"Tindersticks II" by Tindersticks, 1995

I can see little twinkly stars, like Christmas tree lights in faraway windows.
Rings of brightly coloured rocks floating around orange and mustard planets.
I can see huge tiger striped fishes chasing tiny blue and yellow dashes, all tails and fins and bubbles. - "My Sister"

I continue to find that the music that I gravitate to the most is that which contains a contradiction of sorts. The type of music that remains dark and claustrophobic, yet with just the right bright bright twinkles. The type of music that manages to sing about giraffes atop a backdrop of ear-bleeidng guitar noise, or the type of artists who write about the Black Plague and turn it into a children's game. Or perhaps a satan-voiced englishman describing a fifteen year old beaten by a gym-teaching husband by a bullworker, all the while grooving to a tapestry of strings, vibes and horn farts light enough for a dinner party?

Tindersticks' second (self-titled) album is characterized by Stuart Staples haunting baritone floating amid a plethora of diverse, orchestrated instrumental templates created by multi-instrumental guru Dickon Hinchliffe, grooving upon the hazy 3/4 rhythms atop a bed of iceberg lettuce and mesclun greens, lightly sprinkled Gorgonzola and a drizzle of raspberry vinaigrette. Served lightly chilled.

Of course, I could continue with such mundane descriptions of what one hears when tapping one's foot to this rich tapestry, but would it really get across what one feels?? For example, could I possibly describe the tone of Stuart Staples' voice when he breathes, "Do you ever want to take that knife and discover?" in "Snowy in F# Minor", before leading into a haunting instrumental refrain of dark strings, moaning guitars and descending horn notes?

The answer is no. Somewhere between Love and Nick Cave lies this delicate musical balance. Contradiction, as I've previously discussed.

Hey, Allmusic.com! How would you describe such brilliance?

"While Stuart Staples' songs remain as obsessive and haunted as before, he wards off his demons with fits of pitch-black humor and a more tender perspective."

Wow, good description, Allmusic! How do you feel about global warming?

"It is true that Aaron Carter's second album is slightly less creepy than his first, simply because his voice has broken and he no longer sounds as much like a child singing about things far beyond his years. Still, the basic approach hasn't really changed, and he's still singing songs that are clearly directed at kids but written with distinctly adolescent, even adult, overtones. Even songs that are meant to be light, frothy love songs are too knowing about sexuality, always hinting at things that young Aaron just shouldn't know about."

Right on, Allmusic.com!

The album starts as a whisper - "El Diablo En El Ojo" fades in with gentle guitar strums and strings so light they're barely there. "I wouldn't turn the lights down yet. `cause they're things you gotta see," mumbles Stuart as the song builds up to a dreadful cacophony of squealing strings and incoherent speaking. But then it stops. Completely.

The strangely titled "A Night In" is another highlight, characterized by a trip-hop drum beat and more trembly singing about "shoes full of hope", callouses and cots.
The best song here by miles? The aforementioned "My Sister", which is an utterly haunting, spoken word ode to a cursed sister; Staples' British monotone almost fits like merely another instrument, yet remaining the only constant among that constantly evolving elevator music.

"We buried her when she was 32. Me and my aunt, the vicar, and the man who dug the hole. She said she didn't want to be cremated and wanted a cheap coffin so the worms could get to her quickly. She said she liked the idea of it, though I thought it was because of what happened to the cat, and our mum."

The last song worth mentioning in detail is "Travelling Light", an emotional duet with Carla Torgerson of The Walkabouts (the who?), an odd sliver of pop fitting between the pitch-black side two of the record.

That's not to say it's a perfect album. Seventy minutes is indeed an ambitious length for a musicalbum of this style, causing many of the slightly less memorable tracks to fade together as one slow-as-sin, dreary death ballad ("Sleepy Song", "Seaweed" and "She's Gone" are among the innocent victims here). Three instrumentals, albeit short ones, is also midly excessive, espially when one considers that:
a) "Vertrauen II" and "Vertrauen III" are nearly identical.
b) Both are disgustingly difficult to spell.
c) "Singing" is a ridiculous title for an instrumental
d) Roger killed Piggy with a boulder.

But still, Tindersticks has got to have rules and obey them! After all, they're not savages!