This Mortal Coil

Filigree & Shadow from 1986 comes across as a more unified effort in comparison to 1984's It'll End in Tears, released as a double album and with each of its four sides planned as a self-contained unit, songs flowing one into the other. If nothing towers above the rest like "Song to the Siren" did, the tradeoff lies in the record's feeling of dramatic concentration. Something like "I Want to Live", a song taken from an obscure 1972 album on Elektra by Gary Ogan and Bill Lamb and given a remarkable reworking by sister singers Deirdre and Louise Rutkowski, can coexist with ominous near-industrial level pieces like "A Heart of Glass" and "The Horizon Bleeds and Sucks Its Thumb". Yet it all works in the end, from fragile strings on another Newman cover, "Alone", to the dark funk guitar on Talking Heads' "Drugs", and no one song moment can fully convey the record's range.