Having trawled through the entire Erasure back catalogue, we finally come to their most recent project "The Neon".
This is a 'neon' orange vinyl that, despite being pressed by Optimal Media, sounds uncharacteristically poor. There are quite a few crackles and my copy seems to have a lot of sibilance. I've noticed this shift towards coloured vinyl, and whilst it might look good, it rarely provides sonic fidelity. There are a few exceptions, such as the Audio Fidelity pressing of Vangelis's "Blade Runner", but generally I find coloured vinyl inferior.
The music on offer here is okay, but nothing exceptional. The lead single "Hey Now (Think I Got A Feeling)" sees Vince creating some great analogue bass sounds and twinkling percussion, but the repetitive nature of the melody becomes slightly annoying. "Nerves of Steel" is a another highly repetitive single which has some bizarre lyrics about finding love in the "Motor Hotel". The third and final single to be released, "Fallen Angel" is catchy but continues the penchant for eccentric lyrics. If riding on the top of roller-coasters or "walking up the down escalator" gives Andy love then he is much more easily pleased than I am.
"No Point in Tripping" is fairly standard stuff, but the next track "Shot a Satellite" is a bit funkier and features some great flourishes by Vince. I can also recommend the Initial Talk remix of this track which has much more of an eighties sound and really satisfies."Tower of Love" is something of a dirge that has nothing to say and goes nowhere. "Diamond Lies" sounds like it was pieced together from snippets of other songs and I can't help but think I've heard the ideas before. "New Horizons" is a piano driven piece that has a great melody and is one of the best compositions on this record. Penultimate track "Careful What I Try To Do" ticks along quite nicely and would probably be have been better at the front of the album breaking up the mediocre singles. The last track, "Kid You're Not Alone" sees Andy singing falsetto about nothing in particular. And this is one of the most disappointing aspects of Erasure's more recent material: the lyrics are either nonsensical or so bland as to be without any meaning. Okay, so "Blue Savannah" is hardly a message to the world, but the words were at least memorable. I can't recall most of the lyrics from this album, and when I can, it is simply because they are ludicrous. 2/5
