On ‘Today’, from ‘The Party’s Over’, the Consonance rendered the warm and harmonious synths with soul, minimising the generic and compressed early ‘new Romantic’ leanings. It concentrated on the burgeoning enigma and colour of the group’s compositions. What was further exposed compared to the Denon is the plentiful (echo) reverb used on the first two discs around Mark Hollis’s vocals. This is no bad thing, as the Consonance always presented Hollis’s voice skillfully, revealing his at times fragile intonations that turn to radiant high-ceilinged epics.
The Denon, however, reproduced a slightly nasal presentation, which is easy to do with a vocal like Hollis’s. The title track illustrated the Consonance’s adept handling of delicate melodies from the first half, while managing the second half’s more saturated oriental structure with an unflappable dexterity, expressing the full body of the crashing synths, being velvety but not over smooth and doing so with authority. With ‘It’s My Life’ the Consonance revealed extra detail with excellent timing, the melodic breaks having real definition this time compared to the Denon, without the midrange compressing into distortion when certain tracks within this song have been compressed for extra emphasis.
The ‘Colour Of Spring’ SACD containing strings, two choirs and electric guitars produced a more complex musical envelope. ‘Happiness Is Easy’ has Paul Webb’s genius bass playing [Oops! no Paul on this track – APW], both subtle and melodic but which can suddenly attack, emphasising a different shift in the song. The Dennon displayed these qualities, but without the stunning conviction of the Consonance, which expressed the harmoniously melodic parts and striking extended elements with spine-tingling aplomb. The Consonance also surprises on this song with an eerie rendition of the children’s choir, arriving ghost-like to form one of the key melodies; it appeared with stealthy subtlety. While the lead guitar melody on ‘Life’s What You Make It’ is normally aggressive, this time however it had body, the Consonance sensitively conveying excellent skill with fast decaying notes, preventing coloration.
The ‘Spirit Of Eden’ SACD is a masterpiece. Stripped to the bone with only six long-form tracks, it remains a brooding work and probably the most beautiful piece of music I own. It is initially a difficult listen compared to the accessibility of its predecessors but with an assured player like the Consonance, it was simply sublime. The composition of ‘Spirit Of Eden’ is almost exclusively enigmatic, however, esoteric (jazz, rock and classical) sensibilities from the likes of Ornette Coleman, Can and Eric Satie can be discerned. It contains long meandering atmospheric pieces, which the Consonance picked out with a forensic surgeon’s skill, whilst adeptly painting them with the craft of an artist.
‘Desire’ contains low level percussion with a blues chord sequence that suddenly psychedelically explodes, then quietens, while ‘Rainbow’ has a multi-layered opening with shifting echoing ambient noises and hauntingly affecting vocal delivery by Hollis both of which the Consonance handled with a shimmering beauty.