Tasteful Pop, But the Dreariness Factor Begins to Take Hold

(Disclaimer: Those looking for a brief description of the album will find what their looking for in the "Album Overview" section. The section titled "Detailed Track Discussion" is meant only for those who want to read detailed descriptions of the songs, and they do not constitute the essence of this review. Lastly and most importantly, this review is not necessarily written by the point of view of a Blue Nile fan.)

Introduction:

It's not as good as their debut album unfortunately, but The Blue Nile are getting more thick and atmospheric.

Track Listing:

Best song: "Over the Hillside"

Over the Hillside A
The Downtown Lights A-
Let's Go Out Tonight A-
Headlights on the Parade C+
From a Late Night Train C+
Seven A.M. B
Saturday Night B+

Overall score: 4/5

Review Body:

The Blue Nile were famous (or perhaps notorious) for taking forever to come up with new albums. The five-year gap between Hats and their debut album A Walk Across the Rooftops was by far the shortest period of time in between their albums. Of course, they didn't spend all that free time coming up with new material! The legend, though, is they had written a lot of material for Hats though much of it was never heard. The resultant album, though, is quite an experience.

Their minimalistic tendencies from A Walk Across the Rooftops was abandon in favor of more lush and atmospheric soundscapes. These songs aren't as compositionally interesting as the previous work, and they're being quite a bit more mainstream. The Blue Nile are now coming off as a tasteful pop band instead of detached art-popsters from their previous work. It's no wonder that most audiences prefer Hats.

Well I'm going to be a naysayer and cast myself in the minority opinion, but I miss their work from A Walk Across the Rooftops greatly! Those songs were modest, interesting and with much better instrumental ideas. If that doesn't convince you enough, at least the previous album had the ultimate New Romantic song, "Tinseltown in the Rain," that everybody who likes '80s music should hear at least once. In Hats, the songs are considerably more boring and monotonous, and the songwriting has less artistic merit (as I define it)!

Before you send me e-mails accusing me of bashing this album, I'll have you know that I enjoy Hats, and I don't want to suggest that I think it's a bad album. I think it's quite good, and a notable experience in its own right. I merely consider it a bit of a disappointment after their debut album! Their purpose with this album was to create engaging and atmospheric songs. They succeeded in their quest for the most part.

The best song, in my opinion, is the first one. "Over the Hillside" is atmospheric and quite gorgeous. The melody is memorable and I like the orchestral qualities of it. It's enormously well-arranged, and there's quite a few nice ideas there. The second track, "Downtown Lights," isn't so memorable, but that one's so well orchestrated with intriguing textures that you might enjoy emptying your mind spacing out in front of that thing every once in awhile. The third track is even more spacey and slow, "Let's Go Out Tonight," with some of the most enchanting synthscapes these guys were ever responsible for.

After that point, the album doesn't interest me as much. "Headlights on Parade" has a more involved rhythm section so you think it should be more enjoyable, but it isn't really. The constant rhythm and the not-so-wonderful orchestration serves to make it sound more monotonous than enchanting. The follow-up is shorter but even more boring "From a Late Night Train." Of course they nail the atmosphere with that one and it's quite unique, but that doesn't really excuse the fact that it's a snoozer.

"Seven A.M." is alright though nothing to write home about. The world-music leanings on that one make it seem like a lesser version of Peter Gabriel albeit a more minimalistic version of him, and that certainly would have some value! Fortunately, they give the album a nice song to go out on. It's nothing quite like the first three tracks, but it's a remarkably solid composition with Buchanan's most passionate vocal performance.

So, Hats is a pretty good album, and I recommend it to anyone who like sophisticated '80s pop music. I'd suggest that you begin your collection with their debut album, but I'm sure more listeners would tell you to start with Hats.

Track Listing:

I do love the way this album starts. "Over the Hillside" is a pretty and atmospheric song. It's slowly paced, but if you're in such a mellow mood, it'll probably strike you perfectly. It's fairly minimalistic especially at the beginning, and it sounds pretty similar to the work in their debut album. The instrumentation consists of a new wave rhythm guitar, a bored bass guitarist, a simple drum beat and Paul Buchanan's vocals. Very subtley, some pretty violins come around from the background, which is soon accompanied by a horn pretty horn. The melody doesn't change much at all, but it was engaging enough to warrant the repetition. At the end, Buchanan's vocals get a tad more dramatic, but without even getting vaguely pompous about it. This is a nice song.

"Downtown Lights" is a moderately paced song that relies on the synthscape to keep the song fresh sounding instead of changing around any melodies or rhythms (which may have been more recommendable). The trudging drum line never changes and the chord progression isn't that interesting to me --- but if you concentrate on the instrumentation you'll probably feel pretty spaced out by the whole thing, and it'll be engaging to you. Or maybe it'll bore you to tears. But it's difficult to admit that the instrumental crescendo at the end is wonderful and has an amazing texture.

"Let's Go Out Tonight" sounds much more refined than their hopelessly slow songs from the previous album. "From Rags to Riches" had a similar pacing but the instrumentation was silly and seemed more like a synthesizer experiment. It's easy to feel bored by this, but the atmosphere is extremely refined and enchanting. The smooth synthscape is vivid and textured, and there's a great push toward the end. This is a highly pretty song to sit through! The five minute running length was just fine. Six minutes would have been overkill.

They choose to pick up the tempo at an opportune time with "Headlights on Parade," but they're really starting to lose me here. The running length is six minutes, and that's going too dang far. The atmosphere is quite thick, but it's not nearly as compelling as the previous songs. The melody is OK, but that wasn't supposed to be what you're paying attention to necessarily. It's the instrumentation! They vary the textures around enough, but they don't do anything to particularly amaze me. They don't change the overall rhythm --- unfortunately --- which might have helped this effort seem fresh upon every new minute instead of more tired and burden with more instruments. The piano solos at the beginning of the song do seem to come off as a bit tacky. ... Now despite the criticisms, I do like this song. Again, there's the nice tendency for them to have a great push toward the end, and there's certainly some value to layering the instruments like that. I just wanted something a little more exciting and adventurous --- like in their debut album, for instance!!

Wow, even the most patient listeners might have a hard time honestly enjoying "From a Late Night Train." It doesn't do a whole lot. We hear Buchanan singing a relatively simple melody and pretty quiet instrumentation consisting only of a horn, atmospheric synthesizer noise and a twinkly piano plays in the background. No drum beat, guitar or bass whatsoever. In its defense, the atmosphere is very well constructed, and these guys at least weren't tasteless enough to drag this over four minutes long.

A cool beat is featured in "Seven A.M." with an uncharacteristically distorted bass guitar keeping a modest groove going. There's some world-music patterings with the percussion and an occasional "orchestral hit" we hear towering in the distant background. The melody isn't too interesting to me --- it's the instrumentation that you're going to have to love. Well, I think it's pretty decent actually and this is a marginally entertaining song. It does grow a tad boring, and they don't do much to keep it phenomenally interesting, but this is still nicely done.

"Saturday Night" is an appropriately atmospheric track and a very nice track to end the festivities with. The instrumentation is relatively more bold though the pace is still slow-tempoed. Buchanan gives a wonderful vocal performance that sounds like he's longing for something. The instrumentation is nicely done, and I love the fact that there's an especially effective orchestral push towards the end. It's not a perfect song, and it runs well past six minutes to test our patience, but I like it anyway! Hurrah!

Concluding Remarks:

This is great music for anyone who likes atmospheric, sophisticated music. It's well orchestrated, and much of it is perfect to soak up when you're feeling mellow!