other great job

Grat job from Sting, paticulary when one artist made one song like the faboulous " La Belle Dame Sans Regrets " the album couldn't bad. Thanks Sting for this song and God bless to Kenny Kirkland for his solo piano.

Starts strong, then fizzles

The first chords of the cd suggest an album of mysterious atmosphere. It lasts for about 5 songs, then loses focus. Not to say it is a terrible effort by the Stingster, but in contrast to Soul Cages or Ten Summoner's Songs it just doesn't keep its momentum. And, as an observation, it seems that the English try repeatedly to make a country song work but it never comes close to sounding like Nashville or even Lubbock, for that matter. Sting is no exception but he's in good company. The Beatles (What Goes On) and The Stones (Dead Flowers) have made earnest attempts as well. Having said that, it still works better for me than suffering through a song sung in French.

The Silver of Nature

I never considered myself a Sting fan. I've always liked his singles and some of his Police material. In college, I would hang out with friends and one of them always had Mercury Falling playing on the stereo. I asked to borrow it, liking what I heard. Little did I realize what a gem of an album this truly was.



It's interesting to read people saying this is not his greatest album. I've tried his other albums. The only one suited to me is Mercury. It is a haunted album...cold...suspended like large flakes of snow in a winter still life. There is something infinitely sad here. I do not know what was going on in Sting's personal life, nor do I care. He wrote his music for him, I bought it for me.



I own only two distinctly quiescent albums, of which Mercury is one and Elton John's The Big Picture is the other. Both make for fine listening, but I relate more to Sting's music. Also, his is more interesting to sing along with.



While each track stands on its own, the ones that distinctly stand out are:



The Hounds of Winter. A great way to begin a somewhat forlorn album. It is Sting waking to a lonely, depressing winter morning, walking through the day without his love. The music is frighteningly enveloping. I tend to forget it is a song until it ends.



I Was Brought To My Senses. This song starts so slowly that I actually first listened to it entirely months after I had bought the album. Little did I realize that a little more than a minute and a half in begins one of the most remarkable songs I've heard. It was a description of my own revelations...revelations we each have every day, sometimes ignored. This is somewhat a sequel to Hounds, or perhaps a parallel event, only far happier.



La Belle Dame Sans Regrets. A joy to listen to. I know enough French to get a gist of what's going on. If you enjoy this little ditty, I highly recommend checking out Billy Joel's C'Etait Toi (You Were the One) off his Glass Houses album. They both make wonderful love songs.



Valparaiso. Not for all tastes, but this song conjures mists over the water, the sounds of lapping waves, starry night skies far from lands with electricity, a woman whom you love, and the love of the open seas. I live on the marina and at night, watching boats drift silently by, I always sing to myself, "Red the port light, starboard the green." It never fails.



The art direction is superb, and contributes greatly to the album as a whole. Jeri Heiden, whose credits I Googled and are too vast to list, did a fabulous job "silvering" and sepia-toning Sting's world in his forest. In one photograph, by the way, you can see Sting sitting before a fireplace, six-string guitar in his lap, lined music paper in front of him. I wonder if that's where he writes sometimes?