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18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Head Over Heels - Remastered., March 13, 2005
Most albums feature music which reveals the era in which they were recorded. But "Head Over Heels" by Scotland's Cocteau Twins doesn't sound like it belongs to ANY era, even though it was released in 1983. A beautiful rush of etheral magic, "Head Over Heels" stands in a class of its own. The slow-moving opener "When Mama Was Moth" has vocalist Liz Frazer delivering hypnotic (yet incoherent) chants, while the brooding "The Tinderbox (of a Heart)" marches along in all its dark glory. Things get upbeat in "In Our Angelhood" with great melange of guitars, and the single "Sugar Hiccup" holds up well. I've owned this CD since my days in college, and I like it more with each listen. The melodies these guys craft are some of the most beautiful I have ever heard. Mainstream listeners may not realize it, but the Cocteau Twins are among the most influential acts of the last 25 years, developing a unique and distinguished sound that would inspire later genres known as trip hop and ambient. Indie label 4AD re-released "Head Over Heels" with remastered sound supervised by Robin Guthrie. At first, I was reluctant to buy this CD, which, after all, was already reissued by Capitol in 1991. But the sound quality of the new 4AD release is a definite imporvement over the original, featuring a full-bodied sound that projects much better than Capitol's edition. So, even if you already have the Capitol release (or if you have no copy of "Head Over Heels" at all), you should make the upgrade and buy this great album reissued by 4AD.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"I weighed my life and it's got me old fool gold.", June 12, 2007
Although The Jesus & Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine deservedly enjoy the accolades accompanying their respective positions as pioneers of the shoegazer genre pervasive in the late 1980s, the JMC's fellow Scots, Cocteau Twins, can be identified as a crucial component in the (semi-) popularisation of the style.
Following the departure of bassist and founding member Will Heggie, Head Over Heels relies almost exclusively on the Twins' two strongest suits: Robin Guthrie's often-abstruse guitar production, and Elizabeth Fraser's wraithlike vocals (which she lent most famously to the 1998 Massive Attack single 'Teardrop') and indiscernible lyrics.
The result is something of a synthesis of the trite precepts of punk, rock, dream pop and new wave combined to otherworldly effect. Although far removed from it's ominous predecessor Garlands (1982), Head Over Heels paradoxically both maintained the (considerable) critical and (modest) commercial appreciation the band had previously garnered, and signalled the dawning of a band honing their influential sound.
A central ambivalence in the album's sound is that although Fraser's iridescent vocals could pass as lullaby ('Sugar Hiccup'), Guthrie's coextensive opaque guitar layerings and vapourous arpeggios ('Glass Candle Grenades') are often their very antithesis. The variance works however, as the album sweeps effortlessly from would-be requiem (the dirge-like 'The Tinderbox (of a heart)' and would-be jazz ('Multifoiled') to would-be U2 ('My Love Paramour') and back again.
Indeed, Robert Fripp (King Crimson) and The Edge (U2) are as present in Guthrie's guitar as Will Reid and Kevin Shields (The Jesus and Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine respectively).
Fraser's voice is the central attraction however, with a transcendent quality that can be deciphered in the work of vocalists as diverse as Jeff Buckley (with whom she was romantically involved), Bjork, Thom Yorke (Radiohead) and Chino Moreno (Deftones).
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Leave Siouxie out of this!, August 20, 2006
Ignore the whiny naysayer that cried a river because the Cocteau Twins "weren't anything like Siouxie & The Banshees"...By the end of the CT's career they were better than they ever were, whilst S&TB were pop-encrusted shadows of their former selves and glory.
This is one of their top three albums (if not their best, competeing with the PINK OPAQUE and THE MOON & THE MELODIES). Still can't stand the track "Sugar Hiccup", though...definitely the least favourable on the album.
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