Four-Calendar Café/Milk & Kisses (reissues, 1993, 1996)
UMR/PROPER
8/10, 7/10
TT was received at the time with bewilderment and foreboding akin to that which might be prompted by the ravens fleeing the Tower of London: Cocteau Twins leaving 4AD. It wasn’t just that the Cocteaus had, more than any other act, epitomised 4AD’s singular and influential aesthetic, it was that they appeared on the verge of an unlikely accession to genuine superstardom. 1990’s had been widely, and correctly, hailed as a classic. The accompanying US tour had filled ballrooms, theatres and – in a booking which seemed both hilariously incongruous yet weirdly apposite, given the album’s dazzle and shimmer and indeed title – the Aladdin Hotel in Vegas itself (wedding venue of Elvis and Priscilla Presley, among much else).
