FILTER BOOKS
Tom Lee/Arthur Russell Estate
Destiny Stopped Screaming: The Life And Times Of Adrian Borland ★★★★
Simon Heavisides
STICHTING OPPOSITE DIRECTION. £23
Assiduously researched biography of The Sound’s frontman.
Heavisides’ book is compelling from the first page as he combines his own interviews with Borland and his friends and family, with press cuttings and lyrics to build a multifaceted picture of the singer and guitarist who died by suicide in 1999. Crucially, it’s a celebration of Borland’s talent, and charts The Sound’s journey from their 1979 formation through the ’80s when they were signed and dropped by WEA and always operated in the shadows of U2 and the Bunnymen. The author chronicles Borland’s deteriorating mental state with perception and sensitivity, noting how difficult it was to fully understand what was going on then or even with hindsight. But even as a troubled solo artist Borland had a near obsessive creative drive. He told The Limit magazine in 1998: “It’s terrible to walk around with 40 songs in my mind; sooner or later my head explodes if I don’t record them.”