Listening to
The Ape of Naples
is a bittersweet experience. As the last album recorded during
John Balance
's lifetime, it serves as a final statement and summation of the band's multi-faceted career.
Naples
is much more of a "classic"-sounding
Coil
album (in the vein of
Love's Secret Domain
and
Musick to Play in the Dark, Vol. 1
) than more recent outings (such as
ANS
,
Constant Shallowness Leads to Evil
, or
Astral Disaster
).
Ape
is made up of recording sessions that date back to the mid-'90s, recordings done for
Trent Reznor
's
nothing
label, and more recent works that were still getting worked out in a live environment (
"Triple Sun,"
"Tattooed Man"
Balance
Peter Christopherson
are joined by the likes of
Danny Hyde
Thighpaulsandra
Ossian Brown
Cliff Stapleton
, and
Mike Yorke
, depending on the track. Which would lead one to the assumption that the album would sound disjointed, with a rotating cast of characters involved. The magic of
is that the album flows as smoothly as it does, not as if it were pieced together over the years and with different collaborators. The focus of the album seems to be (perhaps consciously, perhaps not) on
's beautiful and expressive voice. All tracks feature his vocals, notably the industro-goth of
"Heaven's Blade,"
the twisted circus atmospheres of
"Tattooed Man,"
and quite possibly the saddest song
ever recorded, a cover of
BBC
favorite
Are You Being Served
's theme song,
"Going Up."
This last is a highlight in the
catalog, with
duetting with
Francois Testroy
, telling the listener that "it just is." The painful acceptance of this line encapsulates the experience of the album --
is gone, we must move on and continue.
is one of
's best albums and one of the best albums of 2005. ~ James Mason