Review Summary: Charming in its goofyness, The Innocents serves as a to the-the-point pop album that delivers hook after hook.
When you think of the 80s, the timely synth and reverb drum comes to mind. The Innocents feel almost like a parody of the 80s at times. Not that this is a bad thing, but rather make the album quite innocently fun and cute. Erasure's previous album Circus, while not bad, I haven't come to appricate it as fast as I did with this. The reason why is because Erasure's two members Andy Bell and Vince Clarke manage to write song after song that have some sort of interesting ingredient that makes it stand out.
"Chain of Love", perhaps their most well-known song, pretty much sums up everything about what I've said so far. The song has a wonderful chorus, HI-NRG octave bass line, sing along lines, all the while sounding derpy and strangely satisfying. It's clear that despite the artificiality of the music, it was made with authentic love. The first four songs seem to follow the same upbeat music and structure, and after that the album changes more or less to a laid back style, which after an era of energy changes for the better. "Hallowed Grounds" is probably my favorite song here, and the reason why is its ethereal feel. Normally, I'd reserve that word for something less poppy, but its synths in the verse and lyrical imagery gives it "ahhhhh" feeling. On top of that, it's super catchy.
While I can consider it a positive feat to forge several of these catchy songs, its strength can also become its weakness. Halfway into the album I'd say the album becomes somewhat stale because of the similar song structures and musical effects. Much of the time, it's the chorus that defines the song, and therefore I can't necessarily associate one song with one verse, I have to hear the start of one to recognize it. This especially applies for some of the later songs such as "Imagination", which incidentally is also the weakest. These things make it more feasable to listen to the album divided into sections, or certain songs, at different times.
It's funny to imagine how people thought this would hold up in the future. 80s music is especially susceptible to being branded dated because of its iconic sound, and therefore discarded as *** in a ***storm, and yes, Erasure's The Innocents is dated, but that's okay, because at heart the music is really enjoyable. I mean just listen to "Heart of Stone" and tell me how your shoulders mysteriously start to twitch.
