My Amazon Reviews: Sting "Brand New Day"

I've Kept This Single Faith
4 Out Of 5 Stars

For a comeback album, Sting aligned as many stars for this project as he could. "Brand New Day" features Stevie Wonder's harmonica on the title track, James Taylor drops in, as do many others. As a follow-up to the lackluster "Mercury Falling," he obviously wanted everything in its right place.

Which is odd, because the music plays with risks. The left field hit "Desert Rose" fields Middle Eastern rhythms along with an Arabic (I believe) backup vocal. Sting takes another stab at country with "Fill Her Up," complete with pedal steel and a gospel chorus at the end that exhorts, "Fill Her up with Jesus! Fill Her up with love" before breaking into a jazz piano ending. In anyone else's hands, this would sound clumsy and awkward, in Sting's it all sounds natural.

That's not to say that Sting is playing loose. The sound of the album is meticulous as usual, with the players all being good soldiers and filling out their places on the album in precise fashion. Even the rap in "Perfect Love Gone Wrong" sounds like it was laid in place by architects. But that's what our man Sting has always been about. Think about how serious his "On A Winter's Night" is, and that's his Holiday album. "Brand New Day" was more of that perfect plans of mice and men laid down with impeccable skill, with the good fortune of have Sting and a batch of good singing and playing to match the songs.

     

My Amazon Reviews: Sting "Fields Of Gold 1984-1994"

A Gold Decade
4 Out Of 5 Stars

This Sting Compilation, "Fields Of Gold 1984-1994," is the best of the Sting anthologies out there. Even more recent releases are less powerful than this one, because Sting was at a peak for the most of this period. The albums range from "Dreams of The Blue Turtles" to "Ten Summoner's Tales," which skips the less than stellar "Mercury Falling" but does miss out on his "Brand New Day" comeback and "Sacred Love."

You get the poetic Sting of "Fortress Around Your Heart," the thoughtful man who wrote "Fields of Gold" and the activist who wrote the still stunning "Fragile." Two of his other political songs, "Russians" and "They Dance Alone" are here, as well. Then there's that voice. Keening and pure, the sound that made The Police stand head and shoulders above so many of the New Wave groups of the day. Granted, the trio rose beyond that label quickly, and it was Sting's determination to stretch out more that led to a solo career in the first place. It's hard to imagine his original trio jazzing it up like Sting did on "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free" or the more solemn and personal "When They Dance."

"Fields of Gold" marks the strongest period of Sting's solo years. You may be tempted to go for one of the other sets, but don't. Along woth a Police best of, this is a chronology of a brilliant career.

     

My Amazon Reviews: Sting "Ten Summoner's Tales"

The Summoner Calls
5 Out of 5 Stars

In ye merry olde England, if you were about to be charged with a crime, the law of the day would pay someone to come and fetch you. That person, the Summoner, would be paid for his duty, but as the story goes, could also be paid to look the other way if the object of his attention made a generous counter offer. Such is the case with Sting, who wants to have it both ways. He wants your attention on "Ten Summoner's Tales," intriguing you in ten different ways before offering an epilogue at the end. He's eager to please this time, putting aside the morose but intriguing jazz fusion that his previous three albums had for a more pop approach.

From the first single, the Gospelish "If I Ever Lose My Faith In You," the change is apparent. Sting laments a world where politicians "all look like game show hosts to me" (funny how that still seems true) over a poppy hook and a snappy bass line. Then story time takes over with "Love Is Stronger Than Justice," a pedal-steel inflected story of bandits, and then the tale of the longing that is "Fields Of Gold." maybe one of my all time favorite Sting songs, it drifts across a Spanish guitar and is one of his loveliest ballads.

There are a few attempts at humor, like the dialogue during "St Augustine In Hell," where a special circle is left open for music critics, or the "Epilogue (Nothing About Me)," where he can't help but taunt that, after ten songs about assorted characters, you don't know who the teller of the stories really is. The songs range form poppy to enigmatic ("Something The Boy Said"), yet the man himself remains a cipher till the very end. Seeing as his last couple of albums were such personal affairs, the looser feel of "Ten Summoners Tales" and its songs from outside the sphere may make this Sting's most accessible album. Back in 1993 when I was still writing for a major trade paper, this was one of my faves of that year. Still is.

     

My Amazon Reviews: Sting "The Soul Cages"

New Ships to be Built, new work to be done

5 Out Of 5 Stars

Sting's elegy to his father (who had recently passed) is a moody and moving album, dispensing with conventional pop and loaded with images of the sea, loss and those missing. The gently lolling waves that roll through "Island Of Souls" capture the mood of the album perfectly, as 'Benny' dreams of building the perfect ship to rescue his father and he to a magic island that would free them from the drudgery of living in a shipbuilder's wharf-side. Time soon ensnares them both as Benny seems his dreams crash on the water of loss and the never ending need for warcraft.

So it goes throughout "The Soul Cages." The single, "All This Time" reflects on the wisdom of his father as the river washes time away. That it's the most upbeat song on the CD also tells you the artist's mood at the time. The title track, "When The Angels Fall" or the elegy of "Why Should I Cry For You" are all mournful, cathartic works that Sting used to ponder the harder questions of life. Even the uptempo "Jeremiah's Blues" contemplates the end of the world, and it's the poppier song here.

With same gang of jazz and rock vets, along with Sting on bass for a change, the album is a sonic delight (and due for an upgrade, as is Sting's whole catalog). Just be certain, this is an album that may cause the shedding of tears if you're in a darker place.

     

My Amazon Reviews: The Fratellis "Costello Music"

Pub Rockers!,
3 Out Of 5 Stars

I first got wind of The Fratellis when they opened for The Police on their reunion tour on the Philadelphia stop. The Scottish trio was raucous, energetic and had songs that were loaded with do-do-do's and la-la-la's. Perfect for a big stadium of sing-alongs. Nothing complicated, and as the soundbite that was used in a famous beer commercial showed ("Chelsea Dagger"), these guys could pound out a great hook to down a pint by.

"Costello Music" is a title without meaning from a band with no big messages. There's no time to bother with any ballads, they wouldn't fit the la-la's on the likes of "For The Girl" (about a star-crossed pair of lovers whose main flaw was that "She was into the Stones when I was into the Roses." Sure, it's an inside musical joke, and if you get it, The Fratellis are probably a band you'll like. You miss some big Brit-rock that sounds like it wandered into a pub with Amps turned up to 10? "Costello Music" fills the bill.

     

My Amazon Reviews: Sting "Nothing Like The Sun"

Biding His Time  
4 Out Of 5 Stars

Sting expanded on the jazzy feel of his debut when he released this expansive (originally double) album. He played with polyrythms, crossing styles over each other, even bringing in the Gil Evans Orchestra to accompany him on a Jimi Hendrix cover ("Little Wing"). It made "Nothing Like the Sun" a very ambitious album, and one that contains some of his best individual songs.

After all, any album that contains something as painfully beautiful as "Fragile" or quirky and clever as his tribute to Quentin Crisp ("Englishman in New York") is worth more than passing notice. To be certain, Sting added a pop-matic single in "We'll Be Together" and goofy (and frankly, slight) take on the story of Noah's Ark on "Rock Steady."

Take those away, and you have a solemn, moody album that lives up to its creators reputation for flights or pretension. Because as beautiful as "Fragile" is, it is the simplicity of that particular song that makes the inferior "They Dance Alone" sputter. Sting has always likes his music on the 'serious' side, so "Nothing Like The Sun" has always held up well if you allow the artist his leeway. On the other hand, I've always found "Soul Cages" to be a less pretentious and more personal album, even if "Nothing Like The Sun" contains the better of the songs.

My Amazon Reviews: Sting "...All The Time"

Set Yourself Free
4 Out Of 5 Stars
 
Sting is one of those restless creatures of creativity. How does one keep yourself relevant in your own mind when your youthful blurts made you rich? Sting has reinvented himself at least three times; first as the spiky haired lead singer of The Police, then as the jazz-inflected solo artist, and here as the man for all seasons, playing both his old and new material in a setting almost too casual for its own good. Surprisingly enough, it works.

Recorded in Italy on September 11, 2001 on the "Brand New Day" tour and during a period of re-emergence, Sting sounds loose and relaxed. Several of the songs are given a medley treatment, but the playing never falters into camp or awkwardness during the transitions. It's also exquisitely mixed and recorded. Now granted, this is certainly for us middle-agers who have since lost our own frenetic metabolism and can settle for pleasantry in what used to be our rebellions. "All This Time" does just that.