Cocteau Twins - cherry-coloured funk, 1990

"Guthrie’s layered guitar work provides a dense harmonic backdrop, while Raymonde’s bass contributes a melodic counterpoint. Fraser’s vocals—at once emotional and cryptic—serve both as a lyrical and instrumental element, emphasizing sound and tone over literal meaning. The song’s title and repeated phrases evoke vivid, synesthetic imagery that reflects the band’s interest in abstraction and mood rather than narrative."

Cocteau Twins - seekers who are lovers, 1995

"Milk and Kisses, and therefore, the Cocteau Twins recording career, ends with Seekers Who Are Lovers. As the last song in a long and glorious career, you feel yourself willing Guthrie, Raymond and Fraser to produce a musical masterpiece out of the bag. This you want to be their Ulysses moment. They don’t disappoint. Out goes the wall of sound, in comes a much more subdued and temperate performance from Guthrie and Raymond. They hold themselves back, Fraser steps forward, and produces a performance that is brilliant. She sings the song with passion and feeling, as if knowing this is the end of their career. Not only is it one of her best performances on the album, but one the best in her career. Her voice soars, gracefully, its ethereal beauty apparent and transparent. It has a classical quality, a sweetness, a grace."

Cocteau Twins - pur, 1993

"Four-Calendar Cafe ends with Pur which begins with frantic pounding drums, slow chiming guitars and sweeping synths. Liz Fraser’s voice follows the lead of the guitar and synths and sings really slowly. It’s a a thoughtful, careful vocal. For a while, her voice stays within the same range. Her voice athen quickens, soaring beautifully. Likewise the arrangement gets louder and fuller. The guitars especially become much louder momentarily. By now Liz’s vocal is surrounded by a lovely arrangement, melodic yet fulsome. Since I first heard Pur, I’ve always loved it. What makes it special is the mixture of the power provided by Raymond and Guthrie and Liz’s thoughtful and beautiful vocal."

Cocteau Twins - bluebeard, 1993

"Bluebeard" marks a noticeable shift from previous Cocteau Twins releases, primarily in the form of Fraser's vocals that appear to be more understandable and less reliant on the "mouth music" approach that Fraser had adopted in previous recordings. Speaking about "Bluebeard", band member Robin Guthrie stated “Things don't influence us directly, but things do get through. To me, ‘Bluebeard’ sounds nothing like country music. It just sounds like us playing a twangy guitar. So it was really a guitar that created that song. A big guitar. It's just that if we do country it comes out sounding like Cocteau Twins. If we do anything it comes out sounding like Cocteau Twins.”

Cocteau Twins - half-gifts, 1996

"Take the spacious, drowsy lilt of ‘Half-Gifts’, which suggests the spectre of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Suzanne’. It may be ironic that a Cocteau Twins song should evoke a man known for his deep, restricted delivery and precise imagery, though the lyrics which float up through the musical mists are not only occasionally understandable – shock horror! – but, seeing as the thirteen-year relationship between Fraser and Guthrie had not long ended, startlingly candid. ‘I have my friends, my family,’ sings Fraser. ‘I have myself, I still have me.’"

Cocteau Twins - rilkean heart, 1995

"Rilke supported the Russian Revolution in 1917 as well as the Bavarian Soviet Republic in 1919. He became friends with Ernst Toller and mourned the deaths of Rosa Luxemburg, Kurt Eisner, and Karl Liebknecht. He confided that of the five or six newspapers he read daily, those on the far left came closest to his own opinions. He developed a reputation for supporting left-wing causes"

Cocteau Twins - athol-brose, 1988

"the Cocteau Twins' approach to lyrics and vocals, driven by Elizabeth Fraser's unique style, was as revolutionary as their sonic innovations. By prioritizing sound and emotion over literal meaning, they opened up new possibilities for vocal expression in popular music, influencing generations of artists and changing how listeners engage with lyrics and vocals."

Cocteau Twins - for phoebe still a baby, 1988

“There was an element of freedom about the whole thing. It really felt like a period of creativity and freedom, we were all getting on great musically and socially, Liz and Robin were about to have a baby, I was about to get married, there was lots of joy around. Very productive! It was a really fun record to make.”

Cocteau Twins - know who you are at every age, 1993

"I've always really been drawn to Know who you are at every age and Half-Gifts in particular. I think Half-Gifts is one of a few of their songs that really says something and has a lot of meaning."

Cocteau Twins - cico buff, 1988

"The Cocteau Twins' song 'Cico Buff' is a poetic exploration of love's ephemeral and fragile nature, wrapped in the band's signature ethereal soundscapes. The lyrics, delivered in Elizabeth Fraser's distinctive, almost otherworldly voice, weave a tapestry of emotions that oscillate between the celestial and the earthly. The song opens with a sense of ambiguity and uncertainty in love, as the narrator reflects on the fickleness of affection and the vague nature of their partner's feelings. This sets the stage for a deeper contemplation of love's transient beauty and the comfort found in the cosmic order."

Cocteau Twins - lazy calm, 1986

"The album title refers to the part of Antarctica known as Victoria Land, after Queen Victoria (and forming the British claim to the continent, currently dormant under international treaty). Some of the track titles were borrowed from passages on the Arctic and Antarctic in David Attenborough's The Living Planet: A Portrait of the Earth"