Hounds Of Love [Remastered] - Kate Bush

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Groundbreaking
Lyrics	Thought-provoking
Quality and consistency of tracks	A couple of weak links
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Outstanding
Value for Money	Excellent

Advantages:	Big due to the remastered version .  Kate Bush at her very best .
Disadvantages:	a couple of unnecessary tracks .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Kate Bush is one of Britain's most sensational women. Picked up by Pink Floyd guitarist at a very early while singing and playing piano for the K.T. Bush Band, she has shown eccentricity and voluptuous quantities of natural talent ever since that first, mesmerizing "Wuthering Heights" performance on Top of the Pops back in 1978, a song that the likes of Keane have said: "sticks with you for the rest of your life from the moment you first hear it". However, the track "Wuthering Heights", that can be considered her best, is not part of this album. Yet I have chosen to review this album because it is my favourite, and also the most interesting for me.
Kate Bush decided to make this album after the harsh criticism she received from her much darker album The Dreaming. She wasn't angry though she moved to the country in search of a different inspiration, something real and natural, not dissimilar to the feelings of roaming and freedom experienced in the early pages of the book Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, a novel that in my opinion is a perfect companion to some of Kate Bush's more romantic pieces. Whatever that energy was that she was looking for, she found it and conveyed faultlessly in the first half of the album (Hounds of Love).

Hounds of Love

1. Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)
2. Hounds of Love
3. The Big Sky
4. Mother Stands For Comfort
5. Cloudbusting

The Ninth Wave

1. And Dream of Sheep
2. Under Ice
3. Waking The Witch
4. Watching You Without Me
5. Jig of Life
6. Hello Earth
7. The Morning Fog

Bonus Tracks (Remastered Version Only)

1. The Big Sky (MeTeorogical Mix)
2. Running Up That Hill (12" Mix)
3. Be Kind To My Mistakes
4. Under The Ivy
5. Burning The Bridge
6. My Lagan Love

With the exception of Mother Stands For Comfort, every track on the first half of the album contains a special energy captured by it's rolling drum beats, effortless harmony and Kate's melodic voice that always speaks with true passion. Not to mention some of here most inspiring lyrical compositions to date, seen mot prominently in Cloudbusting. Hounds of Love is accessible, long lasting, tremendous pop that Kate Bush fans most usually consider to be her best work, interestingly the only music that she produced herself.
The Ninth Wave starts with Kate Bush's return to the piano that fans saw so much of in her earlier album The Kick Inside. A much calmer track, And Dream of Sheep contains only piano, voice and miscellaneous samples, a well timed break from the energetic treat so well put across in the first half of the album. An Dream of Sheep is predictably about sleep and accompanied with the will to do so, Kate Bush can quite literally sing her listener to sleep with this track.
The next two tracks are slightly different, well actually they are very different. Quite scary in fact, containing lots of more chanted styles of singing. Although there is nothing necessarily bad about these tracks there is something about them that makes them unlistenable to. As for Waking the Witch, this track made me laugh for how silly spooky it sounds. Full of sampling, chanting, dark and gothic male voice accompaniments, the only thing I can compare this to is Sit Down, Stand Up Radiohead, a strange beginning and then an explosive crashing second half. Rather pointless.
Watching You Without Me saves the dodgy direction that The Ninth Wave had taken with the previous tracks, sounding nicely like her new music in Aerial (2005) because of slightly less constant vocals, and soft conga-like drumming, nice and calm.
Jig of Life is predictably noisy, not in a bad way, some of the energy of the beginning of the album has been recaptured through excessive string life. This is really a folk track though the production and the vocals make sure it's Kate Bush. One of the faster tracks on the CD.
The unremastered version of the album ends with Hello Earth and The Morning Fog. The first of which is thankfully another enchanting piano track, slow of course after Jig of Life. This track is made great by the fusion of Kate's voice and the tinkering piano brilliance that made her so successful in her earlier years. The Morning Fog is a perfect ending track, a nice harp like instrument flows through the track along with layered vocals. Surprisingly short and with quite an abrupt ending, that to me represents the way she started of the album, with a natural, inspiration source of energy.
If you are lucky enough to have been convinced so far by my review that Hounds of Love is an album worth having then you'll love to hear that the copy you could be soon buying may come as cheap as £3.99 (from HMV or most online retailers) and will contain a series of bonus tracks.
The most notable of these bonus tracks would be the 12" Mix version of Running Up That Hill, the alterations are subtle but change the timing of the piece to provide a better track to dance to. Also interesting for fans and those interested in sounds and the use of them.
Be Kind To My Mistakes is one of my favourite ever Kate Bush tracks and has been essential to my love for this album, it would fit in very well with the first half of the album for it has that same feeling to get out and do something pure.

If you are a Kate Bush fan without this album then you aren't a Kate Bush fan. To everyone else, I suggest this as an essential CD in any music lover's collection, especially considering the exceptionally low prices it can be found at.

I forgot to mention that in 1978 she won the Brit Award For Best Female Solo Artist and won Best Song for Running Up That Hill later on in her career.