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1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
A great suprise! Mar 14, 2009
I was alittle hesitite to listen to this cd when I first heard about it. A reviewer on youtube said this album was a really good, and if anybody liked pop music you should get it. I was skeptical and decided to listen to it on my long drive back from college. Wow, was I surprised! This album really seems to be a head of its time and doesnt date itself. Annie Lennox's vocals are really great on this album. This album is def. an underground, have to be a complete 80's music fan to buy this cd. But it's def. worth it to anybody that's a good fan of rock music. It could def. be released today, and it would do pretty good on the charts, in my opinion. All the tracks seem to be effortless and easy to listen to!
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Eurythmics at their best Apr 25, 2007
Basically, if you like the entire "Sweet Dreams" album, you'll probably like this one too. There aren't any "mega hits" on the album, but still there are a few songs that are among my favourite songs on my ipod. A haunting album, if you're a Eurythmics fan it is a must-have.
2 of 3 found the following review helpful:
Eurythmics best album! Was downhill from here Aug 27, 2006
This is a truly amazing album. The band was fresh, new and very experimental. The songs are very artsy, some with a hint of left over traces of punk. If you're looking for anything as awful and chart geared as "Would I lie to you" on this gem, then pass this up. There is no "hit" single on this album; just great and haunting songs from a band that sounded like they were making music they wanted to, and not for mass consumption. Two singles were released from this album - one barely charted in the UK and the other failed totally, at least on a commercial level.
This album was before Annie Lennox started with her never ending, soulful ranting and wailing, (see destroyed versions of some of these songs on their 1983 concert video release). Just listen to the opening track, the haunting "English summer", followed by the wonderful upbeat failed single "Belinda", to the moody and wonderful "Take me to your heart". Just amazing. A real highlight is the agressive "Caveman head", in which Annie sings with a very deadpan tone with all sorts or distant shouting in the background.
Thankfully, this new reissue has the excellent B side of the singles, which were only previously available on pricey used vinyl. "Le sinistre" is a definite horror movie, and "Heartbeat heartbeat" is a fast, punchy, short song that remains my favorite Eurythmics B side. The reissue also includes 3 of the 4 live B sides from the "This is the house" 12" single, all of which are very good, (though why they left one off is bewildering to me).
The remastering of the CD is pretty good, though in truth I think my original CD sounded a bit better. With this reissue, along with the 'Sweet Dreams' reissue, you can hear some occasional bits of stereo fluctuation, which could be caused by the aging tapes or so-so tape trasfer equipment during the remastering. The booklet is amazing, containing many rare session photos that just show how wonderfully bizarre Dave and Annie were at this time.
Unfortunately, nothing from this album has ever been represented at all on the bands 'Greatest hits' CD's. Granted, it wasn't a big success, but at least the inclusion of one of the singles would give a better overall representation of their career. Instead you get all of that "Sisters are doing it for themselves" garbage.
Eurythmics continued making some interesting music on their next two albums 'Sweet dreams' and 'Touch', but those awful funky vibes were starting to come through, and once they dumped the electronic percussion for the dreadful 1985 album 'Be yourself tonight', it was all over with the rare exception of the occasional decent song.
This unique and wonderful album would definitely be one of my Desert Island choices - I'll never tire of it. It's definitely in my top 5 all-time favorite albums.
1 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Haunting early album now enhanced Jun 11, 2006
This dreamy, avant-garde album of 1981 gave little indication of the Eurythmics' subsequent melodic pop direction that led them to mega stardom for most of the decade. It more closely resembles the work of 1970s experimentalists like Howard Devoto, Brian Eno and German artists like Can. Sometimes it even sounds like the later Cocteau Twins or the more ethereal varieties of world music. The poetic imagery and melodies are superb but it's as if Lennox & Stewart went out of their way to avoid popular appeal.
This direction is all the more odd in the light of Lennox and Stewart's previous band, the brilliant but underrated pop group The Tourists with their catchy tunes. In The Garden is a highly atmospheric work and contains at least two classics. The first is the rousing Belinda - to which Holger Czukay contributes French horn - with its cascading guitar textures, mournful drone and oriental backing vocals soaring to a scorching climax. She's Invisible Now is the second, an eerie, mournful song with a haunting spoken countdown.
English Summer is replete with chirping crickets, distant voices & traffic sounds, whilst Take Me To Your Heart & Your Time Will Come both have strong melodies. The problem is that the delivery is too subdued and understated to be immediately appealing. 'Heart' has a vague eastern feel owing to Czukay's "Thai stringed instrument." Anne's vocals on 'Your Time' are particularly arresting. The voice samples and found sounds on Caveman Head create a striking, other-worldly air.
The album's melancholia is particularly evident on the lament All The Young People Of Today, a slow song with muffled vocal samples and tortured guitar parts. The French track Sing-Sing's oneiric mood is interrupted by animal & metallic sounds. The mid-tempo Revenge, a lyrical gem, concluded the original album; it contains truly bizarre sound effects including normal and demented laughter. With its ticking clock and brooding sax, Le Sinistre amply lives up to its title.
In contrast, Heartbeat Heartbeat is urgent and uptempo, whilst the live version of Never Gonna Cry Again with its lilting beat is far more varied and appealing than the studio version. Of the other two live recordings, 4/4 In Leather is buoyant and percussive; Take Me To Your Heart which is introduced by a spoken introduction in French, concludes the album. People who like Magazine, The World of Skin, the Neo-Psychedelia of the 1990s like Rose Chronicles, the above-mentioned German avant-gardists, Brian Eno's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, etc. will appreciate In The Garden.
Beautiful photographs of Lennox & Stewart enhance the fold-out digipack & the booklet that contains a brief bio by Phil Savidge that focuses on the band's history, style & influence as well as the track listing and information on the musicians, photographers & designers. The sound is crystal clear, revealing the depth and intricacy of the complex vocal & instrumental textures.
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
Spellbinding debut album Jun 04, 2006
This album is something really interesting. Given how everyone remembers Eurythmics for songs such as Sweet Dreams, There Must Be An Angel.... and so on, we have the idea that they were a pop band first and foremost and of course, for the most part that is right. They were. They were an extremely good pop band too. Not something I'd readily pick up mind. There have been some songs which have been great and some that are vapid nonsense. I, for one, cannot stand There Must Be An Angel which showcases Annie Lennox's vocals to extremely good affect but the song has nothing to add to it. But this album is different. Very much within the sound and texture of the album. It's not what you'd expect.
From the first track, you can tell this wasn't going to be a commercially viable record to release. It sounds somewhat cold, dislocated and out of place. Even though there's more guitars on this album than any other Eurythmics song I've heard, it feels a lot more colder than those songs! This can be due in part to Conny Plank's production work which is always interesting without fail.
What Plank seems to have melded together is a stunning mixture of exotic influences melded to a strictly European sensibility and within that a certain Britishness. Even though in the liner notes it says the band felt themselves more European than British, within the music there still retains that sense of Britishness but without any of the negative aspects, and the embracing of European influences clearly help this album fluorish.
Annie's voice on this album is, for the most part, very subdued and wistful. It compliments the music very well which takes on very dreamy and exotic tones while at the same time, giving a sense of being disenchanted with all around them. Very few can make an album that sounds like that and even fewer make it sound as interesting as it does, so it's all credit to Annie and Dave for orchestrating an album as good as this.
I could go on about the cover too but that would be pretty pointless. To cut it short, I feel it compliments the album. It looks of it's time too but in a good way.
Tracks like Take Me To Your Heart, Caveman Head and Never Gonna Cry Again have a sense of enchantment and disenchantment while Sing-Sing ( which is sung in French ) only encaptures the sense of dreamy wonder that is sometimes forgotten in music. Of the extra tracks Heartbeat Heartbeat and 4/4 In Leather should also get a mention for being frenetically paced that seriously test those dancing shoes but perhaps not as overtly as anything that would follow.
Overall, this album is one of a kind, one which the band has never repeated and perhaps no one could attempt to duplicate this album as the amount of intricate details in the album is simply spellbinding!
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