The Soul Cages [Enhanced]

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The somber, personal Soul Cages is a testament to Sting's strength as a storyteller. Each song creates its own dark, lonely world with recurring themes of sea, ships, and filial love. The album opens with the wistful, virtually mist-drenched "Island of Souls," a tale of a shipbuilder's son orphaned by an accident who dreams of the open sea. Later, that sea becomes a prison for a lovelorn sailor in "Why Should I Cry for You?" Throughout, Sting dispenses with the conventions of pop lyrical structure. Saxophones, oboe, and Northumbrian pipes reinforce the folksy feel of the instrumentation. Arguably the best song on the album, "Mad About You" is a mystical ballad about a king who has everything except the woman he loves. Grand, elegiac, and allegorical, Soul Cages stands as one of Sting's most downcast recordings, and one of his most compelling. --Courtney Kemp

The Soul Cages,Sting,A&M,Adult Alternative Pop/Rock,Adult Contemporary,Album Rock,College Rock,Pop,Pop/Rock,Rock,Rock/Pop

The Soul Cages [Enhanced]

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Test of Time
Behold the master storyteller
the great soul
By far Sting's greatest achievement
It encaged my soul

The Soul Cages
Sting
Manufacturer: A&M
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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Nothing Like the Sun
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Brand New Day

ASIN: B000002GL2
Release Date: 1991-02-02

Tracks:

Island Of Souls
All This Time
Mad About You
Jeremiah Blues (Part 1)
Why Should I Cry For You
Saint Agnes And The Burning Train
The Wild Wild Sea
The Soul Cages
When The Angels Fall

Amazon.com

The somber, personal Soul Cages is a testament to Sting's strength as a storyteller. Each song creates its own dark, lonely world with recurring themes of sea, ships, and filial love. The album opens with the wistful, virtually mist-drenched "Island of Souls," a tale of a shipbuilder's son orphaned by an accident who dreams of the open sea. Later, that sea becomes a prison for a lovelorn sailor in "Why Should I Cry for You?" Throughout, Sting dispenses with the conventions of pop lyrical structure. Saxophones, oboe, and Northumbrian pipes reinforce the folksy feel of the instrumentation. Arguably the best song on the album, "Mad About You" is a mystical ballad about a king who has everything except the woman he loves. Grand, elegiac, and allegorical, Soul Cages stands as one of Sting's most downcast recordings, and one of his most compelling. --Courtney Kemp

Customer Reviews:

Test of Time.......2007-04-10

Re-ripping all my old CDs... This is one that didn't stand the test of time. Gushing reviewers and rich tapestry of music aside, I can't remember for the life of me why I bought this album--one for the revolving filing cabinet.

Behold the master storyteller.......2007-03-30

I listened to this cassette on a walkman catching the bus to school. Read the lyrics to When the Angels Fall over and over again. Its quite unlike anything he did before or since and conjures up an epic story in each song, suiting Sting's unique vocals. This is an album that takes you somewhere when you listen and one that I'll always remember.

the great soul.......2007-01-18

I heard "the soul cages" 15 years ago. at that time I was 20 years old. Now I have the CD, and I'm 35. I still love this CD, I think it's the sting's best tape.

By far Sting's greatest achievement.......2006-07-15

"Sadness is a good thing, too," says Sting, and he proves it on THE SOUL CAGES. It's an album which has little in common with any of the master songwriter's other releases. For one thing, it's somber and cold, but that's due to what inspired it: the death of Sting's father, of whom he was not too fond. Indeed, fathers show up often in the lyrics of these songs, as do ships and the sea. Despite the unrest which inspired the album, THE SOUL CAGES has an aura of complete peace surrounding it which is wonderfully soothing.

From the first song, the misty "Island of Souls", you know this won't be like anything else Sting has recorded. "All This Time" and "Mad About You" are the closest things to pop songs THE SOUL CAGES has to offer. The songs here are the most album-oriented of Sting's work - meaning that to really understand and appreciate them, they must be heard all at once on the album rather than seperately. This, along with Sting's declaration that the album was "introspective", probably aided THE SOUL CAGES in becoming one of Sting's less financially-successful albums - which is truly a pity.

Every song here is magnificent. They each create a feeling of isolation and loneliness, sorrow and pain, and yet they wind up feeling more peaceful than any others I've ever heard. The exception is the instrumental "Saint Agnes And The Burning Train", a very interesting flamenco track which no one would guess is a Sting composition. For the most part, the songs here are relatively calm, like a winter breeze; only on the title track does the music really explode, thanks to immense, booming guitars. The rest of the album contains tight, strong drumming, atmospheric guitars, and smooth keyboards; occasionally, Kathryn Tickell's northumbrian pipes or Branford Marsalis' saxophone shows up. Unlike Sting's previous albums, this one feels rather folksy. Gone is the jazzy rock of THE DREAM OF THE BLUE TURTLES and ... NOTHING LIKE THE SUN; Sting's "Blue Turtles Band" had departed by this point. Even had they not, though, it wouldn't have mattered; there's no room for Sting's upbeat pop compositions here.

Despite all this talk of the album being wintery, introspective, cold, don't think that the album is gloomy. It's not. It's beautiful, emotional, more powerful than any of Sting's other albums. Sting has said that there was such a long period of time between ... NOTHING LIKE THE SUN and THE SOUL CAGES because, after his father's death, he experienced a severe case of writer's block. The songs he finally did write - those from this album - were written for him, not for anyone else. Listening to them, it's clear that Sting was completely unaware that anyone else even existed while writing these songs. And that's not a bad thing at all.

THE SOUL CAGES was more than just a way for Sting to move on after his father's death ("Why Should I Cry For You"). It's a masterpiece of reflection on life, death, and love, all set against the backdrop of the sea. It is an immensely powerful and moving album, eclipsing any of Sting's other works. THE SOUL CAGES is, by far, Sting's greatest achievement.

It encaged my soul.......2006-06-18

Being a very multi-tallented artist ( a real Renaissance-like genius-in marketing, lyrics, music, life style etc) and a man with such excuisite taste, Sting has always shown great judgement in building his career. Even in this album,he sagaciously sticks to the outstanding Marsalis/Katche/Kirkland formula which is synonimus with the word "success".Unlike his other works, this one didn't grow on me the 1st time I've heard it.Well, probably because I was a child then...But also because those are not catchy tunes like some of his previous Police works. Those 9 songs are actually entangled stories, recaunted by the intelligent, erudite, incredibly tallented storyteller Sting is. If you try listening them in complete darkness, you can almost perceive the deep,intense colours of the quivering waters,shadows and moonlight, a ship sailing through thick mist,waves of the wild sea tossing it around and rushing onto the shore...It is an incredibly overwhelming experience, a vision very difficult to describe. It is obvious that while he was "giving birth" to this incredible microcosmos, he was going through a dramma of his own, because of such intense feelings of greef, despair, questioning of God present in it. Later on I read about his father's death triggering all this, and many ridiculous negative reviews about the album. well, we all know what happens to aspiring artists without a single tallented bone in their bodies-they become the harshest and most bitter crytics ;) All in all, the album Soul Cages is one of the best pieces of pure art created over the last century.

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The Soul Cages
Sting
Manufacturer: A&M
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: B000007UGW

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An Antti Keisala Comment: Father & Son
dark and moving
Free flowing beauty with depth
excellent buy
Sting's soulful creation

The Soul Cages
Sting
Manufacturer: Polygram Int'l
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: B00000GAGZ
Release Date: 1998-11-03

Tracks:

Island of Souls
All This Time
Mad About You
Jeremiah Blues, Pt. 2
Why Should I Cry for You?
Saint Agnes and the Burning Train
Wild Wild Sea
Soul Cages
When the Angels Fall

Album Description

Digitally remastered reissue of 1991 album includes one bonus video track, 'All This Time'.

Album Details

Includes Exclusive Enhanced Video of 'All this Time'.

Customer Reviews:

An Antti Keisala Comment: Father & Son.......2007-02-22

I really am a fan of Sting. Even at his worst he's fun to listen to, a jarringly self-conscious yet gifted musician with the grace of possibility to gather around him the finest of musicians. But when he's at his best, at his very best, it sounds self-aware yet contemplative, soulful and flowingly forgiving. There is poetry like this noticeable on his albums here and there, "Fields of Gold" from "Ten Summoner's Tales", "A Thousand Years" and "Ghost Story" from "Brand New Day", "Dead Man's Rope" and "The Book of My Life" from "Sacred Love". But this is his zenit as a songwriter, as a poet, artist, musician.

You might already know the circumstances: his father had recently passed away, and the only natural way artistically to get around it, through it, was to channel the emotion to the songs. He apparentlty started with "Why Should I Cry For You?", in my humble opinion the best song he has ever written.

I listen to this regularly, yet it's still shocking how gloriously introspective this is. Canorous; touching, yet cogent. Not least because he might quote Shakespeare so aptly, in an already ironic context that sets the frame for "Jeremiah Blues, Pt. 1". Then there are the glorious linguistic landscapes such as "Bring down the angels/cast them out of my sight/I never want to see/A million suns at midnight" on "When the Angels Fall" and "Twisted son of a fog bell's toll", a few of my favourite lines. He's a clever song-writer, but this isn't cleverness, it's effulgence. It's completely lacking his usual badinage, which I equate to the 'coffee-table precision' once used to describe his music in an Editorial Review. On this album he's gone further than being merely mordant, he's ebullient, instead. And bittersweet.

One sign of a great album is how they attach to our lives. In fact, I ascribe that to the fundamental function that makes them so great to us, simply because we can hear echoes of ourselves in the music. They simply resonate with our heart in a different way than others do. This album is like that for me, a solace and munificient. Sting isn't maudlin: he's distant yet goes so far away that he comes full circle and arrives from behind. He doesn't really seem to sing to us as much as he does to himself and his ghosts, which only adds to its fascination: it's like Shakespearean characters contemplating and over-hearing themselves. It isn't haughtiness as some might think, nor is it coldness of heart. At least I, from similar experience, can immerse myself in the lines of the opener: "To a place they would never be found/To a place far away from this town/A Newcastle ship without coals/Sailing to the Island of Souls" And when listening to "Mad About You" I really am walking down the empty streets of ancient Jerusalem, watching the endless number of stars in the way they appeared to Abraham.

To judge from the number of user comments written so far, this isn't popular, but it is a real gem: a heart-wrenchingly beautiful album that segues from song to song without ever having its nadir; there's no vainglory here, but poetry of the soul. One of the best albums I know.

With best regards,
AK

dark and moving.......2003-10-09

moving music . Stings most underrated album I think.

Why should I Cry For You is excellent as is the title track.

Free flowing beauty with depth.......2002-02-10

One of the most amazing albums I have ever spent time with. Yes, time must be spent with these wonderful deep flowing tracks to understand the truth and beauty that is layered seamlessly throughout the album. The music is a refined openess filled with emotion, imagery, and something special that leaves the listener connected to it all. The Soul Cages is an album that will stay with me for life.

excellent buy.......2002-01-24

This CD is one of my all time favorites. It's quite different from a typical Sting cd, although I love typical Sting CDs. Apparently he wrote it after his father's death. Well you can definitely hear that influence. It has a haunting, struggling quality to it, if that makes sense. The songs are beautiful, especially "why should I cry for you" and "When the Angels Fall" A wonderful experience!

Sting's soulful creation.......2000-12-22

Some critics argue that truly great music has the power to transport the listener to another place. If this is true, then Sting's Soul Cages is one of the best albums ever created. Constantly innovating, Sting departs from his reggae-funk-rock "Police" days on Soul Cages, producing a soulful and magical album. Suggesting an underlying "water" theme with such song titles as "Island of Souls" and "Wild Wild Sea," the listener experiences a floating sensation from the peacefulness and lucidity of these songs. Written at a emotionally-trying time of his life, Sting's "Why Should I Cry For You" and "The Soul Cages" convey a paradoxically powerful aura of concurrent sadness, beauty, contemplation, and serenity. However, the album isn't merely a melancholic and breathtaking soliloquy; Sting livens the mood with the upbeat early '90s hit single, "All This Time" (again, invoking the water theme with such lyrics as 'All this time/the river flows/endlessly/into the sea'). In fact, "All This Time" is the reason this enhanced CD should be a part of everyone's collection; when played on a computer, the video for "All This Time" appears as the tenth track, providing a visual insight into Sting's artistic genius. Romantic, emotional, thought-provoking, and musically intruiging, THE SOUL CAGES should be an integral part of every music afficionado's collection.... ZS

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The Soul Cages
Sting
Manufacturer: Universal
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

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ASIN: B0000AFOGZ
Release Date: 2003-09-08

Tracks:

Island of Souls
All This Time
Mad About You
Jeremiah Blues, Pt. 2
Why Should I Cry for You?
Saint Agnes and the Burning Train
Wild Wild Sea
Soul Cages
When the Angels Fall

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Fantastic Moody, Melodic Progressive Metal

Moments
Soul Cages
Manufacturer: Massa
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Hard Rock & Metal | Styles | Music
ASIN: B0000086KC
Release Date: 1996-02-05

Customer Reviews:

Fantastic Moody, Melodic Progressive Metal.......2002-09-10

Another fantastic CD from Soul Cages! Highly recommended!! All of three of their CDs (released by Massacre Records) are excellent and have a similar sound, but _Moments_ is probably my favorite Soul Cages CD. I think that _Moments_ and _Craft_ are available through Amazon.

Soul Cages is a very talented band. Their music can be described as moody, melodic progressive metal. Their musical style is intelligent, technical, moody, and very song-oriented overall. I feel that Soul Cages has a unique sound, but I do hear similarities to _Perfect Symmetry_ and _Parallels_ era Fates Warning. For example, the drumming on the introduction to the song "Elegy" reminds me of the drumming on "Worlds Apart" by Fates Warning (or "My Enemy" by Enchant) and the song builds in manner that is similar to "The Eleventh Hour" by Fates Warning.

The vocals are emotional and the lyrics are intelligent. Female backing vocals are used on most songs to provide an element of warmth and beauty, most notably on "The Naked Word". I really like this aspect of Soul Cages and feel that they have integrated this aspect into their music better than any other band that I have heard. The song "Pictures of Home" by Divided Multitude is one of the best comparisons that I can think of. The guitar playing (as with Fates Warning) is very-song oriented and emotional, but not flashy. The use of keyboards abounds throughout and really enhances the mood created by the songs. The drumming is very intricate and somewhat unpredictable. It often drives the feel of the songs. The drummer's style reminds me of the style of Fates Warning's Mark Zonder.

Here is the track list.

1. Freezing (7:51)
2. The Naked Word (8:45)
3. Moments (8:42)
4. Methode No. 23 (0:59)
5. In Our Hands (4:51)
6. Elegy (6:50)
7. Impressions (5:36)
8. My Spiritual Home (5:26)

All songs are comparable in their quality. The production is excellent too. My favorite songs are "The Naked Word", "Moments", "Elegy", and "Impressions".