While some of the atmospheric ethnicity of the NDW sound remains on this album (recorded far from home at Rockfield Studios in Rockport, Wales), there is an overall weariness and a sense of the musical direction being thinned out. The song structures tend to be far more formal, and the production keeps straying back toward the mainstream, producing a musical tension that leaves the band sounding like an early
Tears for Fears knockoff. The opening "Crazy Birds" is a great start to the album, but none of the following cuts match up to it. Quite a step down after Claim and
Tabaran. ~ Steven McDonald