Could the UK synth act Erasure be ready to call it a day?\u00a0 The title of their twelfth studio release, Light At The End Of The World<\/i> certainly seems to lead us to that conclusion.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
If this is indeed the end for Andy Bell and Vince Clarke, at least they are ending on a solid note.\u00a0 Putting aside\u00a0the cheap and ugly metaphysical cover art, half the songs that are found on this album are among the duo\u2019s very best.\u00a0 Their fans can be rest assured that this album brings back the classic Erasure sound, something that had been missing in the last ten years.\u00a0 As their best album since Cowboy <\/i>in 1997, Light At The End Of The World <\/i>finally gets things back on track. <\/p>\n
The first three songs are the best of the bunch.\u00a0 Most music critics probably won\u2019t even bother to get past the first three songs anyway, so it was smart of Erasure to kick the album off with the strongest\u00a0they have to offer.\u00a0 Comparisons are already being made to the 1989 effort Wild!<\/i>, though that is a bit of a stretch.\u00a0 Actually, I find the new material to be along the same lines as 1994\u2019s I Say, I Say, I Say<\/i>, which is the other Erasure album that takes a few spins to fully appreciate. <\/p>\n
The lead-off single \u201cI Could Fall In Love With You\u201d is a good choice.\u00a0 It\u2019s nice to hear Andy Bell taking some risks with his vocal range, even daring to sing in a deep, lower register.\u00a0 Vince Clarke is more limited by the music he supplies, since there\u2019s only so much you can do with synthesizers.\u00a0 He does attempt to make this album more upbeat than their previous anemic album Nightbird<\/i>, even throwing dance beats into songs that probably shouldn\u2019t have dance beats, namely the ballads.\u00a0 Somehow, he does make it all work, though it is clearly by the skin of his teeth. <\/p>\n
Other choice cuts on Light At The End Of The World <\/i>are the songs that begin with the letter \u201cS.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cSucker For Love\u201d is so different, it comes as a bit of a shock when you first hear it, but now I consider it to be the album\u2019s best track.\u00a0 Coming in as a close second is \u201cSunday Girl,\u201d a most welcome and unexpected find that is as good as any other Erasure hit single.\u00a0 Another song that deserves to be mentioned is the wonderfully titled \u201cStorm In A Teacup.\u201d\u00a0 Along with \u201cFly Away\u201d and \u201cGolden Heart,\u201d Andy Bell shares his story about being HIV+ in a lyrical way that is very inspirational.\u00a0 It\u2019s no wonder these songs were placed smack dab in the center, because they really are the heart and soul of the album.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The end of Light<\/i> isn\u2019t quite as effective.\u00a0 In fact, the last four songs all tend to blur together, no matter how hard you try to differentiate between them.\u00a0 Still, at this stage of their career — which has lasted over two decades — this is probably as good as it will ever get for these guys.\u00a0 If they want to quit while they’re ahead, then now is the time to do so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":28819,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7875],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-40318","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-erasure","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40318"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}