Virgin Prunes - Heresie

A double ten-inch released in 1982, built around the concept of presenting a work about madness, and divided in two parts: the first part recorded in studio, the second part documenting a live performance. The live performance is negligible. It's not bad, but it's nothing to write home about either, and hardly helped by the muddy sound. The truth is that very few live albums work, and this is no exception, despite menacing versions of "Caucasian Walk", "Theme For Thought" and "Come To Daddy". Apart from the vocals, the other protagonist is the hellish guitar distortions of Dik.

The studio part is more interesting. It starts with the nursery rhyme "We Love Deirdre", which is part insanity and part childish. The masterpiece here is clearly "Rhetoric", which is also one of the masterpieces of rock-music in general. This is one of the blackest amongst the black-masses of rock-music. An epic composition that combines the factory distortions of the industrial age, the symphonic storm of the magniloquent Wagnerian element, and the delirious pagan folk-dance of the Maenads which still lies dormant in the collective subconscious.It's for this track alone that Heresie is a major work. It's this track that will be the lasting legacy of the Virgin Prunes, in a career full of deformed masterpieces.

After such a devastating track, cartoonish ditties such as "Down The Memory Lane" and brief vignettes such as "Nisam Lo" sound disappointing, though "Loved One" hints towards the charisma of If I Die I Die. In short, this should've been a single. "Rhetoric" backed with "Loved One".

Review by Thom Jurek

The Virgin Prunes Hérésie was originally issued as a beautifully boxed and packaged double-10" EP on the Invitation to Suicide label from France. The label commissioned the band to create a work around the concept of insanity. The box also contained five booklets. It was released just before the band's proper debut album, If I Die, I Die. Disc one is a studio outing, consisting of seven songs. The five-song second disc documented one of the band's live performances in Paris. Herein is the disillusioned aftermath of glam and punk, as the serpent of Goth eats its own tail. What's left is an unfocused preoccupation with industrial's dynamics, childish melodies and post-punk theatricality. The music here is weird, loose, rumbling and rambling. It lurches rather than flows, it stumbles and falls continually, getting up more wrecked and determined to continue. "Loved One" embodies all the contradictions perfectly with ambient sound swirling in the fore and backgrounds, as an overloaded bass, a drum machine, Dik's squalling guitars and tribal drumming create a wall of pain for Gavin Friday and Guggi to rant and roll over. Less than five minutes in length, it is an alarming freak show of a tune, and one that resonates long after disc one ends. The live disc is a spot-on, lean and mean set that contains a fine version of the band's "Pagan Lovesong" single as well as "Caucasian Walk" and "Walls of Jericho" from If I Die, I Die, and closes with "Come to Daddy" from the New Form of Beauty project.

Ripped to MP3

1 - We Love Deirdre

2 - Rhetoric

3 - Down the Memory Lane

4 - Man on the Corner

5 - Nisam Lo

6 - Loved One

7 - Go 'T' Away Deirdre

8 - Caucasian Walk

9 - Walls of Jericho

10 - Pagan Lovesong

11 - Theme for Thought

12 - Come to Daddy