TEARS FOR FEARS

U.K. edition Casual observers might think Tears for Fears, the British duo that started out in the New Romantic/synth-pop vein in the early 1980s, broke up after their '89 album, THE SEEDS OF LOVE, on which the group's sound matured into a lush, Beatles-influenced, orchestral-pop approach. In fact, Roland Orzabal soldiered on under the TFF moniker after his partner Curt Smith flew the coop. Some 15 years down the line, the real Tears for Fears re-emerged on EVERYBODY LOVES A HAPPY ENDING, with Orzabal and Smith collaborating once again. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the sound bears much in common with SEEDS OF LOVE's ornate popcraft. The synthesizers and sequencers of the band's early days take a backseat to piano, thick orchestrations, George Harrison-like slide guitar, and massed background-vocal harmonies. The songs glide smoothly between shifts in dynamics and melodic modes, and the arrangements are masterful, splitting the difference between E.L.O. and ABBEY ROAD-era Fab Four. It's no easy task for a group that made its name in the bad-haircut "big '80s" to sound completely vital, timeless, and on-point more than two decades down the line, a fact that makes HAPPY ENDING all the more impressive an achievement.

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