Music Review: Erasure - The Innocents (21st Anniversary Edition)

In many ways The Innocents represents the commercial peak for pop icons Erasure. Granted, it is their biggest-selling album to date, and also yielded their most international radio chart success. But it is their most fully-formed, accessible and diverse album to date as well. More than just an extended vehicle for hits such as "A Little Respect" and "Chains Of Love," The Innocents is an album full to the brim of excellence in pop songwriting. The electronic wizardry of Vince Clarke matched with the soulful crooning of Andy Bell had solidified into something that had an eye beyond fleeting radio success. And now, on the 21st anniversary year of its release, it's receiving some much-overdue attention.

It's hard to imagine a stronger lead cut than "A Little Respect." It's a near-perfect pop song, exuding self-assurance. And with the ever-revolving styles of pop radio, it still doesn't sound like it's over two decades old. The melancholic "Ship Of Fools" follows, a surprisingly low-key hit for the group, but a strong album track. Upbeat gems "Phantom Bride" and "Chains Of Love" help lead the first half, along with the pensively beautiful "Hallowed Ground."

Really, you'd have to go all the way down to "Imagination" to find anything even approaching a weak cut. Not only does the album contain excellent songs one after the other, but it contains a breadth of styles. There's the gospel-influenced "Yahoo!" and jaunty waltz of "Witch In The Ditch." And then there's the swing-band influenced "Sixty-Five Thousand," an instrumental awash with horns.

This album found Erasure stretching themselves creatively, and winning at every turn. The remastering job for the set is both subtle and effective. Although elevating the volume level, it doesn't sacrifice balance or quality of sound in the process. Slightly cleaner separation and up-front vocal presence give it a thoroughly fresh sound.

In addition to the album proper (which comprises disc one of this three-disc set), the deluxe edition contains an extra disc of remixes, b-sides and rarities, as well as a live DVD, all housed in CD-sized hardcover book. The book itself holds the discs in slip-sleeve pages of heavy card stock. Twenty pages are devoted to images, lyrics and Q&As with both Clarke and Bell. The text content doesn't yield anything horribly revelatory, although neither does it leave out anything you might expect. All in all, it's a nice housing for the set, and attractive to boot.

Article Author: David R Perry

Lost somewhere in the rolling hills of Tennessee, David R Perry can occasionally be found doing dark, unspeakable things to words. Printed words, spoken words, electronically mangled words... really any kind but twittered words.

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