It's New to Me: Four-Calendar Cafe by the Cocteau Twins (1993)

Detail of the cover illustration of Picture-Play magazine, April 1922

I think I screwed up - I wasn't supposed to start with Four-Calendar Cafe. I've been familiar with the Cocteau Twins' EPs for a while, thanks to the Lullabies to Violaine collection, which was recommended to me as the band's best work, but I've never bought an actual Cocteaus album. I wanted to start with the band's peak albums, of which I thought that Four-Calendar Cafe was one. Apparently, it is not perceived by fans and critics as one of the band's best albums, though - released in 1993, it's the band's post-peak blatant-pop-move album. It's the album where the band known for gauzy, otherworldly ambient pop did the unspeakable by writing lyrics composed of intelligible English words.

I'll admit that the the album's comprehensible lyrics can be disappointingly mundane, but a lot of it still washes over me without forming into words. And the overall sound of the album, orchestrated by the always-excellent Robin Guthrie, is very appealing. Four-Calendar Cafe's big single, "Bluebeard", is not a fan favorite, but the slide-guitar hook is quite nice, and I can tune out the "Are you the right man for me?" chorus lyric if I try. The album has some "meh" material in its middle section, with the exception of the downright bouncy "Squeeze-Wax" (which I loved right away), but it ends strongly. "Summerhead", the penultimate track, brings back the dense sound of the Cocteau Twins '80s work that is missing on much of Four-Calendar Cafe - this is probably why it's the one track that hardcore fans will give some props to. And the last song, "Pur", wafts diaphanously away over five minutes to bring the album to an appropriate close.

I should have picked up Blue-Bell Knoll or Heaven or Las Vegas first - I can see that now. But I think that Four-Calendar Cafe was a good, accessible entry point for exploring the Cocteau Twins' LPs - it doesn't match up to the songs I love from their best EPs, but it has whet my appetite for further exploration into the band's discography.

"Summerhead" by the Cocteau Twins