Cocteau Twins
GARLANDS/VICTORIALAND
4AD
The last two of the Cocteau Twins’ albums to be reissued on vinyl are anomalies. Garlands, their first, was the only one to feature bassist Will Heggie, while their fourth, 1986’s Victorialand, found Liz Fraser and Robin Guthrie working without his replacement, multi-instrumentalist Simon Raymonde, who was busy with label boss Ivo Watts-Russell’s This Mortal Coil collective. Their 1982 debut finds them in an embryonic state, though Fraser clearly already has the “Stars in my eyes/ Stars in my face” – as Shallow Then Halo puts it – that would become associated with her extraordinary, ethereal vocal. Admittedly, she sounds surprisingly conventional on But I’m Not and almost folkish on The Hollow Men, but there’s no denying her inventiveness on Wax And Wane or amid Blind Dumb Deaf’s chiming guitars and rigorous drum machine rhythms. Beauty’s hard won, however: the trio’s admiration for The Cure and Siouxsie And The Banshees is explicit, Heggie’s basslines bobbing and weaving through a claustrophobic, post-punk landscape, while Guthrie’s guitars are frequently as nasty as Sonic Youth’s, especially on the title track. On the other hand, with dissonance substituted by spangled pianos and shimmering guitars, and drums almost absent, Victorialand was full of so much space and beauty it was almost ambient. Lazy Calm rose like an Arctic sun, while Fraser’s voice danced deftly around Fluffy Tufts’ arpeggios and tripped lightly over the delightful Oomingmak. Even more apprehensive tunes, like The Dark Months Of April And May and Feet-like Fins, peaked optimistically. It remains the band’s most spine-tingling collection.