The Tipping Point Tears for Fears Artist

Seventeen years is a long time between albums. It's even longer when you consider the magnitude of how much life happens during that interval. {|Tears for Fears|} had experienced mega pop successes (and loads of industry pressure) with {|Songs from t... Read more

Seventeen years is a long time between albums. It's even longer when you consider the magnitude of how much life happens during that interval. {|Tears for Fears|} had experienced mega pop successes (and loads of industry pressure) with {|Songs from the Big Chair|} and {|The Seeds of Love|}. {|Curt Smith|}, sick of paying fame's price, quit in 1991. {|Roland Orzabal|} carried on the name for two more lackluster albums. The lads reunited for 2004's {|Everybody Loves a Happy Ending|}, but it was short-lived. They planned to record again shortly thereafter, but {|Orzabal|}'s wife {|Caroline|} became gravely ill. Further, their record company tried pairing them with contemporary hitmaking songwriters. They scuttled the sessions. {|Caroline|} died in 2017, and a bereft {|Orzabal|} turned to his old friend {|Smith|} for community and solace; the duo began touring and writing together again in a room with two acoustic guitars. {|The Tipping Point|} was eventually completed during the pandemic. You can hear the intimacy between these songwriters in No Small Thing. An acoustic guitar introduces {|Orzabal|}'s vocal amid reverb, subtle yet glitchy electronics, and an organ. {|Smith|}'s harmony enters atop a slide guitar and bass drums. The duo deliver an anthemic chorus that refuses to let go. The title track offers the same elegant pop swing and production polish that fueled {|Songs from the Big Chair|}. Its subject matter addresses living through the final stages of {|Caroline|}'s illness. Break the Man is sung by {|Smith|} and offers a master class in {|Tears for Fears|}' glorious psych-pop sound; it may be the catchiest song ever written about smashing the patriarchy. My Demons is a rocking big beat {|Orzabal|} anthem with zigzagging synths and guitars. Set highlight Rivers of Mercy is a poignant, tender ballad juxtaposing emotional states of healing and letting go with living through COVID-19 and the racially charged upheaval that engulfed America during the summer of 2020. The grain in {|Smith|}'s voice carries the listener through grief, confusion, and the desire for peace. Please Be Happy, also sung by {|Smith|}, bravely bears witness to {|Caroline|}'s suffering and depression as her illness accelerated. (He knew her from the time they were teens.) Strings frame a piano, majestic drums, and deeply stirring vocals. A muted trumpet meets the sweeping strings in a chorus that momentarily recalls {|the Beatles|}' The Long and Winding Road. Master Plan offers melodrama in spades. It's a hooky, bombastic dig at former management and the music industry's ability to transform artists into commodities amid deliberately grandiose production. End of Night is transcendent neo-psychedelic pop layered in electronics, with lush vocal harmonies, massive basses and drums, and an earworm chorus. Varied, poetic, and poignant, {|The Tipping Point|} is, after all this time, the very album the duo wanted to make. This set is a classic-sounding {|Tears for Fears|} record, one that makes the listener take emotional, spiritual, and mental inventory of their inner world even as the one outside roils with trouble, violence, and madness. Welcome back gents, we've missed you. ~ Thom Jurek Less