Cocteau Twins "Milk & Kisses" (1996)

Milk & Kisses
release date: Mar. 1996
format: cd (2006 remaster)
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,62]
produced by Cocteau Twins
label: Fontana Records - nationality: Scotland, UK

Track highlights: 1. "Violaine" - 2. "Serpentskirt" - 3. "Tishbite" - 5. "Calfskin Smack" - 10. "Seekers Who Are Lovers"

8th and final studio album by the Scottish trio Cocteau Twins released on Fontana and produced by the band. This is a continued journey from their previous album Four-Calendar Café (1993) into a subtle 'dream pop' universe but also a return to a more Robin Guthrie (multi-layered) guitar-driven sound compared to the predecessor, and you could argue that it takes them back to their trademark of distorted wall-of-sound guitars. What it really leaves me with, is an impression of "nothing new", and that's a bit sad 'cause it's not all bad. It just doesn't offer anything... new, which they basically always did with previous releases. They were always on the move to a new sound, only here, they re-use what seem to work previously.

By 1997 the band had split. While in the band and afterwards, Robin Guthrie has worked as record producer and in 2003 he released his first solo album Imperial after which he has pursued a solo career releasing new albums every now and then including a number of fine soundtracks - alone, or in collaborations. Simon Raymonde released his so far only solo album Blame Someone Else in 1997 and has been involved in other bands as well as worked as record producer, and together with Guthrie the two have worked on several projects since the break-up. Elizabeth Fraser has been a much-asked for artist but mainly lived a life away from the spotlight, although she has occasionally contributed as featuring guest vocalist on other artists' albums, as well as at live concerts, but an announced solo album has yet to be realised.
Milk & Kisses was reissued in 2006 in a remastered edition produced by Guthrie.

Fine but not amongst their absolute best.

2006 remaster

Cocteau Twins "Four-Calendar Café" (1993)

Four-Calendar Café
release date: Nov. 1993
format: cd (2006 remaster)
[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,95]
producer: Cocteau Twins
label: Fontana Records - nationality: Scotland, UK

Track highlights: 1. "Know Who You Are at Every Age" (5 / 5) - 2. "Evangeline" (4 / 5) - 3. "Bluebeard" (4 / 5) - 6. "Squeeze-Wax" - 9. "Summerhead" (4,5 / 5)

7th studio album by Cocteau Twins follows three years after Heaven or Las Vegas is much to the band's usual practise recorded and produced by the band. Since then, the band has left 4AD Records around '92 at a time when the label underwent management changes and Cocteau Twins then signed with larger Mercury Records to release music through its sublabel, Fontana Records. Apparently, the album took unusually long time to record - partly because guitarist Robin Guthrie and vocalist Elizabeth Fraser broke up their partnership, which had lasted some 13 years and given them a daughter in '89, and also because Fraser went through what has been described as a nervous breakdown while Guthrie was having troubles with substance abuse. Cocteau Twins had always been on its way playing concerts, recording albums or eps and the money earned was money spent going into studio and technical equipment investments, and easy access to drugs and alcohol hadn't made things easier.

Four-Calendar Café is not "Heaven or Las Vegas Part Two" - something many people had hoped for but the sound has changed, again, you might add 'cause that's what they had always been doing - always on their way bulding their (new) sound. It's a less uptempo album of an ambient feel compared to its acclaimed predecessor and the style has evolved to become more sophisticated with something I initially had mistaken for a touch of 'new age' but really just is a softer and more laid-back type of dream pop. The band members remain the same three but Robin Guthrie's distinct 'dreamy' or shoegaze guitar sound is considerably subdued on this, and then Fraser performs her singing in almost distinctive lyrics.

As many fans, my initial thoughts about this were less than positive, and I neglected the album for quite some time. I must say, however, that in retrospect it's much better than that, and years later, I had changed my verdict and now consider it among their best. The album has a pleasant melancholic feel and a sophisticated sound without being anything but dream pop. It's anything but an attempt to copy the success they experienced with Heaven or Las Vegas and instead represents a natural progression to a new playground of a more delicate sound. The album was reissued and remastered by Robin Guthrie in 2006, still on Fontana.

Recommended.

[ 👎allmusic.com 3 / 5, 👍NME, Q Magazine 4 / 5 stars ]

2006 remaster

Cocteau Twins "Heaven or Las Vegas" (1990)

Heaven or Las Vegas
release date: Sep. 17, 1990
format: cd
[album rate: 4 / 5] [4,06]
producer: Cocteau Twins
label: 4AD Records - nationality: Scotland, UK

Track highlights: 1. "Cherry-Coloured Funk" (4 / 5) - 3. "Iceblink Luck" (4,5 / 5) - 5. "Heaven or Las Vegas" (4,5 / 5) - 6. "I Wear Your Ring" - 7. "Fotzepolitic" (4 / 5) - 8. "Wolf in the Breast" - 10. "Frou-Frou Foxes in Midsummer Fires"

6th studio album by Scottish trio Cocteau Twins follows two years after Blue-Bell Knoll takes a step into more uptempo territory with focus on harmonic melody structure. Alledgedly, the album is released on Fraser and Guthrie's daughter's one-year birthday, which alludes a perfect family harmony that may not be there after all. Guthrie had to spend time in rehab caused by drug and alcohol abuse, and tensions with the 4AD management was just another issue they had to face.

The album is generally considered the band's masterpiece into dream pop. It's also the band's highest charting album in the UK peaking at number #7 on the albums chart list. All tracks are credited the band, vocalist Elizabeth Fraser, guitarist Robin Guthrie, and bassist Simon Raymonde, and the album has been enlisted in a number of best of releases of the nineties. This is also the first time really that you're capable of understanding the lyrics by Fraser, who was already renowned for her indistinct singing style up until this. I also find that the production sound is way better here than on any other of their previous albums. Guthrie's guitar with their keyboard-sound and the drum programming together with Raymonde's tight basslines all make up a perfect bright sound that both dwells but only touches on ambient and still create clear and perfect harmonies weighing both melancholy and positivity. Heaven or Las Vegas is enlisted in "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die" and it was released to generally positive reviews, but 4AD still wouldn't sign the band for further albums, which from hereon sent the band in the hands of Fontana Records.

The album was reissued and remastered by Robin Guthrie in 2003.

[ allmusic.com, Rolling Stone 4,5 / 5 stars ]

Cocteau Twins "Blue Bell Knoll" (1988)

Blue Bell Knoll
release date: Sep. 19, 1988
format: cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,48]
producer: Cocteau Twins
label: 4AD Records - nationality: Scotland, UK

Track highlights: 2. "Athol-brose" - 3. "Carolyn’s Fingers" (4 / 5) (live on Later) - 5. "The Itchy Glowbo Blow" - 6. "Cico Buff" - 7. "Suckling the Mender" - 9. "A Kissed Out Red Floatboat" - 10. "Ella Megalast Burls Forever"

5th studio album by Cocteau Twins, who is back again as a trio with Simon Raymonde on bass. It's their first really clear dream pop album since their so far best effort, Treasure (1984), and after having released the more introvert and ambient, instrumental album Victorialand (1986) at a time when Raymonde wasn't able to record with the band. Cocteau Twins is already famous for Guthrie's guitar sound, the shoegazing dream pop and Fraser's beautiful echoing vocal, and here they pick up the style from the '84 album.
Without being great the album is a clear improvement to the darker '86 album Victorialand.

Cocteau Twins "Victorialand" (1986)

Victorialand
release date: Apr. 14, 1986
format: cd
[album rate: 3 / 5] [2,98]
producer: Cocteau Twins
label: 4AD Records - nationality: Scotland, UK

Track highlights: 1. "Lazy Calm" - 2. "Fluffy Tufts" - 8. "How to Bring a Blush to the Snow"

4th studio album by Cocteau Twins, who continues to release on the independent label 4AD. Again, the album is produced by the band, which once again is temporarily reduced to consist of only Elizabeth Fraser and Robin Guthrie, as bassist Simon Raymonde was occupied in making the second album by This Mortail Coil, and instead Fraser and Guthrie have focused on a different take on their music - perhaps by regrading to former virtues, thus making their clearly most ethereal wave-styled album, which comes quite close to being primarily an 'ambient' release. It's really hard to tell if it's an improvement to Fraser and Guthrie's constant dwelling on a certain dream pop soundscape that tends to be repetitious but it also has a distinct quality, which makes me think of The Durutti Column / Vini Reilly - that being of course Guthrie's guitar sound, and with the exception that Reilly generally leaves more room for diverse compositions on his albums.

Victorialand doesn't contain clear single hits but has more of a conceptual feel, or something that points to the later style of post-rock. This is the band's most poignant ambient release, which may have had an influence on and indirectly led to the album The Moon and the Melodies (Nov. '86) as a collaboration with American jazz minimalist and neo-classical composer Harold Budd and the band members individually and not as Cocteau Twins, thus credited Harold Budd, Simon Raymonde, Robin Guthrie, Elizabeth Fraser.
Anyway, Victorialand is imho not where you should start when looking up the Cocteau Twins.

Cocteau Twins "The Pink Opaque" (1985)

The Pink Opaque (compilation)
release date: Dec. 30, 1985
format: cd
[album rate: 3 / 5]
producer: Cocteau Twins, Ivo Watts-Russell
label: 4AD / Relativity Records - nationality: Scotland, UK

A compilation album by Cocteau Twins as the band's first release in the American market consists of tracks recorded in the years from 1982 to 85, some of which only have been released on ep or as single releases, i.e. all three tracks from the single "Pearly-Dewdrops' Drops" (1984).
It's not bad, and despite the early takes, which should underline their earlier post-punk and dark wave sound, the tracks have been selected to fit a more contemporary Cocteau Twins dream pop sound.

Cocteau Twins "Aikea-Guinea" (1985)

Aikea-Guinea (ep)

release date: Mar. 4, 1985

format: vinyl (BAD 501)

[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,28]

producer: Cocteau Twins

label: 4AD - nationality: Scotland, UK

Tracklist: A) 1. "Aikea-Guinea" - 2. "Kookaburra" - - B) 1. "Quisquose" - 2. "Rococo"

Ep release by Cocteau Twins following the release of the album Treasure (Nov. 1984) with four non-album tracks. The title track was also released as a 7'' single with track #2 as only other track. The title track was later released on the The Pink Opaque (Dec. 1985) compilation album for the US market.

The ep doesn't quite reach the heights of Treasure but still feels like a lighter direction to the post-punk reminiscense of Head Over Heels (Oct. 1983).

Cocteau Twins "Treasure" (1984)

Treasure
release date: Nov. 1, 1984
format: cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,54]
producer: Cocteau Twins / Robin Guthrie (2003 reissue)
label: 4AD Records - nationality: Scotland, UK

Track highlights: 1"Ivo" - 2. "Lorelei" (4 / 5) (live) - 4. "Persephone" - 5. "Pandora (For Cindy)" - 7. "Aloysius" - 10. "Donimo"

3rd studio album by Cocteau Twins is the first really fine album by the band who still do not operate with a drummer, only using drum machines, but Elizabeth Fraser and Robin Guthrie has now found the replacement for former bassist Will Heggie by expanding the project with Simon Raymonde. The album is the first to be exclusively produced by the band, and the sound is at this point a trademark hailed as a brilliant display of workmanship, and a sound that focuses on Guthrie's guitar sound and Fraser's characteristic undecipherable vocal harmonies using her voice as an instrument of sound.
It's still not entirely harmonic dream pop - a few tracks like "Persephone" and "Cicely" still sounds like heavily inspired by Siouxsie and the Banshees without being poor or lesser compositions but they do point in other directions and have a distinct post-punk feel.
The album was reissued and remastered by Robin Guthrie in 2003. It's an acclaimed album by the band, and many critics (and fans) consider this to be their finest, which is enlisted in "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die".
I don't really consider the album one of the band's absolute best as I find it too incoherent pointing to much more consistent releases but it's undoubtedly important in the way it helps defining their later sound.
Recommended.
[ 👎allmusic.com, Spin 4,5 / 5, 👉Rolling Stone Music Guide 3,5 / 5 stars ]

Cocteau Twins "Sunburst and Snowblind" (1983) (ep)

Sunburst and Snowblind (ep)

release date: Nov. 7, 1983

format: digital

[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,34]

producer: Cocteau Twins, John Fryer

label: 4AD Records - nationality: Scotland, UK

Tracklist: 1. "Sugar Hiccup (12'' Version)" - 2. "From the Flagtstones" - 3. "Hitherto" - 4. "Because of Whirl-Jack"

4-track ep by Cocteau Twins following only two months after the album Head Over Heels (Oct. '83) marks a change of style. Yes, the best track "Sugar Hiccup" is taken from the most recent album but where it sounded misplaced on the album, it's in company of other dream pop-shaped compositions here. On "From the Flagstones" Elizabeth Fraser sounds like on This Mortail Coil's most memorable tune "Song to the Siren", which should be released a full year later. It's not all dream pop, however, as the last two compositions points more to the music of Siouxsie and the Banshees than to the future sound of Cocteau Twins.

Cocteau Twins "Head Over Heels" (1983)

Head Over Heels
release date: Oct. 31, 1983
format: cd
[album rate: 3 / 5] [2,98]
producer: Cocteau Twins, John Fryer
label: 4AD Records - nationality: Scotland, UK

Track highlights: 1. "When Mama Was Moth" - 3. "Sugar Hiccup" - 8. "Multifoiled"

2nd studio album by Cocteau Twins released on 4AD Records. The band is reduced to a duo consisting of the romantic couple of vocalist Elizabeth Fraser and Robin Guthrie playing guitar, bass and drum machine, and with this it has become more evident that they seek out a new broader and more harmony-based sound. The album may be the first to point to their unique sound of dream pop with Guthrie's ambient guitar and Fraser's indistinct vocal harmonies, and especially on "Sugar Hiccups", which is the finest composition here. Musically, they are on their way to find their form but the sound is, however, still very gloomy and somewhat muddy stuck in ethereal wave darkness linked to post-punk, and I don't find it hugely inspiring, and mostly just see it as background noise.

Cocteau Twins "Garlands" (1982)

Garlands [debut]
release date:  Sep. 1, 1982
format: digital
[album rate: 3 / 5] [2,90]
producer: Cocteau Twins, Ivo Watts-Russell
label: 4AD records - nationality: Scotland, UK

Track highlight: 1. "Blood Bitch" - 2. "Wax and Wane" - 7. "Garlands"

Studio album debut by the Scottish band Cocteau Twins on 4AD Records. Here, the band consists of guitarist Robin Guthrie, vocalist Elizabeth Fraser, and bassist Will Heggie, and without a real drummer in the band, Guthrie handed all drum programming.
The style is like many post-punk bands of the early 1980s an unidentified search within an experimental shape of sound with traces to art rock and proto-punk and the outcome is a dark meandering gothic rock-like and ethereal wave-style, which really is far from what later became the band's trademark of much more positive dream pop. The style is not fra from what you could end up with when thinking of a combo of The Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees. There's a certain similarity with the sound of Robert Smiths' swirling guitar-sound of the early '80s, and although, Fraser has a unique singing style, there are obvious bonds to the alto vocal of Siouxsie Sioux.

I don't think, I ever managed to play the album from start to finish back then, as I came across the album in the late '80s. I always ended up feeling the music had been caught in some time bubble or stylistic trench and the tracks kept repeating themselves without much progression, but there are qualities in the soundscape, which makes it an original blend. It's not an album of traditional harmonic  melodies but more of experimental nature where the overall sensation matters more than the single tracks.
Not really recommended as a first encounter with the band.