Newspaper Article

RECORDINGS VIEW; Sting Plays a Modern-Day Chaucer

Holden, Stephen

1993

Overview

\"St. Augustine in Hell\" is far from the most substantial song on Sting's new album, \"Ten Summoner's Tales\" (A&M 314540070-2; CD and cassette). But its playful mood typifies much of the material on his fourth and most melodic solo album. Where Sting's previous two records were shadowed by the death of his parents (his mother's spirit haunted \"Nothing Like the Sun,\" and visions of his father ran through \"The Soul Cages\"), \"Ten Summoner's Tales\" is a collection of fanciful vignettes that feel less weighed-down with autobiography. Even the joking title, which makes a pun on Sting's name, Gordon Sumner, suggests that the singer and songwriter has decided to lighten up by playing a modern-day Chaucerian storyteller. \"If I Ever Lost My Faith in You,\" the first single to be released from the album, is a classic Sting song, almost stately on the surface but churningly romantic underneath. \"Fields of Gold,\" a flowing modern folk ballad with a Scots-Irish flavor, is stylistically transformed with a delicate Latin pulse. In \"It's Probably Me,\" Sting executes a flawless dive into a melancholy film-noir mode, complete with muted-trumpet flavorings. An austere Middle Eastern modality defines \"Something the Boy Said,\" an eerie ballad about a death march and an unheeded prophecy.

• Publisher: New York Times Company
• Subject: HOLDEN, STEPHEN / MUSIC / RECORDINGS (AUDIO) / ROCK MUSIC / STING (MUSICIAN)