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Am I? What's New?Synchronicity is such a drastic realignment of energies and personalities within the Police as to be the work of an entirely new band. The fat pillowy synth-buzz and shadowy overdub intricacies of 1981's Ghost in the Machine - a bold, necessary escape from the slowly asphyxiating limitations of the clipped pop-and-reggae snap of their first three albums - have been sharply reduced to a new radical geometry of melody and rhythm that refers back to but does not rely on that original sound.
There are now pregnant empty spaces reverberating with Andy Summers' board guitar synthesizer strokes where his angular echoplex chords used to be. Stewart Copeland, whose aggressive complex drum strategies have made the Police one of rock's most artful dance bands, is now keeping a harder, simpler beat, investing his few critical flourishes with the energy and imagination he used to spend on a whole drum roll. Even Sting is singing with more dramatic economy, retreating from his grandstand yells into richer, more forceful tones.
In short, everything you know about the Police is not wrong, but dramatically altered in concept and rearranged in execution. The album's lead-off track and first single "Every Breath You Take" demonstrates these changes with a wily pop flair. While Summers picks out a muted chord progression distantly related to "Invisible Sun," the dusky romantic caring in the song is quietly vitalized by the desolate plunk of a piano, the pastel wash of Summers' guitar synth and a distant chorus of Sting's in quite radiant harmony.
This approach has the effect of amplifying the songhooks without inflating them, transmitting the same urgency of "Roxanne" and "Message In A Bottle" but with subtler flashes. In "Wrapped Around Your Finger," Sting glides into the chorus in a ringing, overdubbed duet over the song's dark neo-reggae rhythm, primed by a light prancing keyboard and Summers' effective camouflaged guitar plucking which then melts into an electronic mural effect behind Sting's poignant vocal rise. Summers also employs guitar mirage tricks that curl behind and around Sting's simple dominant bass and meditative croon in "Tea In The Sahara." Immediately after, he adapts that same resonance to chords that bounce resiliently off Copeland's frantic rabbit-like dash and the pasty stutter of a synthesizer in "Synchronicity (A Casual Principle)."
The changes the Police put Synchronicity through seem to correspond to deep transitions the band have undergone themselves. Sting's brooding "King Of Pain" (which actually sports one of the LP's most attractive hooks) and "Oh My God," with its heavy air of supplication, may well be autobiographical slips. Only half as comic as "Be My Girl," his Cockney ode to a rubber dolly on Outlandos D'Amour, Andy Summers' "Mother" is a blast of pure primal scream in 7/4 time, the sarcastic cut of his Freudian recitation intensified by a brute rhythm attack recalling Robert Fripp's experiments with spoken words and white rock noise on Exposure.
Whatever forced their hand, the Police responded to it with an album that is stirring, provocative and a hard slap at those uppity hipsters who say they just don't matter anymore. With Synchronicity, they have boldly redefined and revitalized their sound and vision. For maximum enjoyment, synchronize yourself.
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