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Music > Reviews > Antony and the Johnsons  Photo by Don Felix Cervantes Antony and the JohnsonsThe Crying Light(Secretly Canadian) US release date: 20 January 2009 UK release date: 19 January 2009 By Chris GaerigAntony Hegarty has made a career of sounding hyper-emotive. Having one of the most immediately recognizable voices in the current musical landscape, his gentle croons are accented by seemingly inherent vibrato, and accompanied by soft, minimal percussion and epic strings. Antony and the Johnsons’ breakout 2005 release I Am a Bird Now showcased a perfect balance between Antony’s outward insecurities and the employment of his voice as a near-animatronic, androgynous instrument. The record’s stand-out single “Hope There’s Someone” is a crescendoing piece in which Antony wears his heart on his sleeve, displaying his fears of death, loneliness, and eternity. The Crying Light fails in the same place that its predecessor was so successful. Rather than Antony openly sharing his many insecurities, using his voice as a blue chip, The Crying Light bluffs, showcasing Antony’s voice and not what made it so affecting on the group’s prior releases. This is never more apparent than listening to the increasingly sparse musical backing throughout the disc. While I Am a Bird Now features his voice in the forefront of almost all songs, frequently the group would rely on the sea change of strings to accent his cries. But The Crying Light strands Antony on an island, calling on him to pull all of the weight. Look no further than “One Dove”, a song that has almost no instrumental backing. For a majority of the track, the only accompaniment is a softly hammered piano and brushed percussion. Meanwhile, Antony’s somewhat cryptic verses (“One dove, I’m the one you’ve been waiting for / From your skin I am born again / I wasn’t born yesterday”) fail to take hold the way his more literal work does. It comes to light, then, that it’s Antony’s literal lyrics that make him so emotionally touching, not his voice itself. Antony is only truly affecting when he reveals his human weaknesses—his robotic, alien voice makes it almost impossible to connect to the performer. Even when Antony digs deep and gives insight into his life on The Crying Light, it doesn’t seem quite as powerful. “Her Eyes are Underneath the Ground”, for example, is a song that paints Antony strolling through a garden with his mother and reflecting on nameless people who he’s lost. But when he sings, “In the garden / With my mother I / Stole a flower” you fail to hear any of the pain that he’s trying to convey—as well as being confused about what he’s trying to convey in the first place—primarily focusing on the imagery rather than his pain. The problems on The Crying Light are epitomized on “Dust and Water”, a song that sounds like Sigur Rós covering “The Circle of Life”. Interspersed between sonic gibberish are meaningless lines like “Did you think I’d leave you here forever?”. Without a tangible reference, these lines blend into the nonsense Antony sings throughout the rest of the track. “Dust and Water” ultimately shows the thematic and sonic shift from I Am a Bird Now to The Crying Light, the stripping of Antony’s emotional struggles and insecurities in an attempt to foreground his voice. Antony is at his best when he sounds at his emotional weakest. On I Am a Bird Now, he sounded almost childlike; in fear of things he had no control over, looking for answers that he’ll never find. And though The Crying Light doesn’t offer any retribution or solutions, Antony seems somehow more confident and understanding of his position in the world and afterlife. Without the humanizing aspect of his fragility, he seems increasingly robotic and difficult to connect with. The Crying Light is a record that effectively changes Antony’s character and makes him a difficult entity to relate to, forcing him more into the realm of animatronics than human existence. — 22 January 2009
Antony and the Johnsons - Interview about The Crying Light 
 Related ArticlesAntony and the JohnsonsBy Thomas Hauner10.Nov.08 Much like the vocal beauty yet visible pain of the castrati struck Renaissance opera goers, Antony’s physical presence and tormenting lyrics augment the simple ethereal beauty that enraptures his fans. |
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Comments
I’m just gonna have to flat out disagree. I think you’ve written a really nice review here, and the central complaint, that this one doesn’t connect emotionally, just doesn’t work for me. I’m totally bowled over by this thing. I don’t know if I could make sense of this record intellectually yet, but it’s sent me into the deepest emotional waters that anything has in a long time.
I pretty much agree with your take on the direction this one has gone since Antony’s earlier work (what I’ve heard of it…I’ve been kinda aware of him for a while, but I’ve just recently sat up and taken notice), but where you see detachment and incoherence, I see a remarkable sense of abstraction and depth that very, very few popular works of art have ever achieved. That’s not to say you’re wrong, especially since my response is a kind of mirror to yours. I wonder if you let this one sit and went back to it if might connect at some point? I dunno. It’s the first shockingly amazing record I’ve heard in quite a while.
I’m oddly reminded of two articles Lester Bangs wrote about mid 70’s Miles Davis. The first one complained that Miles had gotten cold and nihilistic, and the second one (written years later) was a reversal that claimed that the music was fascinating and cathartic in its cynical aggression (or something like that). I think our diverse responses to this record kinda work like that. I’m pretty must with you in terms of the description of the thing, but it flipped my switch and didn’t flip yours. Oh well.
Comment by Jamie — January 22, 2009 @ 1:12 am
An emotional, sonically delicate album like this and you’re hung up on a few lyrics that didn’t make sense? Where did you get your critic license?
Comment by Chris — January 22, 2009 @ 11:26 am
I love all of Antony’s previous work, but this album comes off a little flat and uninspired while his recent Another World ep was just awful. When every other critic seems to be stumbling all over themselves to give him accolades and lofty pronouncements, thanks for having the guts to be honest!
Comment by G. Dubberbuntz from Tennessee — January 23, 2009 @ 11:18 pm
“forcing him more into the realm of animatronics than human existence.”
perhas you need to listen to it again. waste of a review here really - person who reviews this needs to have an open mind.
Comment by emily — January 24, 2009 @ 9:49 am
To call the lyrics you did meaningless demonstrates how meaningless this review is. Did you even try and understand what they mean?! They are certainly not gibberish, I think they are more universal but that that’s something frowned upon today in the musical world where everything needs to be witty and specific.
Comment by Todd from Australia — January 24, 2009 @ 10:10 am
You do not know what you are talking about. Go die.
Comment by Waylon — January 26, 2009 @ 12:06 pm
The reviewer certainly did not manage to put his biases aside. While Antony’s music is not without problems, a “robotic, alien voice” is not one of them. Regardless of the lyrical contact, his singing is always emotional, in the tradition of, say, Nina Simone. Sheryl Crow fans will probably not find much to love there, but denying the soulfulness of Antony’s amazing, etheral vocal is simply absurd.
Comment by Lav — January 26, 2009 @ 2:12 pm
As a fellow PopMatters critic, I’ll say that I also disagreed with the review. I thought this album was an unparalleled work of subtle, sublime beauty. I like it more and more every time I hear it.
However, Gaerig wasn’t wrong in this review. He called it like he saw it. He’s not a bad critic and he certainly doesn’t deserve to die for writing a review you didn’t agree with. You’ve got issues, Waylon.
Comment by Alan Ranta from Vancouver, BC — January 27, 2009 @ 10:06 am
This cd was amazing. Obviously you need to listen to it again. Everywhere else this has received positive reviews.
Comment by Jade from Canada — January 30, 2009 @ 7:28 pm
People are friggin allowed to have their own opinions
Comment by Thomas from Austra;oa — February 4, 2009 @ 4:19 am
Obviously you only like POP music
Comment by dylan hacking from AUstralia — February 14, 2009 @ 9:50 pm