scår søünd

God Lives Underwater - Up Off the Floor

God Lives Underwater were a drug band, but it seems more incidental than by design. David Reilly was a heroin addict who stopped his heart a few too many times until the day it stopped beating from abuse due to hyper-stimulation. Both permanent members of the band battled with drug addiction, and that all comes out in the lyrics. They never glorify their addiction, rather it informs the way their relationships have been ruined.

Because the band's record label went under this album sat on the shelf for several years, eventually being re-mixed, and poorly re-mastered, then having tracks removed. At some point before the album was released in 2004 the band, who had already broken up, posted the original mix and track list of the album on their website for free download. This is the only version of the album I have ever heard.

It can hardly be said that GLU songs were ever fun, the were sort of sweetly fragile. They were heavy in tone, and lyrical content, but there was an underlying failing humanity. I had heard that GLU sounded like a metal band when they played live, though I never got the chance to see them. While they are an electronic rock band in the studio. The Keyboards and synthesizers aren't cold like they can be in some other bands, they are just another musical element, they compliment the guitars, they don't overpower them.

By the time they got around to recording Up Off the Floor though, I think that both Reilly, and Turzo were tiring of the drudgery of being in the band, touring, and dealing with one-another. Many of the songs on Up Off the Floor are about the conflict between the band-mates, and the decayed relationships in their personal lives because of what they had done as a band. This wasn't the first time that GLU had espoused their difficulty with being in the small spotlight they had. On "Alone Again" from Life in the So-Called Space Age Reilly laments "the drugs, and the drinking and the touring", but at that point he had caused himself fewer heart-attacks, and been to rehab fewer times. by the time he wrote "72 Hour Hold" He had spent a lot of time in a rehab center in Pasadina, and believed himself not to be " a threat to myself of others", but the rehab center felt otherwise and placed him under a three day suicide watch.

Up off the Floor is the strongest of God Lives Underwater's three albums, the song writing is tight and effective, the lyrics are well composed and heart-wrenching, and the cover of David Bowie's "Fame" puts it into a different light than Bowie's rendition. Make no mistake, though, this is a drug album. There is not a word glorifying the drug use, but the battles that the members of the band had with substance abuse inform every crevasse of this record. It is also one of my favorite albums of the new Millennium.

9.5/10