#1239 Talk Talk - The Colour of Spring

This is mostly interesting as backstory: there's hints here of what Talk Talk would do on Laughing Stock, their impossibly patient, otherworldly masterpiece.

It's not all that weird just yet: most of these songs have proper beats, reasonably normal instrumentation, and might just sound like regular old soft rock if not for...something? I assume it's the improvisational recording approach that accounts for the pacing, the molasses structures, the time-melting feel that puts the album on the fringe of the pop/rock sphere.

Interesting doesn't equal good though, "historically interesting" even less so. This doesn't work: it's not quite art, not really listenable, the strangeness all a little affected, and (most damningly) Mark Hollis's voice is still overinflected to hell and back, but if you're into later Talk Talk it's an interesting little crumb on the trail 2.5/5