Customer Reviews

Victorialand

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A beautiful, chiefly acoustic release by the Cocteau Twins. The songs evoke the feeling of darkness, winter, and solitude. Elizabeth Fraser's vocal range on this album is amazing, especially on "Ooomingmak" and "The Thinner the Air." This album was considered to be one of the most influencial albums in the ambient movement, circa 1986.

I know nobody will care what I am about to say but I feel obliged to do so:This IS simply one of the most important album that ever came out of the 80's, and this is among the best albums from that band. I know there are other great albums from the greatest band on Earth, but this one is one of its kind. Well, am I overrating them? Maybe, but they have been iniquitously underrated by the 'Sophisticated New Music Critics' for ages. Not only did this album define the 4AD sound they created even further, actually casted a huge influence on the whole New Age Scene and the Ambient Scene. Yes, it is actually that good, Enya owes a lot to the Cocteau, so does a whole lot more of New Age artists and so-called-alternative artists such as Lush, even legends like My Bloody Valentine admitted that Cocteau Twins was one of their major influence.The whole album is a dreamscape, it is subtle, gentle, otherworldly... Whatever! I know this is how many people rave about them, i do not wish to use all the words which means 'etheral' to describe their music. It is just beautiful and this beauty is unparrelled in the 90's, not even by themselves, I am sad to say.(Although Otherness EP was half as good) Nobody else even came this close to the word 'beautiful'. Music of the God? I am not sure, but I am quite sure God will be very pleased with their music.

This album is made of snow and ice mountains. With the barest touch of guitar, tabla, saxophone and the winter-warm chill of Fraser's voice, Antarctica is revealed.

Ghostly, sensual beauty of blank spaces.

the cocteau twins...their sound can transport you to places in your mind you never knew existed. the music on this cd is probably some of the best from this group of etheral soundscapes and design. from the "eerie lazy calm" opening of the album....all the way through to the unbelievable "the thinner the air"...this album does not stop delivering. i am a huge cocteau fan, and this recording is easily on my top three list of their catalogue. all of their music is fantastic, yet this cd just has a certain magic that can not be denied. liz's voice is angelic....it soars along taking you with it in smooth fluid movements....the layers of guitar, your guide on this magical flight to Victorialand...a place of wonderment. again, you are faced with (like in most cocteau releases) not understanding alot of what liz is actually saying lyrically, but that's just it...you don't need to...you can feel what she's saying. when i'm walking up to the gates of heaven awaiting my judgement, this is what they'll be playing just inside the gates. that's how beautiful this music is. it is unlike anything i have ever heard, yet you immediately know it's the twins. similar to blue bell knoll...no drums though...no bass...just robin on guitars, and liz's angelic voice. picture walking through a snow covered tundra.....the sun reflected off the ice patches....a castle in the distance...then you hear a voice...soaring...sweeping... magical stuff.... i thank the musical gods for the cocteau twins every time i listen to them...and that's usually every day.

"Treasure" was the first CT album I ever owned, and it was so incredible that I leapt for joy upon hearing that they had released a new one; "Victorialand". It did not disappoint! Minus the sometimes overwhelming drum machines of "Treasure", this recording is a flowing, ethereal voyage into a peaceful cloudland of fantasy, albeit with some disturbing moments ("Throughout the Dark Months...") and mournful ones ("The Thinner the Air"). My favorites are "Lazy Calm" (a slow, pastel dreamscape), "Fluffy Tufts" (a hypnotic,luscious groove), "Whales Tales" (approprately, sounds like an underwater fantasia), and "Oomingmak" (a playful trance dance). I especially love the "oooh haah" parts of "Tufts" and "Tales"; better than a Jacuzzi! Elizabeth Fraser's vocals are so astonishingly pure and lush, I could not care less about understanding the lyrics; my total enchantment takes over.Indeed, CT taught me how to listen to vocals instead of words, which helped me later to appreciate foreign language angels like Maire Brennan, Azzam Ali and Dadawa. For an escape to Utopia better than an aromatherapy bubble bath, GET THIS CD!

The record is a masterpiece from the beginning to the end. This album is tied with "Head Over Heals" as my favorite record of the Cocteau Twins. And like "Head Over Heals", Robin Guthrie and Elizabeth Fraser do this one without Simon Raymonde. After a hard day, please put this record on, and all problems will just disappear. I think it is a tragedy that for the most part this album will never be heard by the mass majority of the people, and they are saddly never going to hear one of the most prettiest, peaceful, delicate, blissful albums ever made. And if we could hear butterflies sing they would sound like Elizabeth on this album. She always has amazed me, and here she astounds once again. Let me review my five favorites on "Victorialand".
1)"Throughout The Dark Months Of April and May". The wicked and at the same time delicate guitar playing and singing on this song is simply gorgeous. When you think the song will be going one way, they do a U-Turn. 2)"Lazy Calm". If you don't cry on this one, you have turned to stone. There is a stillness in this song any group would kill to be able to achieve, but these guys do it effortlessly. 3)"Feet-Like Fins" Pure brilliance. Here again another U-Turn song. 4)"The Thinner The Air". On this one close your eyes and experience pure ecstacy. 5)"How To Bring A Blush To The Snow". Another Cocteau Twins masterpiece. And the song title says it all about how you will feel after hearing it. Listen to this album, and be prepared to be a Cocteau Twins fan for life. I rate this group priceless and this album 5 stars.

I must admit I am a new fan of Scotland's group the Cocteau Twins, but already I have fallen in total love with their dream-like, almost opium-dazed music. I was introduced to the CT with their BBC sessions collection and was drawn-in to the strange sounds. Like an odd mix of New Wave, The Cure, and ambient music, the CT drew me into an almost heavenly world where everything is pure. I then went out to purchase "Victorialand" and much to surprised, I was stunned even more. Robin Guthrie composing beautiful landscapes of lushish flowers and all that is happy, and Elizabeth Fraser's angelic voice like a beacon of light...like a moth that is drawn to the flame, "Victorialand" entrances the listener to be pulled into a light-filled world where everything is at peace and your only worry is being pulled out of the beautiful plane that it is. Trully one of the best albums to mellow-out and cool-off to. I honestly cannot see any filler songs here buy my personal favorites are "Lazy Calm", "Whales Tails", and "The Thinner The Air". The rest just flow into eachother like a chronological story of pure grace that happens whenever everything seems right. Nirvana-like, and almost spiritual, "Victorialand" is a masterpiece of Ambient and beautiful music. Highly reccomended!

The title of VICTORIALAND and its songs are all references to Antarctica, and the album itself communicates very clearly the idea of a cold and snowy landscape. It's all a joy to listen to; somehow the songs seem lonely without being the least bit gloomy Recorded in 1986, when bassist Simon Raymonde was busy contributing to This Mortal Coil, VICTORIALAND has the Cocteau Twins performing in a rather different way. Robin Guthrie and Elizabeth Fraser have stuck with acoustic instrumentation and used pillowy production to create an album that sounds much softer than anything they have done before.

The disc opens with "Lazy Calm", which begins as a soft instrumental and comes into Liz Fraser's lovely vocals as a train exiting a dark tunnel. "Oomingmak" (winter in that polar continent) and "Feet-Like Fins" feature excellent vocals, and Robin Guthrie's guitar on "Througout the Dark Months of April and May" show that the instrumentation on this album is just as solid as on previous Twins releases.

The song "The Thinner the Air" has been remastered for the Cocteau Twins best-of STARS AND TOPSOIL. I'd certainly recommend gettting that album as well, as the remastering has brought out elements in the song that have never before been heard.

Although this album is excellent, it is not one of the essential recordings of the Cocteau Twins due to the lack of Simon Raymonde and its side-project nature. For those who have never heard the bliss and ethereal glory of the Twins, I think the albums TREASURE or HEAVEN OR LAS VEGAS are the best places to start. However, for anyone who already has a couple of their albums, I would certainly recommend VICTORIALAND.

Besides "Blue Bell Knoll", Victorialand is my favorite album by the Cocteau Twins. It technically surpasses any other album recorded with 1980's technology and is, in it's own way, one of the most historically significant albums ever released. Of course, nobody wants to buy an album for its historical significance, but do not be distracted here, because Victorialand delivers on all fronts. Very soulful stuff.

How does one review a CT album? I mean, nobody knows what the hell Liz Fraser is singing about (not even she), there's nothing overly wonderful about Robin Guthrie's programming licks (influential though they certainly were/are). I don't fully know what attracts me to their sound (besides the fact that Liz fraser has the sexiest voice in the world), but when you do the math, somehow it all adds up to a mystical, almost religious experience.

That is at the heart of a lot of their music, I think: when trying to reach a level with the gods, language becomes useless, logic has to be put aside, all the usual accoutrements of your life and style and affectations have to be put down to humulity by, of all fleeting things, a solitary feeling of awe, some pathological experience that has no real voice other than the garbled impression that you know what you've just experienced was unusual, intangible, and yet so damned real you could touch it. That is something like what I go through when I hear this album. It doesn't have the catchiness of , say, Heaven or Las Vegas, or the absolute beauty of Blue Bell Knoll. It's just kind of left intentionally as a series of musical impressions.

Dammit I like it. It's not even trying to be alternative, it's quite simply too humble for that, it just is what it is, and since the CT have always had a "take it or leave it" attitude with their work, it doesn't surprise me one iota that I keep coming back to it again and again.

Listening to this stuff is like asking your artsy friend to answer a mundane question ("how's the weather?") without words and without the standards we usually go by for determining an answer : a seldom-more-than-mundane thing, this pop music, as interpreted from another planet's view of what popular music is, or can be.

Aww hell, it's hard to explain this stuff. Just trust me, give it a week or two to sink in, and you'll never forsake it. This album (like many others by CT) just plain rocks.

Jason B.

What impresses me so much about this album is how much was achived with so little. Most of the instrumentation on this album simply consits of layers upon layers of overdubbed voices and guitars. Is it the Cocteau Twins finest hour? Probably, although it would not serve well as an introduction to someone never exposed to their music. This is an extremely peaceful and meditative album; "Lazy Calm," the opener, and "The Thinner the Air," the closing track, are clearly the masterpieces of this work, although everything in between is very good as well. But again, this is very much "mood music"; despite how good it is, I can't imagine anyone listening to this album at any time of the day regardless of their mood. This is music to sleep to, make love to, or simply ponder upon. The absence of bassist Simon Reymonde as well as the very minimal percussion makes this seem more like a "project" than anything else; while it undoubtedly has the CT signature sound, it is still quite unlike anything they released from Garlands to Milk & Kisses. So if you've already been exposed to this very unique band, and would love to hear more, sit back, relax and get ready for a journey. Otherwise, check out Stars & Topsoil for a good introduction; the hardcore fans will always be picky, but in truth that album has a wonderful selection from CT's musical history.