Cocteau Twins - Head Over Heels
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Artist: Cocteau TwinsEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 2003-06-03
Music Label: 4ad / Ada
Soundtracks:
- When Mama Was Moth
- Five Ten Fiftyfold
- Sugar Hiccup
- In Our Angelhood
- Glass Candle Grenades
- In The Gold Dust Rush
- The Tinderbox (Of A Heart)
- Multifoiled
- My Love Paramour
- Musette And Drums
Free Music Notes for Head Over Heels
Free Music Review: The ascent of Cocteau Twins' creativity.
Hit: 5 Stars
Reduced to a duo after the departure of Will Heggie and reacting violently to Alan Rankine's sharp-focus production on the Peppermint Pig EP, Cocteau Twins' sophomore LP Head Over Heels opens dramatically with "When Mama Was Moth," a whirlpool of reverb and tremolo sludge - thick, black, and endless. Immediately it becomes apparent that there has been a major shift in the band's aesthetic and focus. Gone are the plodding post-punk basslines and any pretense of sounding like a live band. Head Over Heels is a diverse and synaesthetic work, each song evoking its own set of mental images explicitly suggested through careful mood-setting.
"Five Ten Fiftyfold" adds saxophones and compressed 12-string acoustic guitars to the stew, Elizabeth Fraser's soaring vocals drawing plaintive and romantic emotions out of the desolation of the cold, crystalline landscape. "Sugar Hiccup" is graceful and bouyant, riding a wave of mysterious choral effects and liquid guitar arpeggios - this song is a daydream encapsulated in sound, the occasional dissonant guitar is so small against the pretty background that it isn't disturbing and only adds to the fantasy.
"In Our Angelhood" is the last Cocteau Twins song to ever resemble late-70s post-punk and early-80's goth-rock, and it sounds as if the band included it just to prove retrospectively that they had always been the best band of that genre even if their earliest recordings never reflected it. Peter Hook and Siouxsie Sioux are audible influences, but neither Joy Division nor the Banshees ever used sound to paint a picture so effectively - a listener could drown in this mix!
"Glass Candle Grenades," a sci-fi cabaret fanfare of sorts, doesn't sound like anything at all recorded before or since. It sounds more like an H.R. Giger painting, but with more grace and femininity. "In The Gold Dust Rush" is a lilting anthem of angelic voices and slashing acoustic guitars. Its choruses are placid mirror-surfaced ponds from which verses ascend like Martian spires. "The Tinderbox (Of A Heart)" is hushed and cyclical, hypnotically beckoning the listener draw closer until all of the instruments vanish suddenly leaving the vocals and drum machine hanging like a spider's web to ensnare the entranced. In case anyone listening was still questioning the band's range, they include the bluesy "Multifoiled," the closest to filler on this disc. It's still oddly intriguing and works well in the context of the album. "My Love Paramour" is seductive and cryptic, using moaning guitar sustains to create a sense of tension and danger. The album ends as dramatically as it began with "Musette and Drums," a minor key waltz full of queasy harmonic intervals and feverish vocal acrobatics. It rises to a climax and dissolves, only to return like a freezing gale. Robin Guthrie's guitar screams atonally as the song fades into nothingness.
By the time of Head Over Heels, Robin Guthrie has developed into a masterful producer and guitarist, building oceanic panoramas from heavily-effected guitar overdubs and sputtering drum machines. Elizabeth Fraser is no longer the sheepish mumbling girl-child of Garlands. She has grown into a powerful feminine presence capable of shredding hearts and brains with only her voice, but wise and benevolent enough to exercise restraint. Intellectually free to explore new ideas and emotions as well as technically capable of creating exciting and complex textures, Cocteau Twins undergo a cathartic rebirth with Head Over Heels, and in doing so begin a succession of masterful albums among the most unique and intriguing in the history of rock music.
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