Customer Reviews

Surfacing

5 star:		(489)
4 star:		(75)
3 star:		(27)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

Originally, I purchased this album, without knowing much about the artist, because I really liked the song "Building A Mystery. I played "Building A Mystery" over and over for a long time, then I listened to the rest of the disc and was astounded. Every song on "Surfacing" is thoughtfully written and uniquely beautiful. Personally, I believe that the best song on this CD is track #2, "I Love You". With its unique instrumentation, superb acoustic guitar solo (by Sarah), and expressively sung lyrics which I could personally identify with, it quickly became my favorite song. I have played it so many times, I can't believe that the CD isn't worn out! Each track is pleasantly different and has its own charm. "Sweet Surrender" is upbeat and inspiring, while "Angel" is tranquil and meditative. The calming instrumental, "Last Dance" is the perfect choice for the concluding track. "Surfacing" is the one CD I cannot live without. I am now a huge fan of Sarah and have gone on to purchase her older CDs. I love every one of them, but "Surfacing" is the absolute best. It deserves nothing short of five stars. If you don't already own a copy of this collection of musical poetry, do yourself a favor and go order one now! I promise that you will not be disappointed!

This album put Sarah McLachlan in the music spotlight that she definitely deserves. I bought this album because I liked her previous one, Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, so much. Surfacing shows her continuing growth as a song writer and performer. Simply put, she is one of the best female artists making music these days.

Most people will be familiar with the singles "Building a Mystery" and "Angel", both which are strong tracks. But, probably the most impressive songs on the album are "Sweet Surrender", "Adia", and "Witness". Overall, the sound quality of this CD is excellent. I like to listen to this album with headphones to get the full impact of the songs.

I highly recommend this album to any Sarah Mclachlan fun, if you do not already own it. If you are unfamiliar with her work, I would use this CD as a great starting point.

Nowadays, the radio plays so many songs by women artists dressed like prostitutes, crooning (rather off-key) about how they like men, like to tease men, like to break hearts, etc., etc. But there exists a different class of female vocalists out there, with a more independent message--the Lillith Fair set, if you will--and Sarah MacLachlan is squarely at the forefront.

With her CD "Surfacing," many longtime fans may feel that she has gone too mainstream or too 'radio-friendly.' Oftentimes artists will have to do this to increase sales. Look at how much New Age recluse Enya has popularized her once arcane, Celtic-spirited style. However, I think that Ms. MacLachlan has lost little if any of her iconic individuality with this release. It's not as if Delilah had slain Sappho, so to speak.

Of course, we cannot keep Sugar Ray fans from singing along when "Building a Mystery" or "Angel" plays on the radio. But there is enough depth to her lyrics, as always, to keep the more emotionally/soulfully attuned listener satisfied. In songs like "Adia," for example, MacLachlan makes the most of her gifted voice range and lyrical sensitivity. I feel that this is one of her best recordings to date, and I look forward to more music of this kind.

This album is still one of my favorite recordings, and this is by far her finest hour. With the angelic 'Angel', deeply sad and moving, to the single 'Building a Mystery' which is her most commercial offering, Sarah serves up quality on EVERY track. 'Sweet Surrender' and 'Witness' provide haunting yet beautiful lyrics wrapped up in her velvet voice, while 'I Love You' provides a stunning arangement and beautiful soul. My favorite track here is the haunting 'Adia' which gives me goosebumps every time I listen to it. I'm not quite sure what the song is about but I picture it to be about failing as a parent, failing to give your children the love and support they deserve and the regret you feel after you realize you could have and should have done better. Regardless of what she means, music only matters when it means something to the listener, and her music means something to me...so it matters.

I have had this album for over three years now and I still listen to it avidly. This album has been inspirational and motivating but also depressing and calming. Sarah Mclaughlin's voice is hauting and seductive at the same time. She's toned and rich in emotion, getting it all right. Her melodies are easy to remember, though not particularly easy to sing along with. Her most popular songs on this album include "Building a Mystery", "Adia", "Angel" and "Sweet Surrender". This CD is enhanced meaning it has other information on it, I believe this includes a biography and discography of her. Her voice is rich and this album is as well. Her songs are well written and carefully executed, every song brings something new. Personally my favorite song on this album is "Black and White", it explores feelings on acceptance and societal views. If you read her lyrics they are very meaningful and not fluffy like many of the albums released. I would recommend this to people who enjoy Dido and the Cranberries. This works great with bubble baths or love. On a side note, the cover art and booklet included are beautiful. Very artsy and dark, matching and somehow deep. Cover art alone is worth it for me, it really reflects her style and the mood of this disc.

Sarah McLaughlan, Surfacing (1998). A map of heartache - a history of a breakup. The album chronicles the loss of someone who seemed so integral to your life you literally don't know what to do with yourself alone. Every aspect of what you hear on the CD communicates the ache of knowing they aren't coming back: Sarah's voice is ethereal, seemingly insubstantial - even when she embellishes on a single word with a lot of notes, you never once feel like she's overdoing it - with the songs themselves quiet landscapes of dark green and deep woods, each one slow, soft, unhurried. The album doesn't so much strive as it does haunt; it would be bloody and raw if it wasn't so graceful. It's as if, instead of actually working to get her message across, she simply opens up a window on a night-time breeze: if you stand still, it will give you goose bumps.
Fine instrumentation doesn't eclipse penetrating lyrics, however, which capture pretty perfectly unbearable heartbreak: "Shaken by the violence of existing for only you/I know I can't be with you/I don't know how to let you go," she confesses; and on the song titled "I Love You," she mixes strings, soft percussion and helpless desire ("The world around us disappears") with her inability to express it to the one she wants ("Let me surround you/My sea to your shore/Let me be the calm you seek/And every time I'm close to you, there's too much I can't say/And you just walk away"). When she says, "It'd cold here without you," it's hard not to shiver. The second-to-last song is painfully poignant (she finally comes to say "It's better this way"), but the last track, a instrumental with a sole piano, doesn't end the album with much hope - it conjures up an image of a dancer going through her moves extraordinarily gingerly (perhaps because of her bruises?); the final chords hint at the dancer's final collapse, showing a kind of desperate end instead of rest or resolution.
I bought this album on a whim - a CD club had overcharged me, so I picked it without expecting much. I promptly concluded that all the songs were basically the same (in fact, there didn't seem to be much song there to begin with). It wasn't much longer before I experienced for myself the whole subject of Surfacing; and suddenly each track left me blinking in its blaze, each song delving in to one aspect of this kind of loss. It was almost one year before I was actually able to listen to the album without wincing, much less just hold my head in my hands. Time heals (or at least blurs), but even after having regained some equilibrium, I have never been able to listen to Surfacing without that haunting prickling over me again.

Sarah McLachlan, queen of the darker side of alternative music, produced the enchanting "Surfacing" before going on extended hiatus. The result is a masterpiece of music and voice, with a few disturbing turns (as is her way) but the result is a treasure.

"Building a Mystery" is one that you will either love or hate; a strange song without her customary softer tone. It's definitely a weird one, with its casual references to vampires, sleeping with voodoo dolls, waking screaming from dreams from "secret gods," suicide poetry, and a beautiful, edgy, charming man with a know-it-all grin. But it is also one that refuses to let you forget a word of it.

"I Love You" is simply put, a ballad of love. Which is not to say that it resembles a single love ballad out there on other CDs; it has McLachlan's haunting voice, and the soft-edged lyrics that hint rather than explaining. Rather than an extended monologue, she simply explains, "and I forgot/to tell you/I love you/and the night's/too long/and cold here/without you."

"Sweet Surrender" has more of a rock/pop tilt, but the lyrics are pure McLachlan, containing the description of how "every step in faith/betrayed me," and "sweet, sweet, sweet surrender/is all that I have to give."

"Adia" laments a breakup and the loss of the unhappy, lonely Adia, and a hope that she can get back together with the source of the song, "'cause there's no one left to finger/there's no one here to blame/there's no one left to talk to honey/and there ain't no one to buy our innocence."

"Do What You Have To Do" is reminiscent of older McLachlan songs, half an acceptance that "you do what you have to do," and half an acknowledge of almost obsessive-sounding love that insists, "I don't know how to let you go."

"Witness" is also reminiscent of older McLachlan, with its references to leaving darkness and doubt behind, and the question "is misery made beautiful" in the middle of it.

"Angel" is the darkest song on this album, in which the poetry of the words is broken occasionally by references to drug use and finding comfort "in the arms of the angel." Unhappiness, loneliness, and the bleakness of the world prompts the "escape one last time."

"Black and White" is again a sort of more rock/pop song, with lyrics that seem to be floating baseless, without a solid idea of what is going on. It doesn't do full justice to McLachlan's voice, as often she either drifts out during a word, or sounds like she's singing through a metal tube.

"Full of Grace" is a fitting end to the lyrical songs, an imploring to "lift me from this place," as the singer expresses a feeling of sinking and darkness. The vocals are especially exquisite in this one, rising and falling as the song demands.

Finally, "Last Dance" is a fitting end to the album, an instrumental that also gives a feeling of sadness without the need for words.

McLachlan hardly falters in this album, where there is some exploration of new types of songs, and stretching from the boundaries of poetic darkness that she explored in her prior ones. Enchantingly sung, written, and played with a wholeness and intimacy that few albums have entirely matched, this is a beautiful work.

Reading some of the reviews of this CD, I am baffled at some of the so-called Sarah fans who loved Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, yet lambasted this CD as fluff. It is anything but. Yes, Fumbling was an edgier, alternative recording. No, Surfacing is not a step back. It is a step forwards as Sarah explores the depths of the human condition, wrapped in sonic pleasures. The music may seem slow and plodding but the message therein is even more powerful. "Angel" is absolutely brilliant, touching so many different people on so many levels. "Building A Mystery" and "Witness" will satisfy earlier Sarah fans who seem to have missed the boat on this one. Just because she broke through commercially with this one, she gets labelled a sell-out? Rubbish. First class.

OK people, I'm very, very versed in many different genres of music, and frankly I'm not generally into "coffee house music" or "VH1-style songwriters". My favourite modern records are not anything like one another except that almost every one is not known by the masses. "Surfacing" is certainly the most "commercial" of all my favourite records that have been released in the last 10 years.

These songs are produced with a much more organic feel than her other recordings. There are electronic bits but the drums and everything else feel much more real than on anything else she's done. The magic of this record is the songwriting mixed with the production. It is unbelievable how beautiful this record is. If you love music, you should get this set of songs. It's funny because I went back and listened to Fumbling Toward Ecstacy and found it to sound irrelevant after buying "Surfacing". Additionally, I rushed out to buy Afterglow upon it's release (the follow-up to "Surfacing") and found it to be overproduced and synthetic feeling, similar to FTE. I don't know what special moment in time caught Mrs. Mc Lachlan in 1996 while recording "Surfacing", but something unbelievably special came out of it. Too bad the greatness of this album will likely never be approached again.

Later in 1997 I heard "I Will Remember You" and thought it was stunning. I assumed she had recorded it before "Surfacing" and was shocked that there were other hidden gems from prior sessions that were equal to Surfacing. Unfortunately, this song was from the Surfacing sessions, and it had just been left off the album.

Fumbling Towards Ecstasy was such a perfect CD I wondered what Sarah McLachlan would do for an encore. "Surfacing" may bot be as perfect as FTE but it is so very close. The songs here are in a word, beautiful. McLachlan's voice is the best, in tone and range, of any of the female singer/songwriter's out there today. Her music also has more depth and breadth than anyone else's. Every songwriter writes about relationships and lost loves, but no one does it with the poetry and soul wrenching that Sarah McLachlan does. "Building a Mystery" and "Angel" were the radio hits from Surfacing but I think "Sweet Surrender" might be the strongest track. I also love "Witness", "Do What You Have to Do" and the austere "I Love You". Coupled with Fumbling Toward Ecstasy, Surfacing is a singer and songwriter at the top of her talent.