In 1986, Talk Talk had built a bridge between two banks; its name, "The Colour Of Spring". The bridge in question is crossed. Forgotten, the synthetic New-Wave of its origins, and no matter what may well be the thunderbolts that the sacrosanct commandments of the EMI label and its commercial imperatives may well unleash. The divorce is in progress, but isn't it in the end of an epic that the ferments of a new genesis are born? The great Mark finally realizes his music, supported by the clairvoyant Tim Friese-Greene, even if the two companions already have nothing more to prove since the previous masterful opus.
The artistic approach drives the nail in the coffin of experimentation, on a resolutely noisy methodology, but the mastery of the composition remains unheard of. A magic trick of which very few artists can boast of being capable.
The first track, "The Rainbow", could not better bear its name: imagine yourself wandering under a cloudy canopy, your dreams vaguely inhibited; and suddenly, a luminous hole through which the colors of a rainbow escape, that the indescribable voice of Mark Hollis comes to lay at your feet. "Eden" disembodies emotion, with its shrill sounds and brass from elsewhere, plunging the soul into a hypnotic sleep, halfway between deep melancholy and contemplative state. Then "Desire", in the image of the musical desire of its creators, announces a metamorphosis in gestation, like a nascent aurora borealis, before an explosion of luminous and psychedelic percussion at the same time magnifies the maestro's cosmic vocals. The spirit is finally liquefied, under the shouts of an indefinable trumpet that seems to sit as a preacher in a court of final judgment.
The rest of the album bears witness to a similar spiritual alchemy, relying nevertheless on a slightly more structured scheme. "I believe In You" is the counterpart of the negation embarked on in the previous album, in the form of a soothing and beneficial reflection and "Wealth" is the conclusion of this kabbalistic journey.
"Spirit Of Eden" is the suspension, then the ascent of a soap bubble in the air: fragile, and inexorable. It elegantly loses itself in the heights of the atmosphere, to merge with it, just as the infinitely small embraces the immensity of the universe, for the celebration of the same spiritual communion. A true cornerstone of Rock history.