Oingo Boingo - Dark At The End Of The Tunnel

Oingo Boingo - Dark At The End Of The Tunnel  

 Febuary 20th 1990

By 1990 Oingo Boingo were going on eighteen years (I'm counting Mystic Knights here), Danny Elfman, Steve Bartek, John Avila, Carl Graves, Johnny Vatos Hernandez, Sam 'Sluggo Phillips, Leon Schneiderman, and Dale Turner were present.

Dark At The End Of The Tunnel after numerous listens I postulate is subdued, and bitterly sanguine. Musically there's distinct bounce, crisp like hooks, calculated placed jazz, and polished production giving the listener a glossy preen. Dark At The End Of The Tunnel (album 7) shifted their presentation into a left of center cleft of polished adult contemporary.

Underneath all of the gleam, there lies an unpleasantness poking through. Dark At The End Of Tunnel reminds me of a incomplete catharsis. Though Dark At The End Of The Tunnel tries to work on a profound level. Their ingenuity, and outside the box approach were were long gone in lieu of a cliche foundation continued since Dead Man's Party.

Why? Because three years prior Danny Elfman's soundtrack composing pushed Boingo into the background. Orchestral involvement took him away from giving Boingo anything more, and he let it idle in a stasis of purgatory. The one caveat here is that Danny was gaining more notoriety for his movie scores, than his rock band Oingo Boingo. Though he kept trying to push Boingo into a new places of popularity he continued to fall short.

Dark At The End Of Tunnel was ignored because of the shift of interest of the industry, just as their final opus, Boingo never could get around the cult status. Songs on Dark At The End Of The Tunnel are composed with sprinkles of deft premeditated intent, but overall the substance is encased in a grandiosity of which often trips over itself.

I do give this record an ample amount of discretion because it gave me guidance to a very terse period of time. Song wise, they are standardized, and structured in short execution; its no frills, and straight ahead album. The obvious importance is upon the message its conveying, and that is change is abound, get used to it.

The brevity to the record lay in it's not so subtle lyrical aspects. Danny's excellent prose sometimes becomes preachy, and can alienate the listener. For example: Try To Believe, and Right to Know I feel takes away from the heft that accompanies the first five songs. One can still notice the starkness of the first half of the album, and where it begins to unravel. I somewhat believe it crumbled what could have been a halfway decent release.

With all of this, Dark At The End Of The Tunnel is a mix of ideas trying to coalesce. It makes its statement, then goes off into its own weird oddity. No matter, I still listen to this record, given its flaws, and its mistakes. It has a place in the history of Oingo Boingo, and I still find myself talking about this record long after it was released. Having the time to digest, and integrate all the elements, I'm confident in my assessment, its okay, but it is not the best Oingo Boingo offered. Thanks for reading.

B.