Aerial saw the return of Kate Bush to the scene with her eighth studio album after a long 12 years. And what a good come back for those that are low and wish to reach slightly estatic heights after having their mood lifted. The album begins with "The King of Mountain" which had stormed the UK download charts at the time of Aerial and is pleasantly hypnotic. While the album is divided between A Sea of Honey and A Sky of Honey the latter takes some beating for energy. Certainly worth it to argue the whole album is uplifting. In 'Mrs. Bartolozzi’ Kate sings about washing machines or laundry and it is beautiful while 'How To Be Invisible in pop music terms has life and is cutting edge. In the track "Joanni" the multi-layered orchestration is apparent and echos of musical arrangements in The Sensual World. 'A Coral Room' is a reflective piano piece like 'This Woman's Work.' A Sky of Honey the other CD of the album begins with bird song while 'Prologue' has an almost haunting sound of cello and grand piano. The Sky of Honey could be Kate Bush's Dark Side Of The Moon with it's bassy echos and it really awakens and comes to life. Rolf Harris makes an appearance on the album with ‘An Architect’s Dream’ and ‘The Painter’s Link’ and while Kate thinks Rolf's painting is just great it falls victim to an unexpected downpour in which he wearily exclaims "it's raining what has become of my painting?" This is comic but blends in to the impressible 'Sunset' which depicts the descending light but breaks into life with flamenco guitars simply brilliant! Kate then imitates the bird song to bring us into 'Somewhere in Between' with it's harmonics and rhumda-esque rhythems is quite uplifting to put it midly almost trance inducing. The final track Aerial sees the dawn of a new day in which it is time to join the birds in song. An ambitious ending to quite simply a great album with hysterical laughter included. Aerial takes the listener to places you want to be, probably the best Kate Bush work yet.
Scottish Captain
Kate Bush - Aerial
