Released 1 September 1982 Length 35:25 | Recorded 1981–1982 Label 4AD | |
Studio Blackwing Studios, London, England Genre Post-punk
gothic rock
ethereal wave | ||
Garlands is the debut studio album by Scottish alternative rock band Cocteau Twins, released 1 September 1982 on record label 4AD.
Contents
Background
Garlands is the only album with original bassist Will Heggie. Gordon Sharp of Cindytalk provided backup vocals on "Dear Heart", "Hearsay Please", and "Hazel".
Release
The original British cassette release included four additional tracks from a John Peel radio session. The original British, Brazilian and Canadian CD releases featured the album, the Peel session and two other tracks that were recorded for an unreleased single, which was to have been the band's first release. The four Peel Session recordings were later released as BBC Sessions in 1999.
From the band's website: "In the end, Garlands was one of the most successful independent recordings of 1982, and peaked in the UK Independent Top Five. In addition to this, the band had received avid support from the BBC Radio 1's John Peel—a significant figure in the early development of Britain's independent music culture in the 1980s".
A remastered version of "Blind Dumb Deaf" was included on the 2000 compilation Stars and Topsoil, a version of "Hazel" appeared on the band's Peppermint Pig EP, released in 1983, and a remixed version of "Wax and Wane" was included on the 1985 compilation The Pink Opaque.
Reception
In its review of the album, AllMusic was generally critical, writing that "Garlands falters due to something the band generally avoided in the future – overt repetition. [...] As a debut effort, though, Garlands makes its own curious mark, preparing the band for greater heights". Spin wrote that the album "[sounds] like Siouxsie and the Banshees with echo and smeared mascara".
Sounds critic Helen Fitzgerald wrote, "The fact of the matter is that the album is bloody good. A fluid frieze of wispy images made all the more haunting by Elizabeth's distilled vocal maturity, fluctuating from a brittle fragility to a voluble dexterity with full range and power".
Musical style
Billboard described the album as "dark post-punk". The album's sound was described in The Rough Guide to Rock as "a blend of ominous pulsating bass, stark TR808 drums, cyclical guitar and great screeching arcs of reverberating feedback, over which Liz alternated dry, brittle utterings with full-power vocal gymnastics".
Track listing
All tracks written by Cocteau Twins (Elizabeth Fraser, Robin Guthrie, Will Heggie).