Brooding horrors are shot through on The Court in the few seconds it takes to find itself detailing its Dark-Side Mix. Heavy, bold twinges of metallic synth push through in a seamless pairing of that unique Peter Gabriel style with some orchestral notations. Those latter inflections come through stronger and stronger as The Court (Dark-Side Mix) drags on. Chocolate milk, judges and the rising of the court have some more obvious connotations than such a charming, sinister title would first be expected to hide. It feels a bit sparse in meaning, and the inferences Gabriel makes are so clustered and cloudy that The Court (Dark-Side Mix) loses a lot of the steam his lyrics usually hold.
Gabriel marks his chorus work as the strongest part of this. A constant “And the court will rise, While the pillars all fall” makes for interesting listening. It is a sincere shame that what wraps around it are some unhinged failings of lyrical imperfection. There are moments that feel like the old man shaking his sticks at the world around him. Weightless, punctured pops at drugs, the reliance on phones in the modern era and the worries of having data that the listener is not in “control where it goes”. All of it feels a bit jagged and fundamentally hard to take seriously when they are points of interest that have dominated music discourse for decades. Gabriel adds nothing to the conversation.
Where The Court (Dark-Side Mix) picks up though is in its mixing and its instrumentals. Gabriel may have half-baked his criticism in the lyrics, but there are the odd moments that, when paired with some strong foundations in the studio, make for interesting listens. His sixth verse and bleed into the outro is the best part of this piece, a moment that showcases Gabriel does have what it takes to mark relevant lyrics. He proves that by engaging with that line lost between good and bad, to the piano-backed outro that hails the failures of blind justice. These are interesting little pockets that salvage much of the song and the earlier troubles of stifled, poorly-represented lyrics. It feels like a misfire more akin to an accident than anything else. Gabriel tries and fails to punch down at the society he does not understand, and it shows.
But what shows as well is a clear focus on the instrumentals, the quality sparks of delicacy and well-layered pieces coming together to provide a stark momentum. It is short-lived but it is felt well. A fine piece that engages its atmosphere and builds it up well, but fails the lyrical expectations. Gabriel does not squander the project and thankfully hands it over to cooler hands and harsher ears, but there is a real sad waste involved in The Court (Dark-Side Mix) that feels disconnected from reality. That may be the point of art rock and inherent to the core of Gabriel’s latest venture, but it comes at a cost of being removed from what he is critical of. That is the sincere, unfortunate downfall of a track that with a little more focus would have mounted much more of a heavy-hitting experience.
