Remembrance Days [Import]

Dream Academy | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 4, 1997)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Wea International
• ASIN: B000005S5O
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #153,441 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Indian Summer

2. The Lesson of Love

3. Humdrum

4. Power to Believe

5. Hampstead Girl

6. Here

7. In the Hands of Love

8. Ballad in 4/4

9. Doubleminded

10. Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime

11. In Exile (For Rodrigo Rojas)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fond memories..., June 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Remembrance Days (Audio CD)

Whenever I listen to this album, or any other material from TDA, I think about the good old times as a student in the late 80s, early 90s. Beautiful melodies, melancholic at times, and always brilliantly mastered. In a way, I'm glad not too many people know of this little gem.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I absolutely adore this little gem!!!!!!!!!, September 11, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Remembrance Days (Audio CD)

There aren't words in the english language to describe this pop gem.This recording will definately ensnare you completey in it's grasp, from the very first song.Nick Laird cloud is an amazing song writer and puts to shame so called word poets like Dylan and Van Morrison.By far one of THE best recordings of the 20th century..A MUST!!!!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Dream Academy's worthy sophomore release, February 2, 2004

By 

Daniel J. Hamlow (Narita, Japan) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Remembrance Days (Audio CD)

The trick to topping or maintaining a debut album featuring a sound unlike the danceable New Romantic/Second British Invasion sound of Duran Duran or Spandau Ballet is a hard and rocky ground, especially with a single like "Life In A Northern Town." Well, the Dream Academy's second term, titled Remembrance Days, has them maintaining that same sound, Nick Laird-Clowes's gentle vocals and guitars as well as co-producing work, Kate St. John's oboe and cor anglais, and Gilbert Gabriel's keyboards.

The reflection of a summer spent at a rented house on the shore that one really enjoyed staying at drives the dreamy "Indian Summer" which gets backing vocal support from J.D. Souther and Lindsey Buckingham, the latter who co-produced this song. There's a basso Indian-sounded chant mid-song, lending to the atmosphere.

"The Lessons Of Love" benefits from a lilting guitar and an overall gentle feel and backing choir. When Laird-Clowes sings against leaving the city of love and moving to the valley of reason, I see a true romantic at work there who believes anybody, rich or poor, even a self-made liar, can learn the lesson. This song was produced by Patrick Leonard.

"Humdrum" is another portrait of the industrial city, of the workers whose labours benefit the higher-ups, who live in a world of deadlines and are wound up so tight in this dog-eat-dog situation.

The soft percussion and the haunting aura of "Power To Believe" reminds me of Phil Collins' "In The Air Tonight" telling the story of a privilege-born man who turns his back on that to find a deeper truth, and the hard trials he undergoes. At the end he says "Keep me warm and dry/where other men are worrying/and other men must die/and when the lies are spoken/give endurance to the weak/and when the heart of man is broken/give the power to believe."

"Hampstead Girl" is a song of personal woes in the lonely city, and how one yearns to do whatever to cheer her up, but the timing's never right, so she remains with the blue in her eyes that look at the grey of the town. A leisurely mid-paced sound, with St. John's vocalizing reminiscent of Christine McVie.

The title of the album is taken from a lyric in the refreshing "In The Hands Of Love." The most upbeat song, a modern look back at the days of flower power and the Summer of Love, extols people: "Now that the war is over, put your hands in the hands of love." The second best song here.

"Ballad in 4/4" has a man wanting to hold onto everything despite living a life of lies, having an affair with a married woman and falling in love with a single girl but not dumping the other woman. His deeming take-home pay as the false security as opposed to the love that really makes him rich belies a more romantic nature concealed.

The folly of indecision is explored in "Doubleminded" which has a lush strings-synth section. Then the quiet minimalist guitar and oboe ditty about opening up to love because "Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime." This was produced by Lindsey Buckingham and Richard Dashut as well as Laird-Clowes and Hugh Padgham.

The last song, "In Exile," is a harrowing sobering narrative, with music to match, of people exiled from countries like Argentina and Chile, recalling images of national strikes, civil unrest, soldiers firing at students, and people ending up as los desaparecidos. The tempo briefly ratchets a notch as Laird-Clowes narrates the events taking place before yielding to an angelic choir. The ending has a hopeful note, "someday we'll return there... someday we'll be free there in the land where we were born." The best song on the album.

A worthy second debut, with the same mix of reflective songs, the woeful tales of the forbidding urban jungle. And the change of producers, to Hugh Padgham of the Police and Phil Collins fame didn't hurt either. An underrated effort that should've done better.