Kate Bush
Aerial
EMI
·First studio album in 12 years. I feel like gushing. Well, damn it, let me gush. I love Kate Bush and I love the new album. Wow. Unbelievable.
There is so much that I want to say about Kate Bush and her latest double CD, Aerial, that I hardly know where to begin. After 1993’s The Red Shoes, I have been both anticipating and dreading a new release — mainly because Red Shoes was so hit and miss (more miss than hit), only offering a few memorable songs. It is with a sigh of relief and a feeling of elation that I can honestly say that after much too long a wait, Kate has given us one of her most personal and beautiful albums yet.
Aerial is comprised of two discs, A Sea of Honey and A Sky of Honey – each with its own theme of water and sky respectively – not unlike 1985’s Hounds of Love, which also pitted the sky against water. What is striking about the songs on Aerial is their very obvious hints at other Kate Bush songs throughout the years – singing of a diamond night in "Nocturn" (as in 1978’s Kite), or similarities in rhyming patterns and vocalizations off of 1982’s The Dreaming, it’s as if Kate is paying homage to her previous work and acknowledging that although her sound may have mellowed and morphed over the years, it is truly her own.
Granted, there are some songs that, quite frankly, should have been B-sides either on this album or perhaps even off something much earlier, such as Never For Ever, but the strength of songs like "Sunset" (with it’s laid-back, jazzy/Spanish flavor), "Bertie," (a love song to her son), and "Nocturn," (possibly her most modern and accessible song in years) elevate this album and pick up where Hounds of Love and The Sensual World left off – focusing on Kate’s mesmerizing vocals and songwriting as opposed to her fabulous quirkiness. Sure she’s matured – she’s a mom now – but she’s still Kate Bush, and she can still turn me into a babbling mess within a few notes.
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