Search - Antony and the Johnsons :: The Crying Light

Joshua B. (littleborge) from ATHENS, GA
Reviewed on 10/17/2022...

This is the most punk album of all time. Now, when I say this album is "punk" you might be thinking "Well now, I think Dookie is the punkest album of my lifetime. Or Maybe Enema of the State." To which I say that you need to reorient what makes something punk. Merriam Webster defines punk as "doing the thing that is not cool or popular." That might not be true, I didn't actually get out the dictionary but if you hung out at a skate park listening to Rancid as a kid you probably thought you were super punk. YOU WEREN'T!!! You were a dude-bro and you just didn't know it. Antony was living somewhere like Tulsa or Lincoln and he was listening to like Siousie Sioux and the Kronos Quartet and getting beat up at the bus stop. But one day a bully was messing with Antony, he was let's say 14, and the bully was like 16 and was about to steal his milk money and Antony just flipped out and grabbed bunches of grass and weeds (but the kind with pretty flowers on them) and hopped up on the kid's shoulders and started shoving dirt and grasses in his ears and mouth and hair and screamed about joining him in the next world during the twilight of the shadows. He got a beat down but, yo, that's PUNK. The lights go out and then "10 years later" over black and then he pops up on the screen and you're watching Antony wearing a feather boa and some crazy blouse in downtown NYC and he's proven that punk is not a sound but an ethos. And that is what this album is...it subverts your expectations not with crunching guitars but with emotion and stuff. You might say "hey that's not punk...Fugazi is PUNK!" And I would normally agree with you. Technically Fugazi is punk because they subvert the norm in other ways and shout about inequity, but Antony and the Johnsons are sooooo punk man. They are just so freakin' punk! DEAL WITH IT!!!

Antony does it again!

104-9827-0000 | 01/20/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is Antony's best album yet. Though I enjoy his previous albums immensely, I have had to listen to them several times before I realized the sheer genius behind them. This album, however, I fell in love with from the first listen (which was only a few hours ago as it was officially released the day of this writing). Literally every song is a masterpiece of heartbreaking and fragile beauty. The instrumentation alone is suberb and awe-inspiring. Add to that Antony's ghostly, gentle, and emotionally-charged vibrato, and what you have is an incredible work of art that is in a league totally of its own, far surpassing the stagnant and dull world of most contemporary music. The songs here transcend all categorization, including that of "happy" or "sad." They sound instead like dispatches from "another world," a world where our petty concerns are lost in an overwhelming tide of beauty and purity. Rarely does a CD provoke such feelings in me. Thank you Antony, thank you."

The strangest pain, the sweetest sadness

Storylover | Philadelphia, PA USA | 01/22/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Let's start by saying that you either are going to love Antony's voice, or you are going to be seriously scared by it. If you have not heard "I Am a Bird Now" or any of his other works, then prepare to be challenged by something completely different. If you have heard "I Am a Bird Now", then prepare to be challenged by something very similar.



First, that voice--that wondrous, painful voice. I think that I love it, but I have to listen to this album and his music in general when I am in just the right frame of mind, or I can't take it. My wife can't listen to him at all. Antony sings in a high, wavery voice that comes on like a falsetto, but the more you listen to it, the less you are sure that it is a falsetto. Could this simply be the range in which he sings? Whatever the verdict there, be certain that it is one of the most oddly cultivated singing voices ever to make an impact in music that can vaguely be termed "popular". He has been compared to Nina Simone, and I sort of see it--but only based on his very mannered vibrato. He does not have a wide range, but he is very expressive with the narrow range that he has; at least, if you regard "constantly seems to be about to dissolve into tears of despair" as "very expressive".



The music skirts the border between art songs and pop music written by very pretentious people. Usually, he stays pretty firmly on the "art song" side of the line, but occasionally, the schmaltz overwhelms everything, and only your personal reaction to his voice will determine if it comes off as "bizarre genius" or "wha...???" If you take the time to read his lyrics, they are often beautiful, confused musings on longing, becoming, love, and the lack thereof, but for me, the words are far secondary to the feeling, the emotion that is conveyed by this singer. His performance of the songs is so laden with emotion that the words are definitely less important that simply allowing yourself to be surrounded by him on all sides.



It is hard to review the songs one by one--the album is definitely a piece as a whole, but there are some standout moments. "Aeon" starts with a typically pretty piano figure with a harp backing, but then changes with the addition of an arpeggiated chord on an electric guitar. Antony seems to be the closest I have heard him to happiness as he sings "Oh Aeon! My baby boy! Oh, Aeon will take care of me". What does it mean? Who is Aeon? Is it God? As the song unfolds, I'm not sure if this is a plea for protection for himself, for someone else, or his father? Anyway, Antony backs himself in a gospel choir of emotion, soaring into an ecstasy. Pretty amazing song, I just wish I really knew what he was singing about.



"Dust and Water" has an almost Ladysmith Black Mambazo feel to it, although he sings solo. Not an easy feat to accomplish.



The final song, "Everglade", finds Antony at his most poetic. "When I'm floating in the water/And your eyes are lilies all around/When I'm lying sweetly in my bed/The sun plays crystal with my eyes", while woodwinds and strings form a lush backdrop. Beautiful, with just a drop of "over the top" to the production.



This is actually a very difficult record to review because it is so hard to separate the songs themselves from the performance. Antony is a true original (for better and for worse), and sometimes, in some moods, I love the courage and talent that he exudes. I love his heart on his sleeve approach and his wounded butterfly vibrato. But if I am not in just the right mood, that voice becomes grating, annoying, overly artificial. If you can't get past his performance, you'll never be able to appreciate his songcraft. His songs are beautiful, and it would be an interesting exercise to hear them performed by someone else, to see if someone else could draw out the same level of feeling and emotion, or if they are singable only by Antony. I'd be hard pressed to think of someone who I'd want to try this exercise--perhaps Harolyn Blackwell? Someone trained in Schumann lieder? Or someone raw like Patty Smith? I'm not sure.



If you loved his first two albums, you are going to love this. He has grown somewhat, but he has not really changed his formula. If you didn't like the previous collections, then this is not going to do anything to bring you into his fold. If you, like me, are still trying to figure him out, then you will probably still be intrigued. My one bit of advice is definitely to listen to a few sample tracks prior to buying this if you have never heard him before. You'll thank me--either for introducing you to something lovely and new, or for saving you from making the worst musical investment of your life."