The Tipping Point

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