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97 of 100 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Stunningly Beautiful Album!, March 19, 2000
This album has been in constant rotation in my cd player for years and years now. It really is a beautiful album. I never understood the people who said that all Mazzy Star songs all sound alike. I never thought that in any sense at all. they all are so subtle and subdued but yet all have their own personality. The album really coheres in a sense, but each song tells it's own story. It isn't simply a collection of random songs but more a book of short stories held together by a common thread. From the first track, Fade Into You, a sort of surprise hit single on the radio with its country tinged, folk psychadelia to the grand finale, So Tonight That I Might See, a Doors inspired stream of conscious masterpiece, the entire album shimmers with emotion and feeling and dreamy landscapes. David Robacks sweet guitar playing and lush arrangements provide the perfect backdrop to Hope Sandovals detached but angelic voice and an almost faceless backing band provides the perfect foil for the dark, laid back duo who are fronting the show. Fade Into You is a beautiful tune, filled with desertlike folk country-ish sounds, that never seems to wear thin. Bells Ring which is next, keeps the same spirit as Fade Into You, albiet with a more heavy, electrified spirit and then Mary of Silence And Five String Serenade bring the band closer to a funeral type atmosphere, but it's Blue Light, the fifth track that lifts the band out of it's misery. This almost tone poem, is filled with an aquatic organ sound that is perfect, almost with it giving you the feeling of a soft, blueish light shining through the window on a what was rainy afternoon during a hot summer's day. She's My Baby is nice and is next, but it's the seventh track, Unreflected that has consistantly moved me and been one of my favorite songs of all time. It's gently ringing acoustic guitars, soft shaker and echoey vocals by Sandoval remind me of lying in a field in the desert on a clear summer's night with the brightest stars against the darkest backdrop circling above. This is a song that could simply be called cosmic... something which not many songs truly are. The album then shifts gears with the coarse and tripped out "Wasted" only to find it's way back to dreamy folk on "Into Dust," which gives way the powerful closing track, So Tonight That I Might See. In similar fashion to The Doors, "The End," Sandoval sings with detached fashion almost unceasing string of words whih sound almost like an uninterupted thought from beginning to end. So Tonight is a fantastic album. You may have heard Fade Into You on the radio at some point. Give it a try if you haven't already. It isn't music that you want to race cars to (effectively atleast) but it is a great cd. The playing by the band (except Roback) is nothing to run to the store about, but they do managed to create a dreamy atmosphere which is unbroken throughout the show. Highly Recommended.
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35 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best of all Mazzy Star by far, October 24, 2000
If you like either of the other Mazzy Star albums, this one is a little different... in a better way. If you have never heard of this band, but like mysterious, sultry, and deep music, running the gamut from acoustic guitar with female voice, ranging to psychedelic electronic, then maybe it's for you. This is the best of all Mazzy Star's albums. I really wish the group would stick with this style, which is a little darker at times, and a little more acoustic at others, than either 'Swan or 'Brightly. There is only one song on this album (track 2) which I do not truly adore (and it just happens to be the one song which sounds EXACTLY like most of the songs on the other 2 albums). The sound on this album reminds me in an odd way of early Pink Floyd and The Doors, with a sultry female vocalist. It makes great mood music for a make out session. It is good for combating depression. Then again, it also gets me riled up. The title track makes think of what would happen if Jim Morrison was reincarnated as a woman and tried to play "The End" in the 90's. "5 String Serenade" is one of the softest, sweetest, and most gentle songs ever. Also, the recording quality is FANTASTIC! I use this CD as a test/reference whenever I try out new audio equipment.
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26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Words fail me, but I'll try anyway...., October 25, 2005
Twelve years ago I was sitting on a porch in a college town in the early fall, waiting to go to a party, and the song "Fade Into You" came over the radio. I can still remember the way the plaintive sound of Hope Sandoval's voice, woven into those languid guitar strains, settled over my nervous system with an effect that can only be described as hypnotic. It was a bright, sunny day, but all the sudden I felt like it was half past midnight, and I had nothing to keep me company but a candle and a big bottle of red wine. I was so haunted by the song that at the first opportunity I went out to a record store and bought the CD, "So Tonight That I Might See." It remains my all-time favorite, a bottle of "the good stuff" that I break out only on special occasions.
People have a tendency to discuss albums song by song, but "So Tonight That I Might See" is, to me, just one long piece of music, performed in an unvaryingly mellow and often longing tone of voice. The mood weaves its thread through every track, binding them together into a singular piece of music that is wierdly and intensely beautiful. I would never insult this dark masterwork by skipping ahead to a certain song; I either listen to the whole album (on repeat, drinking some good absinthe if possible and letting the grooves take me where they may) or I don't listen at all. There are rules to drinking the good stuff, you see.
Cheers.
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