Spirit of Eden

Musically, the sound developed here is both a continuation and a progression of the musical landscapes developed for the previous album the Colour of Spring... though the clarity of the songs are less underlined, instead, developing from the almost choral tranquillity of Hollis's fracturing vocals and the deft, bluesy musicianship of multi-instrumentalist producer Tim Friese-Greene. The introduction to the opening number The Rainbow features a bed of synthesisers, string arrangements, guitar feedback and world instrumentation that brings to mind Peter Gabriel's mid-eighties work via Miles Davis... an element made even more obvious by the inclusion of various horns later in the album. As the song gets going properly, Hollis and Friese-Green alternate guitar parts that swirl in and out of each other in a somewhat-bluesy progression, whilst the vocals go even further to bring to our recollection the best of Rory Gallagher (Tattoo, Calling Card, Against the Grain, etc).

The fusion of the instrumentation and the wild variations and chord progressions draw on both classical and jazz influences also, usually triggered by the emotional resonance of Hollis's mournful lyrics; whilst the music often fractures even further into wild passages of distorted guitar, crooning vocals and twisted harmonica overdubs that lead us in and out of the six songs included here... making this much more cohesive than the Talk Talk albums that came before. It also would seem to have been a great influence on John Squire of the Stone Roses who brought a similar approach to guitar playing and musical arrangement on such tracks as I Want to be Adored and I am the Resurrection... which brings up the question of how come the Roses' debut album often features in the Q top 100 albums, while this masterpiece doesn't even get a look in...? The fusion of ambient noise with a more potent (poetic) rock-edge was still very new at the time, combining elements of art-rock and progressive with the aforementioned styles, in the way that Radiohead have been doing since their own artistic turning point, OK Computer.

The six songs featured here represent some of the most beautiful musical textures available... lulling us into a realm of quiet reflection whilst, Hollis and the band take us on a journey into an unknown dominion of pure musical creativity. The music becomes more and more dense as we are propelled to the final, with the closing numbers (I Believe in You & Wealth) building to an epic crescendo before winding things down in a gloriously lush arrangement that sees each instrument slowly dying away. Spirit of Eden is everything the title suggests... a haunting collection of music in the tradition of Eno, and seen in continuation by bands like Sigur Ros. Some have criticised this for being a difficult record... though I didn't find anything difficult about it at all. This is beautifully understated music that really does create a (almost) spiritual feeling for the listener...

From the start, this album did not dissapoint. The fact that the LP's first side was one track spilt into three parts kind of set my pulse racing. Just what were the guys going to try to pull off? In fact, I remember getting to Desire for the first time and then it became obvious that there was no point trying to figure any motive, it was simply time to take it easy and abosorb. Imbibe, even. Critics were divided about this album and focused too readily on the music and the departure it represented. For me, always equally potent of the Colour of Spring and Eden was the strength of the writing. The closest to musical poetry of any modern band. Incredible. But not for the fascile or those with narrow attention spans.