By 2014 Erasure seem to have become aware of the vinyl resurgence and this white and violet double album was made available a few months after the initial CD and digital release. I seem to remember this version was initially exclusive to the now defunct PledgeMusic service. The basic premise of this retailer was to take your money upfront (a 'pledge') which was then used to finance the production of the physical product.
When this album was announced I thought that an Erasure album produced and co-written (well he gets publishing anyway) by Richard X was guaranteed to be a winner. Whilst this record is undoubtedly better than some of its predecessors, "The Violet Flame" isn't quite as successful as I imagined it would be. Yet again Erasure deliver an album with a terrible title and art work that seems to be completely unrelated to the project.
Things kick off with the rather splendid "Dead of Night" which has some great synth arpeggios and a thundering bass. I seem to remember reading Vince and Andy changed their traditional approach of writing songs using a guitar or piano and wrote with the synths used to create the final product. You can hear that some of these tracks are a little more reliant on a groove than traditional chord structures but this isn't necessarily a bad thing. The club friendly single "Elevation" is a case in point where there isn't a great deal of differentiation between the verse and chorus, but somehow it doesn't matter.
Another single "Reason" continues the club vibes with its TR-808 style hit hats, bubbling bassline and resonated sweeps. Richard X turns up the compressor to emphasise the pounding of "Promises" but it lacks melody. The first four tracks on this record have been pretty relentless but "Be The One" is our first opportunity to catch a breath before another trance inflected single "Sacred" comes rolling through. "Under the Wave" cuts back a little on the heavy club vibes and allows the melody to emerge much more successfully. Things go a bit avant-garde with "Smoke and Mirrors" and whilst the end result isn't brilliant, it makes for a welcome change of pace. "Paradise" sounds like some kind of disco reject or a poor "Supernature" pastiche that I can leave or take. The obligatory closing lament is delivered by "Stayed a Little Late Tonight".
The vinyl version of the album includes six extended and club mixes taken from the two singles which had been released up to the point of the vinyl being made available. Whilst all of the mixes are competent, none stand out particularly.
I went to see the band live on the tour that accompanied this album and, to be honest, this new material fell a little flat. In isolation this album sounds good, but when these songs are held up to the best of the back catalogue, they pale in comparison. This album is much more club orientated than I remember it being and I can't help but feel this sound was two or three albums too late in their career. 3/5
