Category: 50 Words for Snow Page 4 of 12

B- from Eli Kleman at Muzik Discovery:

“an album that sees the British pop royalty at the top of her game, years and years into her career. What is more impressive, however, is not that Bush has managed to remain relevant in a scene that isn’t exactly conducive to late career releases, but it is that the artist has once again challenged the definition of what a pop album can and should be. 50 Words For Snow is unlike a lot of the drivel the genre pumps out, in that is a beautiful, haunting, and introspective release that shows that although artists may age, their craft can remain just as incredible. 50 Words For Snow is a notable release for sure; a collection of seven mysterious entities that have received utmost care from Bush. They ebb and flow with a serene beauty, and move like the entrancing falling snow. Never once does the album ever get worked up … Although much of it is truly exemplary, 50 Words for Snow never actually goes anywhere. Yes, the luscious chords and inherently gorgeous singing goes a long way in making a great experience, but it all feels somewhat flat … It’s a beefy work for sure, which typically wouldn’t give cause for criticism, but it just stays at one level and never goes any further. Bush does an absolutely stunning job at creating a wonderful atmosphere, but it really is hampered by the painfully dull pace. Aside from that admittedly egregious stumble, Kate Bush still manages to craft one heck of an immersive album…”

3/4 from Rob Thomas at 77 Square:

“Largely minimizing the lush orchestrations she’s known for, Bush has delivered a spare, gorgeous album … Could any other songwriter get away with this other than Bush? Somehow, she takes potentially pretentious, even preposterous premises and makes them deeply felt through the elegant arrangements, evocative lyrics and, above all, the quavering conviction of that powerful voice. The result is the perfect soundtrack for a winter’s night, not so much as a brace against the cold, but an embrace.”

Five “N”s from Kevin Ritchie at Now Toronto:

“a solitary tone pervades these seven shivery compositions, many of which unfurl slowly and deliberately from Bush’s trembling piano. There’s a grace and simplicity to the arrangements. Jazzy syncopations give way to almost a cappella interludes, twittering guitar riffs and choral harmonies. The production has a lighter touch than her previous two efforts, but is no less considered … Best are Bush’s vocals, distinctly lower now but as brilliant and playful as ever. She grumbles, coos, burrs and wails, drawing out syllables with such devastating intensity …”

Another five stars from James Brightman at The Silver Tongue:

“the album is a microcosm that draws you in with a delicate embrace, belying the arctic theme with a warmth that you wouldn’t find in many other places, such is the beauty of Kate’s voice (possibly at its best after a 30+ year career) … When the album ended, I half-expected to be left with a brown sludge swimming around my shoes. I was sad to see the world go. 50 Words for Snow is a masterpiece. Its THE album that defines THE artist.“

Thom Jurek at Allmusic gives 50 Words For Snow a 4-star review:

“Despite the length of the songs, and perhaps because of them, it is easily the most spacious, sparsely recorded offering in her catalog. Its most prominent sounds are Bush’s voice, her acoustic piano, and Steve Gadd’s gorgeous drumming — though other instruments appear (as do some minimal classical orchestrations). With songs centered on winter, 50 Words For Snow engages the natural world and myth — both Eastern and Western — and fantasy. It is abstract, without being the least bit difficult to embrace….such a strange pop record, it’s all but impossible to find peers. While it shares sheer ambition with Scott Walkers’s The Drift and PJ Harvey’s Let England Shake, it sounds like neither; Bush’s album is equally startling because its will toward the mysterious and elliptical is balanced by its beguiling accessibility.”

Fascinating review of 50 Words from Daphne Carr at CapitalNewYork:

“The first phrases of the opener, “Snowflake,” sound so out of touch with contemporary music as to make the past 20 years seem to disappear altogether … The sensation only continues as the bass kicks in: Taut and thin and electric, a sound unheard in pop for ages. The guitars frizzle as if Fripp were still in demand. Add Steve Gadd’s toms, brushed snares, and the amorous synth pads and the record’s most contemporary influence would still be something like Talk Talk at their least pop. Bush’s late ’70s and early ’80s chart-dominating hits … similarly fade from memory, leaving only their affect, handfuls of chords, and those velvety vocal edges of hers. As the seven songs on this snow-themed album unfold, all that anachronism is what becomes its relevance. Kate Bush in 2011 might sound out of place, but at the same time it is impossible to listen to Kate Bush in 2011 without hearing and comparing her to all the many who have followed her lead. Perhaps the sparseness of this winter walk is her best way to get out of a very crowded house … With Bush, each instrument and each word or phrase serves the whole song precisely. It’s the definition of craft: not a sound is wasted; of course, that perfectionism also yielded the gap in her recording between 1993 and 2005 … On this album, Kate Bush goes through all the other Kate Bushes to get back to “Kate Bush.” …  a parallel tradition of art into pop, one discounted at first as “quirky” or “oddball” but now able to be seen as masters at drawing from prog’s fusion impulse and new wave’s queerness, irreverence, and passion for the innovation in a pop package. Rob Young’s fantastic book Electric Eden charts the old and new of British folk as “the secret garden of British culture.” Young names Bush not as a new-waver but as one in the long lineage of Anglo musicians whose occult-tinged voices sing of nature and sky in odd time signatures with non-rock instruments, their bumper stickers reading “Keep England Weird.”

Little capsule review from Dylan Terra at Heavy Music:

“The mystical legend of Kate Bush is alive and well … 50 Words For Snow was certainly not rushed in its construction; and while playing, gives off the vibe that it’s in no rush to finish either … master of surreal dreamworlds and real emotion …  And like a good storybook, it invites and transfixes with no prior experience needed.”

Nate Chinen reviews the new album for the New York Times here. ““The world is so loud,” murmurs Kate Bush in the first of many disarming choruses on “50 Words for Snow,” her unhurried, utterly self-contained, exquisitely strange new album….if (Director’s Cut) was the effort needed to jostle her into the right frame of mind for “50 Words,” it was worth it. The new album rightly glistens, its sonic parameters set by Ms. Bush’s supple pianism, its lyrics firmly girded by her imagination….the mood is slow and somber but not lugubrious — even when, as on a glacial ghost story like “Lake Tahoe,” there’s real pathos in play”

In my humble opinion one of the best reviews yet from Simon Moore at Live4Ever:

“She’s a storyteller. She was always a storyteller … these songs … are incredible, genre-defying songs, but Bush has never been one for resting on her laurels, so a new sound is necessary … Those little piano flourishes are jazzier, more sustained. That eloquent, silky voice has lost the fanciful swoops and dives of yesteryear; it comes to the front of the mix and gains a whole new poise and vitality … stripping the music down to its core elements … If this is startting to sound overly poetic, then you at least have some idea of what this music does to you. This mellow soundtrack to dark country evenings doesn’t grab you, it creeps and tip-toes up inside your ear and works on you, letting each song grow on you until you can’t help but lose yourself in the whole album … With every listen, this album will reveal another layer, another part of the story you’d never heard before. There’s a lifetime’s worth of listening here. Best get started.”