Kate Bush
's strongest album to date also marked her breakthrough into the American charts, and yielded a set of dazzling videos as well as an enviable body of hits, spearheaded by
"Running Up That Hill,"
her biggest single since
"Wuthering Heights."
Strangely enough,
Hounds of Love
was no less complicated in its structure, imagery, and extra-musical references (even lifting a line of dialogue from
Jacques Tourneur
's
Curse of the Demon
for the intro of the title song) than
The Dreaming
, which had been roundly criticized for being too ambitious and complex. But
was more carefully crafted as a
pop
record, and it abounded in memorable melodies and arrangements, the latter reflecting idioms ranging from orchestrated progressive
to high-wattage
traditional folk
; and at the center of it all was
Bush
in the best album-length vocal performance of her career, extending her range and also drawing expressiveness from deep inside of herself, so much so that one almost feels as though he's eavesdropping at moments during
"Running Up That Hill."
is actually a two-part album (the two sides of the original LP release being the now-lost natural dividing line), consisting of the suites "Hounds of Love" and "The Ninth Wave." The former is steeped in lyrical and sonic sensuality that tends to wash over the listener, while the latter is about the experiences of birth and rebirth. If this sounds like heady stuff, it could be, but
never lets the material get too far from its
trappings and purpose. In some respects, this was also
's first fully realized album, done completely on her own terms, made entirely at her own 48-track home studio, to her schedule and preferences, and delivered whole to
EMI
as a finished work; that history is important, helping to explain the sheer presence of the album's most striking element -- the spirit of experimentation at every turn, in the little details of the sound. That vastly divergent grasp, from the minutiae of each song to the broad sweeping arc of the two suites, all heavily ornamented with layered instrumentation, makes this record wonderfully overpowering as a piece of
music. Indeed, this reviewer hadn't had so much fun and such a challenge listening to a new album from the U.K. since
Abbey Road
, and it's pretty plain that
listened to (and learned from) a lot of
the Beatles
' output in her youth. ~ Bruce Eder