Cocteau Twins: Stars & Topsoil - A Collection 1982-1990 (2LP) [4AD]

Why you'll love it

This remastered 2LP set spreads 18 songs across four sides, drawn from every 4AD album and EP from 1982 to 1990. It includes "Pearly-Dewdrops' Drops," the band's highest-charting UK single, and "Carolyn's Fingers," a No. 2 hit on Billboard's Modern Rock chart.

This edition

• 2LP set
• Remastered

About the album

Grangemouth, an industrial town on the Firth of Forth, is not the first place you'd look for the most heavenly sound of the 1980s. Yet that's where Robin Guthrie and Will Heggie started Cocteau Twins, adding Elizabeth Fraser on vocals in 1981 and signing to 4AD the following year. Simon Raymonde joined in 1983, and the classic trio went on to invent dream pop and lay the groundwork for shoegaze.

Stars & Topsoil traces that journey in order. "Blind Dumb Deaf" from Garlands is dark and spiky, "Sugar Hiccup" and "My Love Paramour" from Head Over Heels start to shimmer, and "Lorelei" and "Pandora" from Treasure soar. EP gems such as "Aikea-Guinea" and "Pink Orange Red" sit beside "Lazy Calm" from Victorialand, and the final side runs from Blue Bell Knoll's "Carolyn's Fingers" to "Iceblink Luck" and the glorious "Heaven or Las Vegas," from the album that became their biggest UK hit. Hearing them in order is a lovely way to follow the band from post-punk shadows into pure light.

Guthrie's guitars are clouds of echo, and Fraser often sings in a language entirely her own. It does save a great deal of arguing over misheard lyrics.

Also at Kops: more Cocteau Twins on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On 4AD (cat# CAD 2K19), a reissue of the 2000 compilation.