RTS nave and not any evocative still, and easily youll start to guessing Ah, if only they had made this more like this, or more like that talking about making a song as its about making a clay composition; in that case, RTS will be the only moment youll be let down by this record. And it still a nice song, what a bad destiny in a similar sparkling companionship!
You should remember that you can create just ONE Low Life in your career, the rest, can come near to perfection as Get Ready does, but never join it again.

In Someone Like You, there are these mellowing trickling bits and you think with Spiritualizeds quoting Ladies and Gentleman, were floating in the Space, just that you will run more than float.
Listen to this, and youre gonna understand what I mean with the intelligent use of electronic: every synth addiction has got an aim, its not for being trendy, its for suggesting a certain mood and not another one, its for letting you fly in the reconciling shadow of stars-holed sky, and its useful to make a song which speaks about being in love sound fresh and intense, without the typical violins. When youll hear that unusual chorus which stretches itself and almost loses itself in a forest of whoo-hoo-hoo-hos, youre going to paint images in the background of your head, and the thin mesmerizing colors of those figures are gonna be suggested by the electro bits.
Come people, come and twist in this indulging atmosphere of shivers.

Close Range prepares you to the end like youre taking a ride, and run and jump letting all obstacles stay behind you:
I wanna scream, I wanna shout, I wanna know whats all about
Its amazing a man whos 40 and more still feel so.
This curiosity, this hunger for life has to be praised. NO sound alive cos they have a spirit which is so. This song is pure 80s style and it spontaneously speaks about being able to face who we are, with a positive sight: Youve got to pour yourself man, youve got the world right in your hand
Nostalgia maybe, cos its all sounding so like 20 years ago in this song, but its a good type of it, we lack too much of great songs these days, that even an old fashioned 80s track can surprise and please.

And when you were thinking nothing could have surprised you more.. the last song: an ACOUSTIC, practically folk number, the adorable and simple Run Wild
The heating sound, becomes like tears and smiles melted when the harmonica comes and swiftly kisses you, all memories are in you then, while Bernard sings Youre the kind of person that everyone wants to be with
This song, with THIS sentence if you wont love it you have no ears at all.
You cant resist to thisThis is the most unexpected and yet appropriate closure for a record which has to go straight away to the stardom.
It teaches us all that a band can disappear for an eternity and coming back stronger than ever, with the best material Depeche Mode werent able to offer to us (and I am so disappointed .) with Exciter.
Well, Get Ready its about one millions ties more exciting than Exciter. And way better than any record in the past four months.

Or more?
Get ready, get inspired, and get out. Buy it.
You will never regret the money, its a promise.

Rating: 4,5 on 5

gallimel