Photo of Matt Johnson of The The by Gerald Jenkins
The The emerged from the UK’s fertile late 1970s and early 1980s post-punk scene. The band earned both chart success and critical acclaim throughout the 1980s and early 1990s with singer, songwriter, and sole consistent member Matt Johnson’s grouchy and perceptive dispatches from (and takedowns of) Thatcherite Britain. But after 1995’s Hanky Panky, a curious album comprised solely of Johnson’s mutated takes on Hank Williams classics, The The entered a long hiatus, only intermittently surfacing for one new album (2000’s NakedSelf), an occasional one-off single, or an irascible digital newsletter. Ensoulment, the group’s first non-soundtrack album in almost a quarter century, is astounding in its mere existence. But Johnson doesn’t want points for simply showing up. Ensoulment’s vibrancy is informed by the success of The The’s 2018 comeback tour, as captured on sublime live album The Comeback Special: Live at the Royal Albert Hall. It was not only a triumphant return to the spotlight, it was an opportunity to show off a new iteration of The The, which has always been less of a band, and more of an evolving idea fleshed out by a rotating cast of supporting players. While it wouldn’t be a The The album without being partially, and purposefully, abrasive, this new evolution of the group tempers those edges with an increased devotion to melody and a moodier sonic palette.
The The’s best work has always been informed by Johnson’s lyrical obsessions: sex, religion, geopolitics, and the eternal battle inside us all between dark and light. On Ensoulment, (which was produced by Johnson and Warne Livesey—who previously worked on The The’s late 1980s classics Infected and Mind Bomb), Johnson’s fires continue to rage. Check out the agitated disbelief of “Kissing the Ring of POTUS,” and the rankled pushback against shifting Overton windows of first single “Cognitive Dissident.” But Ensoulment also smolders, informed by age and experience, finding room for smaller meditations, while wisely not tamping down The The’s hallmark tempestuousness. “Down by the Frozen River” looks back at the homogenizing tradition of British public schools (which are really private schools—yeah, I know), draping still-sharpened knives in sumptuously menacing jazz-noir piano. In a film, you would see Johnson, now a stubbly 63 years old, standing in a wool cap and overcoat, looking out across a frigid January field, watching his younger self attempt to “escape with an empty head—but an open mind.”
“Some Days I Drink My Coffee by the Grave of William Blake,” a critique of, and lament for post-Brexit England is a The The song that could only have existed right now, with this version of the band, and this version of the man behind it. Instead of exploding, it sways. Rather than railing against threats and bad actors, it speaks with the confidence of its own justness, and the resolve to see it through. In 1989, Johnson sang “Armageddon days are here again.” Unfortunately, that doesn’t appear as if it will stop being true anytime soon. Where many previous The The albums were reports from the general admission pit of the miasma of modern life, Ensoulment is more of a front row balcony seat. This doesn’t rob Matt Johnson of his unique perspective, it merely opens up a fascinating new front in the war. If we’re lucky, we won’t have to wait another 25 years for him to share it with us again. | Mike Rengel
