Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 11:37:41 -0800 
    From: einexile the meek (einexile@NETCOM.COM) 
    Subject: lush war continues unabated


On Tue, 30 Jan 1996, Melody Hope Darby wrote:

> Why do I feel like I'm the only person in the whole entire world that loves
> SPOOKY as much as anything else Lush has done (including SPLIT)???

The album is flawed, and I think not noticing why can make listening to
it a worse experience than I might otherwise be.

- Its sound is relentlessly full and there is little in the way of
  subtlety or crispness to break it up, so that one gets a sensation of
  drowning. Tiny Smiles is unbearably cloying and many of the album's
  other songs (including some of Lush's best work) never gives you a
  moment to breathe, so you have this happening on a small scale as well.
  This is all made worse by the uniformity of the vocals, which always
  have that Eye in the Sky sound to them.

- Covert and Ocean are too similar. Given that Covert is a satisfying
  song as it, five more minutes of the same stuff in a package that is
  very plodding does not spice things up, and from there we lead into
  For Love, which is one of Lush's uglier and more predictable songs.
  If Ocean and For Love had been left off of the album I think it would
  be much more enjoyable than it is, if not necessarily much *better*
  since, as you say, it is a great album anyhow--but Split is easily
  superior, with greater variation but none of the clashing that the
  Scar-era-ish Superblast! and Laura inflict on Spooky. And the songs are
  better.

- The album has a very strong opening which leads into one of their best
  songs which varies from the single in a very satisfying way. By
  contrast it ends with the fun but not entirely interesting Laura and
  then a wonderful song which we'd all heard a thousand times by this
  point.

Of course this is all based on my own mileage, but a lot of people have
expressed similar problems with the album for less specific reasons, and
I find that pinpointing exactly what's wrong with a flawed record can
help me better enjoy it for its strengths.


 e