Hi Rhodesia,
The music doesn't do anything for me at all, I find it all to contrived, and it is not a gender of music that I care for.
I sometimes find it unbelievable that the band that produced those two albums evolved to write Quiet Life, it is almost as if they were doing something that wasn't them.
The only connection I can make between the first two albums and their last 3 is OA, and that comes across better in later performances for me.
I have never really appreciated rock music, though there are a few exceptions, and they have come about later in life really.
After spending 10 years in a band, and nearly all that time recording and not performing live, my taste for music took a very serious tone to it, to the extent that I was never listening to anything much that was particularly popular, which is why I can probably appreciate a lot of what Blemish has to offer.
I can get lost in listening to Sylvian and find it very relaxing, just like I can listening to Jazz, Classical or Opera, I can't say the same with the first 2 albums, and only ever really listened to them due to who produced them.
I don't want to sound like some pompous old twit, but it's all down to taste, and it never hit a chord with me.
I find a lot more appeal in the glam music of early Bowie then I could ever find in that period of Japan, I just didn't think they were very good.
Then again I find country music absolutely dire, yet millions of American's would disagree with me!