The Colour of Spring

Talk Talk snuck into the music industry as part of the New Romantic movement, opening for Duran Duran and recording a debut album, 1982’s The Party’s Over, that fit the emerging music trend. However — and this is a big however — singer Mark Hollis and producer-multi-instrumentalist Tim Friese-Greene had other plans. They quickly moved away from the synthetic washes and began exploring natural atmospherics that created a brand new style of music. The Colour of Spring is the middle ground. It retains the accessible spirit of It’s My Life with the pop snap and crackle of “I Don’t Believe In You” and the white funk of “Life’s What You Make It,” but there is also a touch of the luminous stillness and grandiosity that dominates Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock. The Colour of Spring is the album most likely to satisfy all comers. The music often has a pulse (“Living in Another World”) and when it does stretch out on “April 5th,” “Chameleon Day” and “Time It’s Time,” it’s with a sweetness that retains its connections to the pop-rock world the band would soon be leaving for ambient lands.