This is an album that takes several listens to get into, as indeed, do all of Kate Bush's albums, but this one more than any of them.
As its title would suggest, it is a wintry album. Its very soundscape carries with it a bitter, grey-skied chill that makes this most definitely not an album to play in summer. I am playing it on a cold January morning, however, so it is perfect. I read someone describe it as "winter matins" and they are dead right. It has a ghostly, frozen feel to it, both in its bleak, piano-driven backing, its sombre vocal delivery and the length of most of its songs, which somehow seem to represent a snow that will never melt.
The first three songs are very long and incredibly bleak but they contain a quiet sensitivity that gets into your system over time. The opener is Snowflake, which has the afore-mentioned bleak piano and vocal and Kate occasionally adding to her vocals by speaking in what sounds like a strange old lady's croaky voice. Maybe that is just what her spoken voice sounds like in later years? The whole effect is very wintry, even vaguely christmassy.
Lake Tahoe is more of the same, but it contains the album's first tiny bits of percussion but overall it is equally as sombre but evocative as its predecessor. These two have given us one of the most low-key openings to an album ever. I should imagine that was Kate's intention.
The thirteen minute plus of Misty serves up lots of gently shuffling percussion-piano jazzy Abdullah Ibrahim-style vibes to give us a bit of a change but there are also lots of plaintive vocal-piano-strings parts. The piano gently sways to and fro, quietly and seductively pulling you in, making you want to cuddle up with Kate under some furs in an ice hotel bed.
Wild Man is the first track with bass and drums and more breadth to the sound. Despite that, it is still slow and reflective, however, and it doesn't affect the album's cold ambience. A strange thing, for me, is that the "you're not an animal" line strangely brings to mind The Sex Pistols' Bodies. Overlooking that, it is a most captivating song.
Snowed In At Wheeler Street has the singer in character, getting nostalgic for first the Second World War years of the nineteen-forties and then for 9-11 in 2001, narrating through the eyes of a couple who have "been in love forever". Kate shares the vocal with a male voice that sounds a lot like Elton John, and, of course, is no other than old Reg himself. It is a most entrancing, intriguing duet. I like it more with each hearing. It brings to mind the film The Book Thief for some reason.
50 Words For Snow is a softly shuffling duet with Kate counting down the Inuit words for snow as Stephen Fry narrates them. It is an odd but intriguing song with a subtle, infectious rhythm and quietly catchy refrain. "Come on now, there's twenty-two to go - let me hear your fifty words for snow..." is repeated, effectively. Its narrative style reminds me a lot of Van Morrison's In The Days Before Rock 'n' Roll.
Among Angels returns to the sombre chill of slow piano and vocal of the first three tracks, leaving us as cold as we were at the beginning. One can't help but think about ice, chills, bleakness, frost, snow, winter and ghosts when one listens to this. In that respect the album does its job perfectly and in many other ways too. It is a very satisfying but totally uncommercial piece of work. Like a work of cool but expressive modern art.
