Area - The Perfect Dream

Area were a band musically that were right where they should have been for their time, circa ‘88. This is very 4AD sounding in the sense of Dead Can Dance, Cocteau Twins and This Mortal Coil, not forgetting Roxy Music and Leonard Cohen. The music is an exquisite combination of ambient guitar and synth noodlings over drum machine darkwave and dream pop, all hailing from Champaign in downstate Illinois. The dark, cathedral ambience and ethereal vocals of Lynn Canfield adds an air of mystery to the sound. Effortlessly seductive, reducing odd syllables to a whisper, a sense of calm weeping from every note in spite of the articulation of loss and loneliness, confusion and incomprehension, fears and pains, yearnings and soft burnings over ghostly guitars and scarce drum beats. Loaded with the sort of melancholia that you get when you write rather deep and introspective songs, this stuff still holds up, which is partially due to the fact that the gloom and doom seems real rather than painted on.

The highlight here with an opening thunder clap adding atmosphere is "With Louise" which is actually a rehash, adapting a song from keyboard/percussionist Steve Jones' earlier band, The Arms of Someone New, but the only difference being was the lack of a decent vocalist, plainly remedied here. Other tunes replicate a similar sound, while some, like "Sympathy," are more like straight ballads, Canfield's hushed croon with only the lightest instrumental accompaniment. As on their other albums, Area occasionally veer into more upbeat electro-pop ("Why Should I Worry"), falling somewhere between Gary Numan and the Cure, but this is largely a sombre affair best saved for sleepy, foggy mornings. The album is a triumph of minimalism, dreamscapes gently stirred to pale life through the gentle fingering of fretboards and keyboards. 

Ripped to MP3

There's no tracklist for some reason, and I can't be arsed putting one in this time around either