Natural History

In their ten year history, Talk Talk have released just three albums, the last of which, Spirit of Eden, saw the light of day in 1988. Strange then that this ‘Best Of’ compilation should surface at a time when they’re far from ingrained in the public consciousness.

Nonetheless, it’s interesting to review the career of a band whose moody, atmospheric stance has always been at odds with mainstream conventions. While their early eighties contemporaries were still shaking off the trappings, and shedding the kilts, of New Romanticism, ‘Today’ and the sub-Doorsian paranoia of ‘Talk Talk’ tore up the chart, introducing the band’s spacious, key-board based sound and edgy Mark Hollis vocals that have since typified their work.

The critical and commercial success of their first LP, The Party’s Over, heralded a two year hiatus, drawing to a close with 1984’s It’s My Life, a more mature work which spawned an eponymous single and ‘Dum Dum Girl’ both included here.

Talk Talk have a predilection for the aural surprise; witness the ominous fade-out of ‘Such A Shame’ or the chillingly appropriate use of children’s voices on ‘Happiness is Easy’. On ‘Desire’ they explore neo-psychedelic territory and come on sounding like a latter-day Yardbirds.

The inclusion of the sublime ‘Life’s What You Make It’ is a key factor in the ultimate success of this thoughtfully-complied retrospective, exemplifying, as it does, the melancholic tension that pervaded Talk Talk. Don’t talk, listen. 4/5

Review by Glenn Rice

Laughing Stock

Talk Talk have descended into complete introspection. The three of them seem to have been cooped up alone together since 1988’s intense Spirit of Eden, developing an otherworldly agoraphobia. There’s an addled melancholy to this album that caresses yet disconcerts, making for an uncomfortable listen.

If ‘Spirit’ glanced warily through the spy hole before opening the doors, Laughing Stock cowers at the other end of the corridor as you peer through the letter box. It requires your total concentration, a lights out night in.

Talk Talk despise the music business and all its machinations. The painfully entitled Laughing Stock is an exercise in self-indulgence and nothing more. If you refuse to enter their playground that’s fine by them. There is nothing remotely approaching a single within these six lengthy songs. Convention fastens the back seatbelt as Talk Talk’s organic songwriting process becomes ever more labyrinthine. The album is avant garde, an awkward mix of ambience, pop, jazz and blues.

And it doesn’t get any easier. It’s as if Talk Talk have set traps for you which only become apparent the more you listen to it. At face value, ‘After the Flood’ is a sultry, filmic epic but after a while it begins to yield an undercurrent of harsh interference. In both ‘Myhrrman’ and ‘Taphead’ there are sharp, unwarranted and unexpected bursts of noise – the latter’s literally startling. And ‘Ascension Day’ with its guitar building to a hornet’s nest of confusion then ending all at once, like a death in the family, is their angriest moment yet.

Talk Talk are being willfully reticent and difficult. Mark Hollis’s plaintive voice burns and quivers, distorting words to mere sounds, heightening the atmosphere. It’s as if they don’t want anyone to listen to the perverse genius of Laughing Stock. Well, screw them... 4/5

Review by Nick Griffiths