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LFO, "Sheath"
The story of this release is something to the effect of this: Mark Bellhad these songs on a tape for a friend, who loved them so much, heencouraged their release. From the get-go, that should be a signal thateven Mark Bell would probably not disagree that these songs aren'tcompletely finished. There's no question in my mind about theproduction talents of Bell. From the first minute of Sheath,LFO's first full-length release in seven years, the instrumentation issharp, vibrant, captivating, and pleasing. However, the melodies allthroughout are dull, repetitive, forgettable, and almost alwayscompletely lacking a good sense of motion or counterpoint, somethingLFO was quite capable of doing on 1991's legendary breakthrough Frequencies and spots on 1996's Advance.Basically, unlike any great duo who once had an amazing formula, MarkBell needs Gez Varley (G-Man). It's all too remeniscent of popular1980s duos when one member left and the remaining member continued touse the name (OMD wasn't the same without Paul Humphreys and Tears forFears wasn't the same without Curt Smith). I do, however, agree withthe decision to keep vocalists out of the studio. It's often a sign ofan instrumentalist giving up when they decide their melodies aren'tstrong enough to stand on their own. The closest the album comes to astrong number is the single track "Freak," where Bell's Speak-And-Spellfrom "We Are Back" gets dusted off for the electronic voice's return.It's fun and has a lot of bumping bass kicks but as with the rest ofthe album, could use a driving lead instrument melody of some sort.
