Tears for Fears: Elemental : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Even with one Tear for Fear subtracted from the mix – Curt Smith is gone, but Roland Orzabal remains – the lush sound of Tears for Fears continues to improve. From the early days of The Hurting to Songs From the Big Chair to The Seeds of Love, Tears for Fears has bridged the English pop gap that separates artists like Sade from those with an edgier bite – the Cure, New Order, Morrissey. For over 10 years, Orzabal and Smith churned out sweetly charged soundscapes and provided guilty pleasures like "Everybody Wants to Rule the World," "Pale Shelter" and "Sowing the Seeds of Love." Tears for Fears created a perfect synthesis of fancy and form, combining sublime pop orchestration with genuine insight.

Since Smith quit after the 1991 Seeds of Love world tour, Orzabal is left to fend off existential angst on his own – which he does with amazing grace and integrity on Elemental. Orzabal, guitarist Alan Griffiths and co-producer Tim Palmer (Pearl Jam, Tin Machine) provide the production techniques, smooth segues and sweeping guitar-keyboard interplay that fans have come to expect from Tears for Fears. Tracks like "Cold," "Power" and "Break It Down Again" are replete with melodic free falls, harmonized and overlapped vocals, burbling keyboards and guitar shudders. Shamelessly lifting from the Beatles and the Beach Boys, Orzabal molds his borrowings to fit the mood – finally stretching reverence to the extreme with the sad, Smile-inspired embrace of "Brian Wilson Said."

Yet Orzabal doesn't seem to be that thrilled with his musical divorce from Smith. Allusions to the split abound, with "Fish out of Water" echoing sentiments as spiteful as John Lennon's anti-McCartney rant "How Do You Sleep." "With all your cigarettes and fancy cars/You ain't a clue who or what you are," Orzabal sings acidly, pinning his ex-partner and counting "one more martyr to the hit parade." The gorgeous "Goodnight Song" seems a more reflective account of the spat, with Orzabal expressing abandonment and confusion, and cushioning the hurt with sobbing synth riffs.

Bad feelings aside, Elemental flashes the same sort of sheen, wordplay and sound wash that flourished in the '80s and still fights for its place on modern rock charts. Orzabal and songwriting partner Griffiths couldn't have placed Elemental at a better time. Creating a perfect summer album in a year that has seen the return of Duran Duran, Boy George and Cyndi Lauper, Tears for Fears' splendid concoction only proves that, eventually, everything old is new again – and again and again.