It should be noted that I knew nothing (and still don't, really) about their eighties existence as friends of the Smiths and indie reputations and all that. As for their early nineties transformation into Madchester meets Simple Minds, again, nothing to do with me! I knew they were supposedly huge and all, but that was about it. So when this ended up in my hands I didn't know what to think of it at first. But I recalled something I had heard about, namely that they had ended up touring with Neil Young the previous year on an acoustic tour and that supposedly this album was inspired by that. "OK," I think, and put it in. And damn. Maybe more people should do that kind of opening date run with him.
I have this feeling it had to do in part with Eno, who produced this. Making this simply U2 redux would have been all too easy, and lord knows everyone was saying stuff about how Tim Booth was reaching for the same messianic level of Monsieur Bono. Except he didn't, because slight flashes aside ("Sometimes," the lead single, is rushed, windswept, rainy and almost falls apart as a result), Booth sounds like he's voicing hidden fears and thoughts rather than lecturing from up above. I mean, maybe he is lecturing from up above, but he's doing it in a way that doesn't piss me off.
As for the band, it's not all acoustic or anything, but it is all very much more a subtle thing, more so than the occasional single from the previous years that I had heard. If anything perhaps it's a return to more folky roots at points, perhaps, but with a sweep and heft and lift that makes it sound big, enveloping, embracing, the keyboards and ringing guitars and more all there but never overpowering, more suggesting, as well as a sense of quiet, understated drama that makes everything more…what is the word? Meditative, maybe, not New Agey or the like, simply reflective but in a way where you make big decisions without moving a muscle.
So that's why "Dream Thrum" has a nice build but even nicer ending, fading slowly, softly, a solitary violin playing along instead of a full orchestra reeking of 'importance.' It's why "One of the Three," perhaps the best song about Jesus ever, gently pulses, strums and plucks, as Booth ponders a two-thousand year old death with a questioning tone that never aggrandizes, just makes you think anew as to what did happen. And it's why even the more upbeat numbers that became singles by default like "Say Something" and the title track don't so much explode from the arena as just kick up their heels gently or with a little more force as needed.
And perhaps most importantly for me, "Lullaby" and "Skindiving" form one of the most beautiful and heart-catching album-enders around, period. You cannot make me think otherwise, "Lullaby" one of the softest, sweetest things around, actually what it is but with lyrics that make you cry and hope at once, "Skindiving" starting with the most-barely there of shuffling beats, gentle strums fading up, a main guitar that chimes just so, keyboards floating into space, Booth's high falsetto in the heights like a noise you think you didn't actually hear at first, all coming together. All perfect.