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Levinhurst – Perfect Life

Levinhurst - Perfect Life

CD, Full Contact, 2004
www.levinhurst.com

Life cannot be perfect, but sometimes we can achieve that extreme state of grace where we find, for a second, that everything is correct. It was a very good surprise when I started to listen to Levinhurst’s “Perfect Life”. Is this real? What a breath of fresh air is this? Thought not perfect, the subtle sadness of the sounds and emotions implied on the songs touched me. Romantic and nostalgic. Pure, sad and sometimes cruel, like a Henry Miller book or an old Leonard Cohen song. But it wouldn’t be such a surprise if I had previously known that Levinhurst is a project of Lol Tolhurst, Cindy Levinson and Dayton Borders. Still no clue for you? What if I told you that Laurence Lol Tolhurst is one of The Cure founders? Until he left the band, just before the release of “Disintegration” in 1989, he was responsible for co-writing some of their greatest hits and for the echoing and powerful drums that enchanted us from “Three Imaginary Boys” to the twisted and dark landscape of “Pornography”. Ah! Then things start to make sense. Don’t they?
Released on March 23 of 2004, by Full Contact, “Perfect Life” is the first album of this promising project. Quite apart from The Cure’s dark, bizarre and oppressive ambiences that characterized the band while Tolhurst played as their drummer, Levinhurst is full of nostalgia and sadness but, somewhere, hope also can be found. Lost but real.
On the 11 tracks of this album we can find retro-electro dreamscapes of searches, failures and hopes. The irony of life seen from inside. Slices of moments and emotions that could be your own. As in the own words of Tolhurst in a interview to Virgin Megamagazine: “The lyrics are definitely a condensed version of the last ten years. And you know, I think it’s… but as you evolve as a person, in your life you start to think about different things!”
In conclusion, a very good, almost excellent, debut album, with clear references to synthpop nostalgia of the 80’s combined, in a strictly “stirred, not shaken” fashion, with the sad consciousness of the reality and industrial claustrophobic oppressions of 90’s trip-hop.
Let’s see what comes next. The promise is good but, as we all know, life is not always perfect.

[8/10]

— Pedro Vieira

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