Customer Reviews

Victorialand

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is among the Cocteau Twins most beautiful and intimate records, and is unlike anything they or anyone else ever did. Working almost entirely without percussion, Robin Guthrie and Elizabeth Fraser surpassed themselves in imagining songs and settings which somehow evoke whatever in you, the listener, is most reserved and magical, the world you keep hidden even from yourself most of the time. If you don't want to get to that place, then this record isn't for you, but otherwise it is essential. In my collection of over 3000 recordings in all kinds of genres, this record has a permanent place in the top ten.
For whatever reason, the previous CD reissues of this, on Relativity and Capitol, never sounded as good as the original 45 RPM LP on 4AD. The Capitol was better than the Relativity, but still lacked the LP's warmth and detail. Now it's finally been done right and you can hear it as it should be heard.

The Cocteau Twins were one of those bands that I had heard of but never really took the time to check out their music. The first time I heard them was on a CMJ compilation cd ten years ago. It was not until last year when I bought the remastered version of "Treasure" and "Stars and Topsoil" did I find myself under the spell of The Cocteau Twins. I recently picked up "Victorialand" this week. Like "Treasure", "Victorialand" is candy for the ears. The cd is only 32 minutes long which is the only flaw I found with the album. The album begins with the dreamy soundscape of "Lazy Calm", probably my very favorite track on the album. From there the music just flows smoothly with Elizabeth Fraser's fragile vocals. Another personal favorite is "Little Spacey". I just love Robin Guthrie's guitar playing on this particular song. His intricate guitar playing complements Elizabeth's unique vocals. I found myself entranced with the ethereal melodies. "Victorialand" is a great album to to pick for people who just started getting into the Cocteau Twins' music such as myself. The production is absolutely pristine and the music is enchanting.

I purchased the Remaster Victorialand a few months ago. I'll other people praise this album, I'll agree with any review. I writting this if you are a Cocteau Twins fan. If you have a early release of Victorialand and love it as I do. YOU HAVE TO BUY THIS ALBUM REMASTERED!!!! As an audiophile I compared this CD with earlier releases. This release is like High Def audio the recording is much cleaner and articulate. This album is the most played in my music collection but I haven't listen to it in awhile. But after listening to this release I am about to catch a second wind here. It is very enjoyable even a compressed media format, which sounds better than the earlier CD releases of Victorialand. I now on a mission to buy all Cocteau Twins remastered releases. Joy, pure joy. This release is as good as the Vinyl release. Buy it you won't be disapointed.

This album was pivotal on its release for me. It is unique, otherworldly and introspective. The electric guitar has never sounded so dense and so present. The layers are dreamlike and Elizabeth Frasers voice is majestic.

Short album which continues to articulate that singular Cocteau aesthetic, composed between the shimmering guitars and ethereal female vocals found lingering throughout. Opening with some of their most obvious beauty, it becomes noticeable somewhere through the middle of this album that the haunting melodic sense which usually provides staggering counterpoint to this vocalist seems underdeveloped, sometimes taking their minimal approach down a partially mechanical route, but nearly everything becomes salvaged with exceptional production values for the time highlighting the many facets to this diamond-like music. In the final few songs, the Twins again justify another album experience with greater consuming dynamics, making Victorialand yet another snap-shot of a sound long lost.

Sounding both universally centered and incredibly remote all at once (much like the territory in Antarctica that provides the CD with its title) "Victorialand" is at once intimate and distancing, and remains one of the 'Twins most thoroughly atmospheric releases, with only the occasional beat of a tabla and the languid glide of a saxophone (each appearing only once, on two divergent tracks, "Feet Like Fins" featuring the former, and "Lazy Calm" the latter) to provide counterpoint to Robin Guthrie's overdubbed, heavily processed acoustic guitar and Liz Frazer's expansive, enchanted vocals, as bassist Simon Raymonde was busy recording with This Mortal Coil.

Despite the foreboding, slightly glacial nature of some of the tracks ("Throughout The Dark Months Of April And May" and "The Thinner The Air" especially come to mind here), there are some surprisingly engaging songs that, while not particularly joyful or positive in arrangement, do have a sense of warmth that compels repeated listening, with "Lazy Calm", "Oomingmak", and "Little Spacey" (recorded in waltz-time) creating a soothing emotional impact that centers the soul like the measuring bubble on some universal level.

Both shimmery and overpowering, this is a recording with both vastness and intricacy, like the massive snowpack made up of individual crystals which covers the territory the release is named for. Of all of their releases this is perhaps the most personal, and certainly the most haunting, plunging listeners into their own transcendent interior landscape(s). It's not the ideal entry point for someone just coming to the `Twins ("Treasure" is the one I'd recommend), but it's a vital, necessary recording, and not just for rabid completists.

The beauty of Victorialand, and other largely instrumental music such as Oldfied's "Tubular Bells", Mick Taylor's "A Minor", Pat Metheny's "To The End Of The World", Van Morrison's "September Night", King Crimson "Court Of The Crimson King", Renaissance "Can You Hear Me?", is this:

One can dovetail one's own thoughts and dreams with the music. There is space to insert your own interpretation in a stream of consciousness, or emotion, as the song unfolds. The melodies, the echos, within Victorialand in particular are unique. I'm moved for a reason that I cannot articulate, but moved I am. "Lazy Calm" and "Fluffy Tufts" could be meditations on a sunny spring day, or falling in love, or one's child being born... any and all.

This is music about the best within us, the best that we are as human beings. This is, at the risk of being offensively maudlin, to paraphrase Kahlil Gibhran "love made visible" (or audible).

It's a bit hard to believe that human's made this wonderful sound...IN A STUDIO...
This record amazes me.It's beautiful, haunting, relaxing...It's flawless!

I've been a CT fan for a while, but I never heard of this album until I revisited my collection and noticed I was missing this one. What an unbelievable find! The lack of the drum machine is refreshing and allows the guitar and vocals to dominate, which is the best part of CT anyways.

This is my close second to the best album ever made. The first would undoubtedly go to BKK!! I will always come back to this and BKK to find meaning in my life. The sound of God... My first love... There are no other comparisons to what Cocteau Twins created. Maybe I will always be a child to the 80's? Nothing before or after has ever had such an impact upon me. Liz, Robin, and Simon. I need you to know, you have both destroyed and completed my faith in God.