Bel Canto, Images.

Bel Canto's last album, "Magic Box", was simply dreadful.
They had
jettisoned their trademark delicacy for a homogenous dance-pop sound,
complete with one song that featured a guest rapper. The mysterious
world-beat aspects of their music were subsumed in familiar,
mainstream sounds. The best songs were poor imitations of their past
successes. Worst of all, singer Anneli Drecker seemed intent on
casting herself as a more accessible Bjork. Her precious lyrics were
replaced by deliberate eccentricities and malapropisms that smacked
of effort. My guess is that after moving from label to label,
"Magic
Box" was a conscious attempt to make their songs more palatable
to a
wider audience. To tell the truth, I had just about given up on
them. But thanks to the Internet, I sampled some tracks of their
1998 CD "Images," only available in Europe, and on the
strength of
those sound bytes, ordered the CD. "Images" picks up where
1993's "Shimmering, Warm and Bright" left off. There are
the
majestic and glacial medieval-electronic pieces Bel Canto are great
at creating. In `Verena,' against techno sound effects and
Nils
Johansen's brittle guitar figures, Drecker scats and skitters
like
Elizabeth Fraser in impossibly high, wordless sighs. The
short `Nornagest' features a choir of Dreckers that swell
like a
heavenly host. It's Enya with cojones. And `Here, in
Shadow'
Johansen constructs an ambient platform for Drecker's Oriental
warblings—it's Lisa Gerrard meets William Orbit. Songs with
lyrics,
like the title track, `Rush,' `Idly I De-ice,' and
`Heaven' are a
return to Drecker's fairytale themes. "Images" also
continues in the
dance-pop, post-Bjork mode, with greater success. The melodies
don't
loose the ethereal aesthetic that distinguishes Bel Canto from
similar acts, and the sound effects are updated and more connected to
current electronica sounds. `All I Want To Do' is swoony
like the
most poppy Cocteau Twins song; `Space Junk' and `The
Dinosaur-Slipper
Man' have a nice, polite take on synth-funk, typical of the late
`80s
New Wave bands. This restores Bel Canto as one of the top ethereal-
pop acts.

You can order from : <http://www.side-line.com>.
--Craig