THE LETTER

A year after "Nowhere", Aviv Geffen is releasing his 5th studio album - called "The Letter". Like his "old brothers" he reached gold in a very short time... In the album you can hear the comeback of producer Moshe Levi, instead of Aviv himself ("Nowhere"), and also the eclectic sound of Geffen, influenced by American Folk, Rock & Country music. Like in the other albums, Aviv have wroted all of the lyrics & composings. The murder of PM Rabin is still shown pretty hardly in Aviv's music, especially in "Cry For You", that was the anthem of "The Candle Youth". The song is on track 12, and is a recording from a memorial ceremony for Rabin, in the Rabin Square, Tel-Aviv.

At that time, Israel have made her self criticism, and there was a national feeling of appeasement. People have looked up for someone to symbol Rabin's way, and some of them - especially the teenagers - found Aviv as the new leader of that mid-90's generation, and used quotes from his songs to express their feelings. Without even planning it, Aviv have became a national icon. He treated it with mixed feelings: on one hand with understanding, but on the other hand with fear. He never dreamed he will be in the center of the israeli consensus, the same one who rejected him just a year ago! Especially if you take a look on the traghic circumstance, he even wondered if he want to be that icon he became...

During all of that time, Aviv kept writing new material for his new album, when the songs were influenced by 3 main reasons: His strong love for his girlfriend Ilana, the forced break-up from his father that gone to New York with his wife, and - of course - Yitzhak Rabin's traghic murder. After presenting two songs he have performed in the past - "Too Much", that deals with an abuse of a women by her man, and "My Little Star" - that was a song of yearning for his father, Aviv has decided to release another song, called "The Tears Rebellion", that dealed with the atmosphere sorrounding the murder of Rabin, and the murder itself. He presented the song in a special press conference that he organized, as an opening point for his new tour, in the same name. The tour, to Aviv's claim, was meant for an older crowd, and the shows were in closed arenas - not in parks. Aviv arranged a number of weird press conferences, because of the things he said in there. Tens of photographers & journalists have converged to hear Aviv say that although the fact that Geffen have got closer to the officialdom, it was the officialdom that got close to him - not the opposite. When he ended, Aviv have joined "The Mistakes" and performed "The Tears Rebellion" to the journalists. The song was controversial by two quotes that created controversy: one is "The Blame Is On Us" (the chorus) - that refers to the left wingers in Israel, which in his opinion, that were complacent and didn't witnessed the inciting before the murder. Many people didn't agreed. The second is "It's not only the king is naked, he looks awful" - refers to the israeli president, Ezer Weitzman (RIP), that was known for his problematic quotes about girls in air force, and also have made a lot of shame when in Rabin's funeral he have talked about "the way we used to drink together"...

The album is characterized by a more acoustic playing (a turn-out point in his career, that will influence him in the future), less noisy like in the past - when the subjects are mainly the same - the army ("I'm Allowed To Die"), violence in the family ("Good Night") and more.. But, there are exceptionals, like for example "Jealousy" - in my opinion the best song of the album, a very emotional song about break-up, that was accompanied with piano & strings. The song didn't succeeded a single, but in the Aviv's close crowd it was meaningful. And one to remember was the title track - "The Letter" - which was the most remarkable song of the album, and a great radio hit. It is played in every performance by Aviv, when the lead quote is the chorus - "More & More & More... Never Stop, Never Stop Dreaming"..

You can feel in the album another sound that we didn't hear before, but sometimes it is too harmonic & soft. Although all of that, it is still hard to ignore the powerful masterpieces in the album ("The Tears Rebellion", "Tomorrow Will Never Come"), but most of the album is still repeating itself. Il'l give for an album like that 2.5 stars.