Beautiful, Spooky - Altogether Remarkable
5
By Noel McDonagh
I owned this on vinyl for years, lost it, then found a CD version in a Dublin antique market. A commercial failure at the time of its release (the artist disowned the album for years), it has since gained a reputation as a forerunner of Kate Bush/Cocteau Twins/Smoke Fairies ethereal weirdness. The slow, spooky stuff works best ("Angel", my favorite, is all delicate dream-opera). "Better to Find Out For Yourself" is wonderfully bitter. "Guess Who I Saw in Paris" is gentle literary romance. "Vampire" scares; "God is Alive..." is justifably legendary in its incantatory power. Only "Suffer the Children," an old-fashioned protest song, seems out of place. Great to play alongside your Nico collection.
