CD: BREATHCD15
RELEASE DATE: 1988
LABEL: Tenor Vossa

01. Walk Down to the Water
02. Magic Lamp
03. Viva
04. Goodnight
05. Green Finger Swinger
06. Come Reassure Me
07. All the Reasons Slide
08. Drifting
09. Ballroom
10. No Answered Prayers

Breathless have been making albums for 14 years. Singer Dominic Appleton is perhaps best known as a contributor to the three This Mortal Coil albums which brought together some of the best musicians on the 4AD label to produce haunting compositions that were cherished by the minority who heard them. Absolutely impossible to date, Breathless' droning waves of guitars and synthesizers paced by slow drumming could have been created anytime between now and the early eighties. The sound is distinctly British, and the melancholic feeling projected by the sombre soundscapes bring bands like Talk Talk (in their post-pop phase), Flying Saucer Attack and Laika to mind. The difference is that Breathless uses mostly the classical rock outfit - guitars, bass and drums - to evoke these moods. Dominic Appleton retain their strong, just dramatic enough timbre throughout Blue Moon, while his bandmates once again are a perfectly simpatico set of players for his often dreamy, passionate lyrics. Songs like "Viva, " "Ballroom, " and "All the Reasons Slide, " with a striking series of chimed bells to its credit, definitely call up a shadowy sense of the moodier corners of 1969. When it comes to the soaring, sweeping rock that the band is known for, longtime fans need not worry ? "Magic Lamp" is easily the equal of such past high points as "Don't Just Disappear, " at once a roaring monster and a romantic, passionate piece.