mj64

@grendel: you're good, but what a nice nickname. maybe you like the fish with a helmet? I'm very fond of this album; surely, listened to today, with more expertise and ears that are no longer those of a teenager, it's a notch below the previous ones that had much more prog echoes and also below the subsequent Paradise Theater and Kilroy Was Here, that is, the concept according to AOR dictates (an annoying definition, but that’s how it is). I can't give it less than 4 stars. Just think, I even like "Babe," which actually has little to do with the context. "Boat on the River," "Lights," and "Love in the Midnight" are excellent.

a very nice live performance by a legendary band. war pigs was devastating. I remember them live at a monsters of metal, they played in the afternoon but were amazing. patton is a genius.

probably these are true things, but you could have written them in Italian, so maybe everyone would understand you. anyway, for me this album is a 5, I also prefer it to dark side and wish you were here, even though it's not like the guitar is missing in shine on you crazy diamond. in any case, dogs is one of the absolute masterpieces of the floyd, and the lyrics are beautiful.

very great album, with some gems. it's not a five but it's close, the following three are out of this world.

Clearly this record inspires literary flourishes. A much better review than Maria Elena's, anyway. Here, rhetoric and self-indulgence do not triumph over logic, but only serve to weigh it down from time to time. The analysis, although concise, is still interesting. Well, I’ll repeat myself about the record: masterpiece!

Guys, what a struggle to get to the end. This review is horrible; if this album truly provokes such outbursts from you, you should at least have the decency to provide the reader with a "manual," a sort of paraphrase of your rambling sentences that otherwise just seem like a mere and shabby display of eloquence and redundancy. And don’t accuse those who criticize of being unable to feel emotions: I, at the time of this album's release, cried many times listening to the blend of Mark's voice and the soft notes of the marvelous pieces that make up Spirit of Eden. But if I were to review the album, I would try to describe it to normal people, not to crazies caught in hallucinogenic trips (Hofmann is dead) for whom the quality of a review equates to the quantity of big words worthy of a second-rate epistemological essay. One thing saves you: the overwhelmingly positive judgment on this album, which is truly a gem (well, maybe not better than Wish You Were Here in my opinion, but it's certainly among the ten best of the '80s). Sorry (assuming you haven't died in the meantime), but that's my opinion, and I might be wrong: I tried to read you without preconceptions, but it's really hard to grasp the meaning from your unstoppable flow of jargon.

one star less because three stars are really too few. in my opinion, this album is a masterpiece in its own right, just like the two that will follow. and it is light years away from the synth-pop trash of the '80s from which Mark and Co. were almost accidentally born. Immense.

I almost agree with everyone (how ecumenical I am!) Personally, I also love the first two Talk Talk albums, which are commercial and very pop but also beautiful gems of '80s pop. I mean, in my opinion, at the level of "Such a Shame," perhaps only "The Seeds of Love" by Tears for Fears comes close. Then they gradually distanced themselves from success, moving towards exploration and introspection. But even from the start, the great class of Mark Hollis and the others already existed and was visible.
"The Colour of Spring" is already a very different album from the previous one. Then there's "Spirit of Eden," which is a true masterpiece. But this one isn't to be joked about either. Undoubtedly, it's rare for a band to give their best after several albums, although I must say it happened in the '80s; even Depeche Mode significantly improved over the years.
Anyway, great Mark.

great album. I also recommend Hotstonaten among the various zuffantian projects.

Beyond the tones and certain arguments, I partially agree with Adriano. In a landscape of giggidalessi and gioddditonno or michaelbublé, those monsters of skill like the Transatlantic are welcome (by the way, only 2 out of 4 are yankee; Trewavas is English and Stolt is Swedish). However, this album (and the others; I bought the two double live albums and I'm thinking of selling them as soon as possible) lacks originality and has very little inspiration (and don’t bring up the issue of derivativeness; not everything derivative is empty, listen to La Locanda delle Fate, they are a perfect mix of PFM, Banco, Genesis, Camel, and the more you name, the more you get, but for an hour of listening, you forget the whole world). Then again, I say, nothing to complain about. Personally, I significantly prefer them to DT, and I would place them more or less on the same level as The Flower Kings (I can’t judge the beards as I still know nothing about them). Skillful, enjoyable, but nothing more.