Bauhaus – ‘Go Away White’ Japanese CD (Imperial Records, TECI-24468, 2008)

The second resurrection period for Bauhaus saw the band reunite long enough to record a whole new album while they kept it together. Not without friction the recording sessions, by all accounts, but ‘Go Away White’ was the result, released once again like their first ‘last’ album, ‘Burning From The Inside’, after they wrapped up business as a living, breathing going concern. It’s a mixed affair – I wasn’t sure at all about it at first other than the tracks which clearly wore the obvious vintage DNA loud and proud such as ‘Adrenalin’ and ‘Endless Summer Of The Damned’. It is expecting the impossible to imagine the album might pick up the thread of their first period. Those albums were powered by the dark desires of youth. Even ‘Burning From The Inside’ had seen the thread start to unravel and let more colour peek in from the darkness. Meantime, the band members had individually gone their ways and done a good bit of living.

Bauhaus - 'Go Away White' 2008 Japanese CD front cover
^ Bauhaus – ‘Go Away White’ 2008 Japanese CD front cover.

While it has grown on me over time, is it fair to summarise it as having an air of ‘will this do?’. The more ‘rock’ influenced tracks just don’t have the tunes – the whole affair (other than the already in the can ‘The Dog’s A Vapour’) was recorded in something like 18 days… and it shows. Much of it is rather basic riffing about. Where there should be some lift off from Ash and J, they seem to content to cycle round without developing the basic verses. The drums seem to be particularly lacking, largely content enough in a timekeeping role. The aforementioned ‘Adrenalin’ and ‘Endless Summer Of The Damned’ benefit from having been routined live during the summer 2006 live dates, so seem to have been in good shape to go when recording. For me, the other tracks that works best are the more unusual mood pieces such as ‘Saved’ and the closing ‘Zikir’.

Bauhaus - 'Go Away White' 2008 Japanese CD rear cover
^ Bauhaus – ‘Go Away White’ 2008 Japanese CD rear cover.

This is the Japanese edition of the CD and it comes with an extra track that none of the other releases did, a live version of ‘Endless Summer Of The Damned’. Similar to the studio take, it’s pretty good. I had not realised that the CD version of all releases contain an extra track compared to the vinyl edition by way of ‘The Dog’s A Vapour’, which had actually been recorded during the period of their first resurrection and released on ‘Heavy Metal 2000 (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)’ in 2000. Despite the gap in recording between this and the album and the fact that this track was produced by Bob Ezrin, unlike the self-produced album, it fits in with the album reasonably well enough.

The digital version of the album available from iTunes has some extras as well, with two additional live tracks, live videos from the 2005 Coachella Festival of ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’ and ‘Dark Entries’.

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