Listening to The Cocteau Twins is like listening to the ethereal, dream pop soundtrack of a movie produced by Tim Burton and directed by Guillermo Del Toro. It’s a fairy tale of rolling beats and soaring vocals that is at once dreamy and dark, it is lilting highs backed by complex undertones.
On Friday (March 16), 4AD reissued two of the Scottish band’s key offerings — 1983s Head Over Heels and 1984s Treasure — on both vinyl and CD. These two albums taken together represent the moment when the band found its stride and moved toward the mainstream success that came later.
As a set, you can follow a band as it experiments, and then embraces the ethereal sound that not only defined a band, but also furthered a genre. In Head Over Heels, the band experiments and stretches, a more traditional track like “In Our Angelhood” bump against the experiments that approach greatness on songs such as “Sugar Hiccups.” Fraser’s vocals and Guthrie’s guitars hint at, but do not stretch too far out of the expected.
Treasure remains just that, a treasure, while Head Over Heels gives the context that helps explain how a duo and trio flirting with a new sound became the legend of The Cocteau Twins.
