The aural chaos and intense paranoia of
John Cale
's "comeback" albums
Sabotage/Live
and
Honi Soit
seemingly left him with very few places left to go, short of setting back-issues of
Soldier of Fortune
to music. 1982's
Music for a New Society
was, from a musical standpoint, a remarkable about-face, sounding calm, spare, and spectral where his last few albums had been all rant and rage; the arrangements were dominated by
Cale
's open, languid keyboard patterns, and there was far more aural "white space" in their framings than he had permitted himself since
The Academy in Peril
. But beyond the cool, reserved exteriors of
, one finds a handful of stories of terribly damaged lives; on close inspection, the ethereal opening cut
"Taking Your Life in Your Hands"
turns out to be the story of a mother gone on a killing spree, while
"Sanities,"
"Thoughtless Kind,"
"Damn Life"
are full of dashed hopes and painful emotional betrayals. If the approach to the material is a good bit different than what most fans had been used to from
, the results were, if anything, among the most compelling music of his career; the open spaces of the arrangements are at once ambient and melodically compelling, and the songs have an emotional resonance that communicates on a deeper and more emotional level than the political hectoring of
Sabotage
or
, intelligent as they may have been. Spare, understated, and perhaps a masterpiece. ~ Mark Deming