1991 sunshine psych sounds from New York City synthpop combo
hyperbolium | Earth, USA | 07/23/2009
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Given three years between their sophomore release and this third effort, New York City's Book of Love finally carved out some new ground. Though still making most of their music with keyboards, their beats had less dance floor thump, and their vocals and melodies took on the bright shades of `60s sunshine pop and light psychedelia. It's as if the Paisley Underground had revived girl-group with synthesizers instead of Byrdsian chime and Velvet Underground drone with guitars. Their revised sound is more Dukes of the Stratosphere and twee pop than Erasure. The opening "Turn the World" borrows the bass line riff of Tommy James' "Draggin' the Line" and layers it with lush vocal overdubs, and the animated vocals and revving car of "Orange Flip" suggests an update of Gary Usher. Those who found the group's first two albums too heavy with dance beats may enjoy hearing this pure strain of the band's sugar-sweet pop. Noble Rot's reissue adds four remixes to the dozen original tracks; the disc is stuffed inside a three-panel cardboard slip-sleeve (no plastic bed for the disc) with liner notes by Michael Paloetta. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]"
A short and sweet gem from Book of Love gets reissued with s
Daniel W. Kelly | Long Island, NY United States | 07/14/2009
(4 out of 5 stars)
"One of Book of Love's most playful CDs, much of the music does feel like children's Christmas carols, as one of the other reviewers here has noted, and this CD also features Turn the World Around, which is one of my favorite Book of Love tracks of all time and should have been released as a single. Almost inspired by 60s bubblegum pop, these tracks are less heavy on the "erasure-ish" synthdance feel than Book's first two albums. That's where the Everyday Glo mix of Alice Everyday comes in, perfectly remixing the song into a synthdance classic that can stand beside Erasure's Chorus on the dance floor. The other remixes from this period weren't as club friendly, but the CD singles did have quite a bit more mixes than are being offered as bonus tracks here. So unless you have the CD singles for Alice Everyday and Counting the Rosaries, you do not have the complete output from this album on this reissue (that would have taken a 2-disc set). Also important to note is that 2 years later, an 'extended remix' of Quiver would appear as a bonus track on the "Boy Pop" CD single. That mix also could have been on here as a great bonus. If you weren't collection Book of Love when this album was originally released and don't have those CD singles, you may want to hunt them down if you like what you hear."
Track Listings (16) - Disc #1