Light at the End of the World

Tuesday was the release of Erasure's new CD, "Light at the End of the World". I took a few minutes to pick it up on the way to a client's office, and had a chance to listen to most of it on the way.

The first thing I noticed was the sticker on the front which said something to the effect of "returning to their electronic roots"... I'm guessing this was in response to their previous CD, "Union Street", which was pretty much all acoustic versions of their songs. An interesting idea I guess, and I did buy it, but it didn't really reach out and grab me like most of their other albums did- in fact I would have to say it's probably my LEAST favourite Erasure CD.

Anyway. Light and the End of the World.

I put it into the CD player, and I could just barely hear something in the background. Understand that I rarely use the CD player in the car- normally if I'm going to listen to music, it's either the iPod or XM radio. (In fact, I had to take out a CD that I had forgotten was in there from several months earlier.) So I turned up the volume to try and better hear the music- and about ten seconds in, the real music started, and I ended up being accidentally treated to it full-blast. All I could say was "WOW." I had no idea what to expect (other than "more electronic than Union Street", but that's not saying much) and I was very impressed- I'm sure people walking by in the Borders parking lot might have looked at me funny for having this electronic song playing at full volume... but that's their problem.

Anyway, I got on the road toward the client's office, and got through most of the CD on the way there. The first three songs, "Sunday Girl", "I Could Fall In Love With You", and "Sucker for Love", are all fairly up-tempo songs, and I "fell in like" with the first two immediately- the rest of the album is a bit slower, and so far (two days later) the only one to really make any kind of impression on me is "Darlene", and probably more because of the lyrics than anything else.

Overall, I'm really enjoying it so far. I think I've played it about ten times- it's on the "heavy rotation" playlist in iTunes.

Another surprise, and this is going to show how often I actually LOOK for music... while I was at the store to pick up "Light at the End of the World", I came across another Erasure CD called "On The Road To Nashville". At first glance it looked like a recording of a live show in Nashville, and yes, that's basically what it is- but I didn't realize until I got home that evening that it also had a DVD of the show itself.

It's... different. They did pretty much the entire show "country style", with twangy guitars and looser rhythms... you ain't lived until you've heard "Blue Savannah" done up country-style. I'm glad I have it, and I'm sure that eventually one or two of the songs will reach out and grab me, but I don't think I'll be listening to it as often as "Light at the End of the World".