A Song from Under the Floorboards

Coiled like a spring that never quite releases, this track is the sound of a mind observing itself with horrified fascination. Barry Adamson's bass line runs through the center of the song like a spinal column — low, authoritative, rhythmically insistent — while John McGeoch's guitar cuts at odd angles above it, bright and slightly uncomfortable. Howard Devoto's vocals are the defining instrument: nasal, arch, trembling with suppressed hysteria and intellectual self-awareness in equal measure. He sounds like a man who has read too many Dostoevsky novels and recognized himself in the wrong character. The lyric maps the psychology of the narrator who cannot escape his own compulsions, who sees his worst qualities clearly and cannot stop performing them — it's Underground Man rewritten for post-punk Manchester. The production on "The Correct Use of Soap" gives everything a slightly clinical sheen, and that cleanliness makes the song's psychological mess more disturbing by contrast. This is music for the type of person who watches themselves sabotage things and keeps detailed mental notes. You put this on at two in the morning when self-analysis has curdled into something darker, when clarity and helplessness are arriving simultaneously.