“FourPlay’s accompaniment is fresh in its turns and creative pulses, placing its feet lightly in classical traditions, but bending unexpectedly into cacophonies of disruption or suggestive cradle song.“

Well, leave it to Neil Gaiman for some genre-breaking approaches to creation. And while music and spoken words have often found themselves together, Gaiman and his partners of the FourPlay String Quartet in Australia have created a unique and, most importantly, ever-fresh album of wonder and commentary. 

FourPlay’s accompaniment is fresh in its turns and creative pulses, placing its feet lightly in classical traditions, but bending unexpectedly into cacophonies of disruption or suggestive cradle song. Their compositions dominate the album, even over Gaiman who does not solo on every track. And the lyrics are not always Gaiman. The opening track, “Clock,” is for instance actually Shakespeare’s Sonnet 12. 

But this is still a Gaiman work, tales and oaths uttered with sinister and bewitching sincerity. Not every track is equally successful, of course; in places, Gaiman cannot help but rant brazenly about contemporary social or political issues. “Credo,” in particular, stands out sorely. But for every disassociated small step like this, others more than make up for it in their poetry and wonder: “Song of the Song” or the near-finale work of “In Transit,” for instance. 

In the end, though, Signs of Life is an album eminently re-listenable, and many of the tracks have since migrated to my playlists. Still, still, I feel that what is here remains a splinter, a sliver of a larger idea that @NeilHimself has yet to fully disclose. So I keep reading and listening.