Throughout the '80s, Cocteau Twins created some of the most beautiful and innovative music of the decade.
Liz Fraser's uncanny, gossamer voice and Robin Guthrie's shimmery guitar work both garnered acclaim and inspired bands.
Milk & Kisses finds the band in a comfortable rut; they've created, and now perfected, a style of music so distinctive that there seems to be little recent creative growth.
The result is a beautiful, lush, but somewhat dated and unengaging sounding album that tends to wash over the listener without making any real impact.
It is, however, everything that a Cocteau Twins album promises; hypnotic, dreamy, awash in ethereal voices, and delicate, liquid guitars.
"Tishbite" in particular delivers an accessible dream pop sound that sounds nice while it's playing but fails to have anything really memorable about it, a problem that plagues most of Milk & Kisses.
"Half-Gifts," "Rilkean Heart," and "Treasure Hiding" have an airy, otherwordly prettiness to them -- but that's about it.
Necessary for Cocteau Twins diehards and potentially interesting to those that have never heard the band before, Milk & Kisses says nothing, but says it beautifully.
| Title/Composers | Performer | Listen | Time | Size | Size | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | SerpentskirtElizabeth Fraser, Robin Guthrie, Simon Raymonde | Cocteau Twins | Play | 03:57 | 9 MB | 0 MB |
| 2 | TishbiteElizabeth Fraser, Robin Guthrie, Simon Raymonde | Cocteau Twins | Play | 03:50 | 8 MB | 0 MB |
| 3 | Half-GiftsElizabeth Fraser, Robin Guthrie, Simon Raymonde | Cocteau Twins | Play | 04:18 | 9 MB | 0 MB |
| 4 | Calfskin SmackElizabeth Fraser, Robin Guthrie, Simon Raymonde | Cocteau Twins | Play | 04:58 | 11 MB | 0 MB |
| 5 | Rilkean HeartElizabeth Fraser, Robin Guthrie, Simon Raymonde | Cocteau Twins | Play | 04:02 | 9 MB | 0 MB |
| 6 | UpsElizabeth Fraser, Robin Guthrie, Simon Raymonde | Cocteau Twins | Play | 03:34 | 8 MB | 0 MB |
| 7 | Seekers Who Are LoversElizabeth Fraser, Robin Guthrie, Simon Raymonde | Cocteau Twins | Play | 03:34 | 8 MB | 0 MB |
| 8 | Violane | Cocteau Twins | Play | 03:45 | 8 MB | 0 MB |
| 32 mins | 73 MB | |||||
| 0 mins | 0 MB | |||||
| Artist | Job | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cocteau Twins | Engineer, Primary Artist, Producer |
| 2 | Lincoln Fong | Engineer |
| 3 | Elizabeth Fraser | Composer, Performer |
| 4 | Robin Guthrie | Composer, Performer |
| 5 | Spiros Politis | Photography |
| 6 | Simon Raymonde | Composer, Performer |
| 7 | Mitsuo Tate | Engineer |
| 8 | Des Ward | Engineer |
| Quality | Format | Encoding | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | MP3 | 320kps 44.1kHz | MP3 is an audio coding format which uses a form of lossy data compression. The highest bitrate of this format is 320kbps (kbit/s). MP3 Digital audio takes less amount of space (up to 90% reduction in size) and the quality is not as good as the original one. |