release date: Oct. 29, 1996
format: cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,42]
producer: David Roback, Hope Sandoval
label: Capitol Records - nationality: USA
Track highlights: 1. "Disappear" - 2. "Flowers in December" (4 / 5) (live) - 3. "Rhymes of an Hour" - 5. "Take Everything" - 7. "All Your Sisters" - 8. "I've Been Let Down"
3rd studio album by Mazzy Star follows (another) three years after their sophomore So Tonight That I Might See (1993). All songs here are credited David Roback and Hope Sandoval.
The album introduces a change of style as the album is primarily founded on the use of acoustic guitars instead of the feedback electric guitar sound on the first two albums, and the bond to both the 'baroque pop' of the '60s as well as to Velvet Underground has been accentuated.
The album produced the UK top-40 single "Flowers in December" but apart from that the album was seen as a lesser album, and also music critics seemed less drawn to the change of style.
After the release, the band went on a live tour and also began work on a follow-up, but they found the demands of the record label management intolerable with "the money people" interfering in their creative craftmanship and Sandoval and Roback eventually asked to be released from their contractual obligations. Without officially dissolving, the band went on a hiatus in '97 that should last fourteen years and Among My Swan was eventually followed by the fourth album in 2013, Seasons of Your Day.
I find this one on a completely different level than the first two albums. It simply tastes too much of the '60s. It's good but not really essential.
[ allmusic.com 3.5 / 5 stars ]
