|
"Modigliani (Lost In Your Eyes)" is the first song, and it's fairly danceable, showing the band's ability to tie in romantic, italian imagery with romantic fantasy lyrics. They pick up the pace a bit with the extremely fun, although not peppy "You Make Me Feel So Good." The song actually does make you feel good, highlighting the excitement a girl feels thinking about her romantic lover (starting to notice the theme here?) "Still Angry" is a bit less memorable, but it's still a nice dance song, and "White Lies" is almost the only slow song on the album. Although both highlight romantic problems rather than romantic fantasies, the theme is still prevalent in the sounds of the album, and you still get the impression that Susan is naive and inexperienced with the relationship situations that so jaded Depeche Mode, for instance. In fact, she almost sounds like she could be the girl sung about in "A Question of Time" or "Little 15." "Lost Souls" is a bit more laid back in it's mid-tempo rhythm, and the lyrics are similar to "White Lies." Then Ted shows off a wonderful instrumental piece he put together, "Late Show." The theme goes back to romantic fantasies with "I Touch Roses" one of the more popular songs on the album. The light sounds are very cheery, again, without being peppy, which makes it unique and good, in my book. "Yellow Sky" is more of a filler, as is "Happy Day" but nicely in between the two is "Boy," the romantic fantasy of a tomboy which showed that even the little girl voice and theme could be sexy. This is one of my favorite songs here. "Die Matrosen," which means, the sailors, is a cover, although I still don't know of who. It sounds a bit different than the rest of the songs here, and it shows the romantic situation from the guy's point of view, although he apparently gets stood up after pacing nervously all day in anticipation. I don't know what sailors have to do with it, but hey, you can't have everything. The best song on the album is the title track, "Book of Love." You'd think the group would go to extra lengths to make a song named after themselves extra good, and I've always been surprised that this wasn't a single, since it's as good or better than anything here. Once again, we turn to the romantic girl's fantasy as Susan sings the virtues of her latest crush, whom she obviously believes will be eternal love in the garden of some beautiful castle. Yes, it really does evoke that powerful of a scene! The song is upbeat and up-tempo, very danceable, yet airy and ethereal at the same time. It's absolutely wonderful, and a perfect cap for the album. However, it doesn't actually serve as the cap, since there are a total of five bonus songs here, including extended remixes of "Modigliani (Lost In Your Eyes)," "You Make Me Feel So Good," "I Touch Roses" and "Boy" as well as an instrumental, percussion-less version of "Modigliani (Lost In Your Eyes)" that is beautiful. All of the extended remixes are the vanilla variety that add very little except length to the original songs, but they're still welcome, especially in the case of "Boy" where the original version is too short, and the extended version is about what you'd expect a normal song to be.
Overall, I think the album succeeds on a multitude of levels. First of all, it's great fun to listen to, and it actually puts you in a good mood. Secondly, it's very artistic and evocative. Thirdly, it's unique, carving out a thematic niche that has been untouched by the synthpop genre.
|