 Erasure Yet another critically dismissed Erasure album, Wild! is one of their great ones, not quite like their unexpectedly amazing 90s masterworks (I Say I Say I Say and Erasure) but almost entirely solid and showing massive leaps in songwriting and performance over its comparatively overrated predecessors (The Innocents in particular). Wild! features great songs dolled up in Erasure's usual overkill of outdated (oops, I mean "vintage") synths … although they weren't yet outdated when this one came out (1989). The great thing about Erasure is, their albums, as dated as they may be, never seem dated at all in the context of their career, because their most recent albums actually sound sonically more dated. But my main argument has always been that Erasure have been writing some of the best pop songs of the past 20 years, but no one but the fans is paying any attention at all. It's funny – Cher comes out with a song like "Believe" and it's heralded as a fresh, vital comeback, while Erasure have been steadily putting out songs almost identical to that one for years, and are routinely met with a big gaping yawn. Oh well … everyone else's loss, I say. The album opens and closes with the very melancholy "Piano Song," which sounds like it actually features a real piano – the opening track is a minute-long instrumental version, and the closing track, opening with the magnificent line "Never get angry at the stupid people," is one of the band's greatest songs ever. Andy Bell's voice on this album begins to explore its lower register, and while he's not showing off the vocal acrobatics of the recent albums, he's very impressive throughout. The singles on the album are wonderful: "You Surround Me," "Drama," "Blue Savannah" – only "Star" seems overly dated and plastic. "How Many Times"
is up there with "Am I Right" as one of Erasure's best
self-examination/regret songs, but the prevailing mood isn't overly sad
or wispy. That is seen to by throwaways like "La Gloria" (on the list of
my least favorite Erasure songs – beyond campy with lots of Spanish
guitars and extra "playfulness") and "2,000 Miles" (a decent song, but
more of a throwback to the earlier pop of "Brother and
Sister" is a weirdo gothic thing (gothic in the literary sense rather
than the musical one) that I can name among my favorites (though this one
is sonically very 1989). This mood is repeated in "Crown of
Thorns" – these songs sound like old English anthems, except for all the
tweaky synths.
Wild! marked a transition between the intentional cheese of the
band's early work and the emotional depth of the later stuff, making it
along with Chorus, prime "mid-period Erasure." The packaging is typically
baffling (especially the hilarious yet beautiful center spread of a
futuristic Vince & Andy airbrushed into cherubic perfection). Vince
Clarke's twiddling is inventive as usual, adding a touch of menace that
hadn't been there before, while remaining essentially sunny. The great
songs on here make you wish the band would release an album with more
acoustic instruments, to draw out the beauty of the melodies and the
depth of the lyrics – getting more at the emotional heart of the songs.
But that's not what Erasure has ever been about, I suppose … ironic that
the biggest gimmick of all in the current electronica craze would be
Erasure going acoustic.
Review by Drowsy Ned |