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But when they are in good form, the songs are good. If Erasure had used singles versions rather than these strange long versions, the album would actually have been quite a bit better than it is. It starts off with the weirdly titled "Intro: Guess I'm Into Feeling" which is actually the shortest song on the cd, although it also has the least content. It's a mostly instrumental intro to the album, with a short burst of lyrics towards the end, although even here the lyrics seem to be almost an instrumentation of some sort. It is pretty forgettable. "Rescue Me" is one of the better songs on the cd, with no real faults. Although it's long, like everything else on the album, it's not really overly long, and it doesn't really feature any type of filler. It's fun and dancy in classic Erasure style. "Sono Luminus," at nearly eight minutes, is definately too long. It's a slow song, and Erasure generally does good slow songs, but it just gets old after that much time, since the length isn't really filled with anything terribly interesting. "Finger & Thumbs (Cold Summer's Day)" is a classic Erasure dance tune; very catchy, fun and bouncy. It's only hurt by the strange, slow, instrumental bridge in the middle of the song. Similarly, "Rock Me Gently" would be a good slow song except for the extremely long almost ambient bridge that stretches the song to over ten minutes. "Grace" is similar in that it's a good slow song that's a little too long, thanks to an extremely long intro. Although I don't like the song as much as "Rock Me Gently," the better song structure almost makes it better to listen to. The exact same situation exists with "Stay With Me." For me, slow songs have to be extra good to really keep my attention, and these start to sound alike to me in many ways, since they aren't just incredibly beautiful. Dance songs are a little better, since even an average dance song is interesting enough to initially gain my attention, if not keep it. "Love The Way You Do So" sort of breaks the mold, in that it's a mid-tempo song, and a little more upbeat in tone than the last two. But the next really good song is "Angel." Although, like most of the songs here, "Angel" starts off with a too-long introduction, it turns into a nice, peppy song; classic Erasure fare. By this point, Erasure have matured vastly in the lyrical content of their songs, so "Angel" and the other dancy, catchy songs are, in many ways, more fun to listen to lyrically than their predecessors on earlier CDs. Given the weakness in "Rock Me Gently," the next song, "I Love You" may be the strongest slow song in the album. It's still too long at six and a half minutes, but it has a very nice melody and nice lyrics as well, with tight, typical Vince Clark instrumentation. Sort of like "Home" on Chorus the beat picks up somewhat just before two minutes into the song.
"A Long Goodbye" is an unfortunately ironic name for the final song on the album. It is long, of course, like most of the songs here, and it's not particularly interesting as a goodbye. It epitomizes the overall problems with this album, the overly long songs that don't add anything of value despite their incredible length, and the generally boring feel of much of the album. It does have some high points, notably "Rescue Me," "Finger and Thumbs," "Angel" and "I Love You" but it's not really enough to lift the entire album to the level that other Erasure albums in the past have attained.
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