Sound of Water

A wonderfully ambient collection of 10 songs

There are few big drum samples or disco beats on Sound of Water; as its title suggests, it's far more fluid and sensuous than any music the group has made before.

They've made a dreamy set suffused with synth bleeps and strings, nodding to Eno, Abba, and U.K. electro-soul peers Everything but the Girl.

Saint Etienne's latest album is masterful: fanatically detailed, intelligent and swimming in lovely melodies and delicious electronic bleeps... easily one of the year's standout albums. [#46, p.90]

There's still a warm heart beating under all this newly-assembled machinery.

But unlike the band's overbearing forays into trip-hop and dub before, a new level of soul and texture emerge from Saint Etienne's neo-modernist stylings.

These ten tracks come with such an earnest passion for the timeless pop form that any snobbery is punctured with an arrow drawn straight from Cupid's quiver.

The songs flow effortlessly along, and even the instrumental tracks are fully developed-- none suffer from the half-finished feel that made Places to Visit so dissatisfying.... As with past Saint Etienne albums, Sound of Water is ear-candy all the way through. Still, they've managed to add a layer of subtlety and novelty beneath the glossiness...

This recording finds Saint Etienne a slower, gentler band--not nearly as shaken or stirred as past incarnations, but fuller and more vital-sounding than before. While some of The Sound of Water misses the mark, the songs that hit are great enough to make you jelly-kneed. [#47, p.51]

This is a quietly adventurous coming of age, as languorous and fuzzy around the edges as a summer afternoon.

Although Sound of Water, Saint Etienne's fifth album, may not be as overtly clever as 1991's Foxbase Alpha or as thematically consistent as 1998's Good Humor, it is as subtle as an Antonio Carlos Jobim tune and as mysteriously satisfying as a lazy summer night.

Every twinkling ambient moment is remarkably humane.