Customer Reviews

Aerial

5 star:		(221)
4 star:		(39)
3 star:		(33)
2 star:		(22)
1 star:		(20)

 

 

I've been listening to Kate for many years now, but around the time Red Shoes came out, I thought Kate ceased to be a mad genius and was now only a garden-variety genius.
And this album seemed a little ho-hum at first hearing. Sea of Honey has wonderfully campy prog rock feel, but also a heavy dose of sticky melancholy. There is pastoral tone (a la Lark Ascending) and mood of summer music complete with swooshing Hawaiian waves, cutesy touches (Italian theme, voices of Bertie and Harris and all these bloody birds) to the Sky of Honey. Me, I always loved the freaky side of Kate- Kite, Violin, Get out of my House, Waking the Witch, Walk Straight Down The Middle, Lily - rather than mushiness of This Woman's Work, and that's only hinted at on Aerial. And other than perfectly controlled King of the Hill and Pi, vocally Kate likes to let the quiver in her voice take over, and often loses pitch control in the lower registers.
And with all this, after listening to the entire album a few times, I am completely taken with Aerial.
It should be treated as a whole package. For starters, the album cover is great, the sound wave and sunset blended into surprisingly stark and beautiful picture. Inside the CD booklet, the pastel paintings, and photos of laundry and Kate's son flashing his milky whites are paired with a picture of someone wearing a supremely creepy "Indus Bird Mask", fashioned out of dead bird. A touch of shaman in Ms Domestic Goddess. No wonder Kate has been a muse to the likes of Outkast and Coil; there is more to her than meets the eye or the casual ear.
The lyrics have the beautiful simplicity of Yeats poetry. Mrs Bartolozzi can be Virginia Woolf internal monologue about mundane tasks, a mournful tribute to the departed or Dedalus epiphany, of seeing a girl standing in the water, with skirts around her waist, looking like an exotic bird with white plumage, and suddenly realizing what's important in your life. Or simply the best laundry song ever written. And how about the unexpected delight of Pi, where strings of numbers are turned into a passionate hymn dealing with obsession and infinity. I like the fact that Kate is not willing to explain all her lyrics, and allows people to bring their own interpretations to the table.
If you are musician, you should hear this album to witness an artist at the top of her game: it's not slapping few chords and verses together, this music is grown from a flash of underlying idea, and then woven like tapestry, dressed up, painted in delicate strokes. And Kate excels both in straightforward piano songs, like simple and devastating Coral Room, and dense and complex structures of Pi, Nocturne and Aerial. David Bowie may speak of Thomas Tallis, but it's Kate who writes an ecstatic ode to her son that seamlessly blends the old and the new, and sounds like an ancient court dance, complete with Renaissance guitar and violas orchestration, and contemporary song, all at once. And Aerial also has a piece of world music fusion so subtle that I actually missed it at first, until I realized that in Aerial Tal (Taal is a Hindi word for rhythm) Kate is singing a raga scale with the the birds... And after repeated listenings, the remarkable cycle and flow of Sky of Honey comes into full force. Discovering all the layers of Aerial is a great journey.
If you think this music is too simple for your taste, there's always Bach's Mass in B Minor with contrapuntal harmonies so complex, your brain may curdle. In my opinion, among currently not deceased composers, very few people are in Kate's league. I don't know why Tori Amos, a gifted artist whose music somehow leaves me cold, is being compared to Kate; both play the piano, but they are guided by very different aesthetics. Bjork has long surpassed her Fairy Godmother Kate in sheer musical inventiveness, but she is in a freaky place and not accessible for some people. Kate is still on top of the hill and I am glad she came out of hiding to give us this Aerial.

When I was 17, my now sister-in-law let me borrow Kate Bush's "The Whole Story", which kicked off what has no been a nearly eleven year love affair with Bush's music. Through virtually this entire time, I've heard the seemingly endless rumors about the new album being "worked on". As one would expect, eventually I pretty much gave up hope.

Imagine my surprise when a release date for "Aerial" was announced, a double CD, to be released just over twelve years after 1993's "The Red Shoes". And of course, you can imagine the level of anticipation in myself and probably every other Kate Bush fan out there.

The double album runs only a hair over eighty minutes long, but is split more conceptually-- the first disc, titled "A Sea of Honey", is a collection of unrelated songs. The second, titled "A Sky of Honey", is a reflection on the passage of a day.

Certainly the material on the first disc covers a lot of ground-- Bush seems to pretty much pick up where she left off, although her arrangements show a downright stunning depth as instruments swirl in and out of the mix. Opener and leadoff single "King of the Mountain" is a good example both of this and of the best sort of Kate Bush pop song-- it opens with electronic percussion and synths and eventually live drums joining to create a mid-tempo loping beat until the second verse where an electric guitar shows up and take the focus. Over all of this, Bush sings passionately about man becoming a myth, overt references to Elvis Presley and "Citizen Kane" throughout. The remainder of the disc proves amazingly diverse, treading through a harpsichord-driven ballad about her son (the achingly sentimental "Bertie"-- Bush pulls off expression of parental love better than anyone I've heard with her recitation of "you bring me such joy"), a driven, passionate piano piece about a house cleaner ("Mrs. Bartolozzi"), a funky pop song ("How to Be Invisible") and a lovely, subdued piano ballad ("A Coral Room"), among others. That it maintains a high level of quality throughout is a testament to its creator.

The second disc is definitely feels like a suite-- the music is all very relaxed, with rolling piano lines, lush strings, and hand drums playing in and out. The piece is constructed with several songs and some briefer tracks that establish continuity of the pieces, and while musically it's less diverse than the first disc, there are no fewer powerful moments from the delicate chords and wide-eyed (the latter by Bush's son Bertie) on the opening "Prelude" to the utterly superb "Sunset", which opens as a jazz-tinged ballad before moving into a frantic Spanish guitar section complete with castinets to the simply fantastic "Somewhere in Between".

The only thing this album is missing, truthfully, is that one piece that trumps them all-- there's nothing as immense as "This Woman's Work" or "The Infant Kiss" that stops you in your tracks, but even without that, the album is consistently of high quality and truthfully was worth the endless wait. Highly recommended.

Twelve years is a long time to wait for a record,. But fans will not be disappointed by a record that is unique and could only come from the Bush cannon.

The disc is split in two distinct pieces; the first a Sea of Honey are a collection of according to the singer "just Kate songs" and side two a song cycle about the waning of summer day, part told in bird song.

I have now listened to this album five or six times, and it wasn't quite what I has expected from the reviews. First of all I has expected disc 1 to be straightforward, and disc two to be as one reviewer put it: "properly properly eccentric"

But things are the other way round. True side one is a collection of great but unconnected songs, but it is here that the unexpected shines through. Thematically the opener King of Mountain deals with the sense of unmanageable fame via Elvis and Citizen Kane, and then moves onto Pi, with La Bush musing about obsession and infinity, singing the number exquisitely to umpteen decimal places. If Bjork did this it would look pretentious, but with Bush it actually works.

Bertie, an unconditional ode of love to her son, which is simple and pretty. Its harpsichord and simple production allows the subject matter to work against the odds. Mrs Bartolozzi, is equally simple in its production, just Kate and a grand piano, prompting many fans to suggest that this sounds like the early Cathy demos. Bush sceptics will laugh at the lyrics, which muse about daily chores containing a chorus of washing machine repeated thrice. But after two or three listens these images of doing the washing suggest loneliness, and had the reviewer wondering whether the woman felt imprisoned domestically or was going slowly mad, because she was grieving by washing her dead husband's clothes. Bush had gone on record saying she likes the ambiguity in this track so make your own choices.....

How To Be Invisible completely changes the tempo of the disc, with an impossibly catchy percussive guitar that permeates the entire track and won't let the listener go. Surely the next single, and possibly her most perfect ever chunk of pop craft from Bush yet!

Joanni, is drenched in the same thick and multi layered production (this is the main criticism) as King of the Mountain, and like the single seems over fussy and dated in its production. But thankfully the overproduction is only reserved to those tracks, and disc two ends on a career best in vocal delivery and simpli-complex song crafting .This may not be single material, but with Bush you never know, she may release it anyway. Whichever way you look at it, it's an instant classic.

Disc Two is a bit of a puzzle. Critics were hinting at something quite barmy, even for Bush. But it turns out not to be so. Yes In one track she sings in Blackbird language, and Rolf Harris (random UK/OZ celebrity/aritst) pops up in voice and playing Didgeridoo.

BUT, this is not what most people were expecting. The production sounds sonically simple (even if deceptively so), and the song writing is more classic and conventional than side one.

In fact the song construction is so straightforward and devoid of the Bush trippyness that the listener may be a little surprised and caught of guard. This is not to say this is dull ordinary, its far to accomplished for that, but we are talking about more conventional melodies that we have been used to from la Bush.

There are potential singles on here, An Architect's Dream, Sunset, and most especially Somewhere In Between being entities in their own right, but this is a piece to be listened to as a whole, and Bush has so far refused to discuss specifc songs.

The final quartet of songs, Sunset, Somewhere in Between, Nocturn, and Aerial, showcase Bush at her most polished, joyous. And (excluding the final song) is her most accessible and commercial output ever. This is classy ambient chill-out that Dido and Enya can only dream of. This might sound odd, but Bush travels this well trodden path with more conviction and grace than the best in this class, and it's her first attempt!

All right. I'm not going to make any bones about this: I'm a Kate Bush fan, through and through. I'm not sure that any other artist has touched me in such a real way throughout my life, and by that I mean: Kate Bush has a way of touching emotional buttons that, if they have been planted in you by similar experiences or exposure to wonder, will be set off. Thankfully, I grew up with all of Kate's albums, and so my anticipation for 'Aerial' was one of delicious trepidation. Would Kate live up to former experiences of bizarre song themes, vocal histrionics, sexual confidence, and sheer English/Kateness?

The answer is: Yes. A thousand times, yes. I have noticed that there are some naysayers on Amazon who have charged 'Aerial' with being boring, and Lord knows why. Perhaps it is 'Aerial''s use of the piano, which can be quiet, contemplative, and yes, Kate brings us to those moments here. But what I hear on the new CD is a reminder of just how influential her piano-driven early work has been (move over, Ms. Amos! The Queen is BACK). Take, for instance, 'Mrs. Bartolozzi,' a song that on its sheer superficial surface is about doing the laundry, but which Kate sends into another realm entirely with the sensual imagry of lovers present, lovers gone, lovers hanging on the washing line, looking so alive...This is a mature song, full of wisdom, and typifies the glorious journey Kate Bush has been on all these years.

Songs about her son; songs about the mathemetician obsessed with calculating Pi; songs about her mother; a cycle of songs devoted to the passing day (Disc 2, 'A Sky or Honey'). Look, honest emotion and artistic integrity in mainstream artists is hard to come by; but when Kate decided to make her return, she obviously took pains to make an integrated, complete work. I can't think of another artist even remotely capable of singing "...climb into bed and turn to rust," a gorgeous metaphor for the ending of day, as well as the end of life's most passionate moments.

I can't think of anyone but Kate Bush even attempting a song about the discoverer of Pi, or who could weave a spell for privacy ("How to be Invisible"), or who could sing with birds (AND do so in homage of Indian rhythm: "Aerial Tal"). Way back on her hugely experimental, legendary 'difficult' album 'The Dreaming,' Kate imitated the call of birdsong on 'Night of the Swallow'; here, she goes far, far beyond that mimicry, singing with, and laughing with, birdsong: until she has to get "up on the roof" -- and then she's gone, in one of the most breathtaking climaxes to any CD from the last decade, maybe two decades.

Why is she so successful? Because of a life lived; because many musical artists have forgotten the value of an album being an artistic statement in today's "download the single" world of iPod listening; and because very few musicians have the guts to have built such an autonomous, mysterious image in pop music as Kate has. This album works because Kate is Kate: and if you knew her years ago, you will find resonance and fulfillment here with 'Aerial.'

Did my eyes fill with tears with the song to her son, "Bertie"? Yes. And did I dance to the double whammy of "Nocturn" and "Aerial"? Yes! Thanks, Kate, for your honesty and joy; your progressive musical statements: your love of tradition, and your original voice. 'Aerial' is a masterpiece.

Imagine you are Kate Bush: 48 years old, nearly thirty years since Wuthering Heights, having to endure all the false rumours in the papers; "recluse", "washed up", "eccentric" and other negative terms when all along you have just making your own kind of very unique music, you fall in love, raise a child and are happily domesticated for many years. Kate Bush is one of the most down to earth, fun, witty and very grounded artists alive today. Just read any of her recent interviews she has given. She is no New Age Mystic or Modern Day Witch or Earth Goddess, so give it a rest! True she has written, arranged and recorded some of the most original music of any artist in the last thirty years. But away from the studio, she is just a Mom!

AERIEL is her first album in twelve years. Like HOUNDS OF LOVE, it is best to listen through in one sitting, especially Disc 2. Critics may gripe that it could have easily fitted on one album and maybe that is true. Maybe tracks 1 and 6 on Disc 2 could have been omitted to keep it under 80 minutes.

The album starts off strong with KING OF THE MOUNTAIN. seems to be about unhappy wealthy recluses. Other strong songs on Disc 1 are HOW TO BE INVISIBLE (just a fun pop song), JOANNIE (about Joan of arc) and A CORAL ROOM (a heartbreaking song about the death of her mother). MRS. BARTOLOZZI is certainly unusual and takes some getting used to; with its storyline of sexual emotions triggered from watching clothes in a washing machine. BERTIE is a light-hearted tune about her son. A little too simple for my tastes. PI is has a warmth to it even if it is a bizartre song about a guy fascinated by the number PI. The chorus consists of recting the numbers of pi but at over six minutes playing time, it is overlong.

Disc 2 is where Kate excels. Titled "A Sky Of Honey" (not sure why), there is a theme about birds, painters, architects and abandoning oneself to guilty pleasures, and I am still trying to figure it all out! From her vocal imitation of birdcalls to the eeriness of her vocal with piano only, this is Kate Bush at her most sparse. Towards the end she does liven things up with the last two tracks. Standouts are SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN and NOCTURN (no "E" at the end). The album closes with the title track, AERIAL in a state of jubilation and cheerfulness. Her laugh is very infectious and there is a great giutar solo from Dan McIntosh to close the song and the album.

As with all her albums, production is brilliant and the musicianship amazes. Just listen to NOCTURN. It is worth the price of the album alone but another standout track is KING OF THE MOUNTAIN with its reggae-like guitar accompanying the second verse or the introduction of the drums into the song just before she sings "Elvis are you out there somewhere", My other favourites are A CORAL ROOM, AERIAL, PROLOGUE, HOW TO BE INVISIBLE, SUNSET and SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN.

Message to Kate Bush: Please do not wait twelve more years before relaeasing the next album. You are too original and exciting to be away from the music scene. I will gladly take songs about Joan of Arc, Elvis Presley, William Hearst, Bertie, Loss of a Loved One, Sex on the Beach, Washing Clothes, Birdcall Imitations, Being "up on the roof" and so on instead of the dross that is on radio stations today!

Track times are not given so here they are:

Disc 1 (A sea of honey)
1. King of the mountain 4.49
2. Pi 6.09
3. Bertie 4.18
4. Mrs. Bartolozzi 5.57
5. How to be invisible 5.34
6. Joanni 4.55
7. A coral room 5.56

Disc 2 (A sky of honey)
1. Prelude 1.26
2. Prologue 5.42
3 An archhitect's dream 4.49
4. The painter's link 1.35
5. Sunset 5.57
6. Aerial tal 1.00
7. Somewhere in between 5.00
8. Nocturn 8.34
9. Aerial 7.49

It is very difficult to write about this album.

This is so for a number of reasons. Mainly, though, I think it's because the scope is so huge. In terms of actual minutes of music, Aerial barely passes the 80 mark (about as short as a double album gets). Ms. Bush showed her characteristic wisdom in splitting the work up into two digestible chunks, though --- if all of this material were present on one disc, it'd easily swamp the poor listener.

Why? Because, as I said, this album is huge. Huge. It's huge in so many different ways.

Musically, A Sea of Honey (the first half) is actually incredibly sparse and acoustic (for Kate Bush), but the songs that comprise the disc range from two counter-balanced meditations on the nature of fame (King of the Mountain, referencing Elvis and Citizen Kane, and How to be Invisible), to an obsessive-compulsive mathematician (Pi), Joan of Arc (Joanni), a depressed housewife lost in a reverie for her (dead?) husband (Mrs. Bartilozzi), the pure innocent joy of a child (Bertie), and, finally, grief, memory, and mourning for a lost mother (A Coral Room). It is difficult to imagine a more diverse range of material; really, only Kate's own Never for Ever approaches such a diversity of subject matter.

A Sky of Honey, on the other hand, is huge in the entirely opposite way (and tends to be the better-liked of the two discs, it seems). It is more than a sonic landscape, it is a sonic universe, perfectly constructed, perfectly complex, perfectly controlled. Lyrically, Kate relaxes and lets the sonics speak for themselves. This disc is a suite, a song-cycle like the second half of her much-lauded Hounds of Love album, but instead of dark visions of drowning, A Sky of Honey traces the progression of a day, the intangible quality of light and nature, and the sheer transcendent joy of it all, complete with cooing doves, flamenco guitar, and laughing children.

Sounds hippy drippy? Unbearably twee, tooth-rottingly saccharine? Yes, in lesser hands, the mere idea of such an experiment sounds like sure disaster. But Kate Bush has truly proven her worth with this second disc: Sky of Honey is nothing short of a triumph. The listener doesn't just believe her vision, he or she is engulfed by it. Alone, some tracks might seem somewhat mediocre (An Architect's Dream) or even downright superfluous and lacklustre (Painter's Link). But these are all essential links in the beautiful chain Ms. Bush has constructed, and the five-song pay-off for this set-up (Sunset - Aerial Tal - Somewhere in Between - Nocturn - Aerial) is absolutely staggering.

I dare anyone to deny the heart-melting autumnal beauty of Sunset, the dream-like wonder of Aerial Tal, or the absolutely breath-taking Nocturn. Actually, this music goes to a place where superlatives become pretty useless. The best I can say is this: at the end of Nocturn, the hairs on my arms are standing straight on end, and I am literally taken aback. If that isn't a sign of a genius in full control of her powers, I don't know what is.

This is probably one of the most elegant, eloquent, sophisticated and endearing albums I have ever heard. I am absolutely overwhelmed by its beauty and potency. It is Kate's strongest and most emotional album since Hounds of Love there is no question about it. There is not one piece of this album with which I am not in love. Within her entire catalogue it is absolutely her most cohesive and well-knit album. One thing about Kate...whether you like her music or not, you have to respect the brilliant craft-work that goes into her albums. It is simply unparalleled in my humble opinion.

I was introduced to Kate Bush when I first saw her video for "Cloudbusting" Hounds of Love. This was sometime in the 80s. Donald Sutherland plays a father, an eccentric inventor on the wrong side of the government somehow. Kate plays his daughter. Cloudbusting is about Wilhelm Reich (The Mass Psychology of Fascism ) the astoundingly brilliant psychoanalyst and fringe researcher. The song is fantastic. I was hooked.

Kate is a beautiful woman, and a fantastic singer and artist. She is an experimenter with sound and style, too. She is much more than a pop artist, she's a little girl stuck in a woman's body. She never loses touch with her inner child and it's always there, in the front or in the back, but it's there. This quality of childishness makes Bush very insightful. The Sensual World, The Dreaming and Lionheart were all fantastic records, and the Hounds of Love, even better. And it's been a long time between records, almost ten years I'd guess, but I never forgot about Kate. I was excited to listen to this record much like I was with Joe Jackson's Rain (w/ bonus DVD). While I was delighted with the former I was disappointed with the latter.

Kate Bush walks a fine line between many styles. She can be straight ahead poppy, very artsy, very avante-garde, too. Her voice can be almost annoying shrill and elegantly sultry and dark and sexy. The lyrics in this record one reviewer compaired to Steely Dan's for their silly obscureness. One song in particular spends a great deal of time on washing machines. It seems silly, and it is, but I didn't care. Much like Steely Dan's lyrics can be silly and absurd one generally doesn't care as the arrangements and the quality are so fantastically good.

"How to Be Invisible" is particularly driving... it keeps moving forward with Bush's vocals going up and down. "A Coral Room" is beautiful, reminding one of "And Dream of Sheep/Under Ice" from Hounds of Love. Kate is still a force to be reckoned with here. This album is a real pleasure.

On first listen I really liked it, but felt challenged in particular by "King of the Mountain's" minimalism. But even that song grew to something much bigger. Building upon the spare openings of that song Kate created a massive sound assault that works so well. Kate does all kinds of vocal jumping and games in "Bertie". She is an artist and demands some patience and acceptance from the listener. But in the main, this album is so spare and so haunting as to make it very special. It is one of my favorite Kate Bush records. I hope she makes many, many more!
Brava!

I'd be willing to bet that any long-time Kate fan who posted a less-than-favorable review here has already changed their minds.

It's something like postpartum depression: First there was the huge gap of 12 years since her last album. And the album 12 years ago was musically and emotionally asymmetric, and left many fans wanting. So the sheer anticipation of this new release became like a black hole-sucking up everything in its vicinity and rendering anyone who got too close completely unable to wait for it without a blinding sense of expectation. And then suddenly, almost magically, we found ourselves holding Aerial in our hands. It was almost too much. Even for me.

Upon my first listening, I was in a bit of my own funk. What exactly had I been expecting? The Dreaming II? Hounds of Love, Parts 3 and 4? Because it wasn't any of those in the least. It was softer, more rooted, less wily. I was a bit confused and overwhelmed, and I knew there was something I wasn't "getting", so I put it away for a few weeks and let myself deflate. And something happened during that break-I stopped NEEDING it to be something like all the others. All I wanted was Kate. And so I got it out and played it again, and I immediately recognized that it was exactly the thing that I was waiting for-it was pure, honest Kate.

Every Kate Bush album can be placed along a timeline of her growing-up, and Aerial is the sonic illustration of her life now in perfect placement along that timeline. It can't be any different, and it couldn't be more beautiful. This album says everything about who she is now, and less about who she was then. There is not one note copied from the past- not to say that there aren't sounds that hearken back to her other 'eras', but nothing is ripped-off. This is as fresh as Kate has ever been. And it is awesome.

So fear not, listeners. If you've drummed your fingers in anticipation, then I'm sure you've also decided for yourself how it should be. And I can tell you it's not like that. At all. 12 years worth of expectation will do that to a soul, but sometimes a little vacation can do wonders. Enjoy.

To those who will read these reviews, the good ones but particularly the negative ones, remember that no Kate Bush album is instantly, wholly attainable. I have listened to her (in album sequence) since meeting her and getting her album when I was 14 in 1977 at Saturday Night Live (where my father was in the band)and where she was making her US debut appearance (Kick Inside). In every case, especially in "The Dreaming" through to "The Red Shoes" years, each album has required time and multiple listens to catch my ears, imagination and sensibilities completely - and most often, the songs I liked the least at first listen became favorites later on; "Big Stripey Lie", "The Fog", "Walk Straight Down The Middle of It".

All this to say that I believe that not nearly enough time or listens has passed for any 'bad' opinion of AERIAL to be taken seriously or to have true merited form. Not that people don't know what they like or dislike, but I don't think Kate Bush's work is like a can of pork and beans that tastes the same everytime you open it. Listeners have to do almost the same amount of time of listening to any given album as has taken Kate to produce it. In fact, I've found, in retrospect, that the longer time taken between albums the longer time I had to spend with them before I came to some full digestion.

So, will it take 12 years for me or the naysayers to appreciate AERIAL? No, I don't think so. However, I have not yet been particularly taken with Disc 1, "A Sea of Honey" thus far at all. But I wouldn't dare to dispel it - I'm open to the idea that more or all of it will eventually reveal parts of me that respond to it and I intend to put it and myself through the paces to find out. If the past is any indication, I'm sure what is currently odd, boring, or meaningless to me will change and take me in and under.

Disc 2 I've had NO TROUBLE with as. As far as I can remember, this is only second time that Kate has really done a themed/story side - The Ninth Wave being the first. "The Kick Inside" and "The Sensual World" could be said to be 'themed' but "A Sky of Honey" and "The Ninth Wave" have more concerted and deliberate stuctures and she excels and wows in this format.

(SIDE NOTE: "The Ninth Wave" was incredible also because musically it reflected much of the first side of "Hounds of Love" - in particular, "I get out my car and step into the night and look up at the sky" is musically and rhythmically a repetition of "And if I only could, I'd make a deal with God, and I'd get him to swap our places". - wow)

I am impressed and moved tremendously by the work and the results of "A Sky of Honey" - at age 42, I certainly can appreciate the moods and contentments that the dreams of an entire day bring and I am so appreciative that Kate has managed to provide, in her astounding way, a way to experience that kind of spanning time - which sadly I can't actually do all the time - can you? The beautiful gift that Kate gives us in "The Sky of Honey" is the experience of various moods and feelings we've all had from various different days and moments in our lives, distilled into a continuous form and span of time we rarely have the luxury to spend. - wow again

So no matter what the premature (I think), negative reactions are to AERIAL, welcome back Kate's work into your 'house' and take some time with it, 'eat it', if you will, and let the 'honey' fairly flow. I expect you'll find 'sticky love' indeed. ; )