TEARS FOR FEARS After acrimonious split, duo reunites for album

This album is the first recorded by the singers since 1989.
By BEN WENER
ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
LOS ANGELES -- The interview was essentially over, the flack having just poked her head into the glass-encased conference room at The Firm's management offices in Los Angeles, indicating "wrap it up," when I realized I hadn't asked Tears for Fears an obvious question.
No, not what they think of Gary Jules' version of "Mad World" and its role in the cult popularity of "Donnie Darko." We'd covered that more than twice, actually. To say it had something to do with their reunion is an understatement.
Third album
Rather, now that the duo has a new album -- the appropriately titled "Everybody Loves a Happy Ending," the first to re-team childhood friends Curt Smith and Roland Orzabal since an acrimonious split not long after the 1989 release of their ambitious third album, "The Seeds of Love" -- well, would they tour?
Spiky- and silver-haired Smith weighed in first. "It depends on what happens with this album, because we're certainly not going to do our '80s tour." Orzabal, shaggy locks resting on the shoulders of a vintage Yes T-shirt, echoed that with a flat "no."
Have they softened their no-nostalgia stance? That much can't be answered, as this interview with Smith and Orzabal, both 43, took place in April, back when "Happy Ending" was due in May.
But time flies when meandering through a reunion. As Orzabal pointed out, "From the beginning of this project, we very much did it on our own schedule. We're both settled on the fact that there's no benefit to our healthy lives to actually plan long-term.
"Basically, we're gonna do this until it's no longer enjoyable. And if that's a month into a tour, then fair enough."
Those who know the duo's rocky past would agree that's a wise approach. All along these two have been strictly beholden to their own timetable; it took four years to follow their breakthrough second album, 1985's "Songs From the Big Chair," and equally long to completely disintegrate during the making of 1993's "Elemental" -- by which time Tears for Fears had become solely Orzabal's enterprise. "We certainly had to split assets at that point," he recalls, "and it was a question of who got the company car and who got the [band] name. And Curt won."
That might be Orzabal's way of saying that he ultimately may have done more harm than good by carrying on as TFF for one more album, 1995's widely panned "Raoul and the Kings of Spain." Smith, meanwhile, retreated to New York -- "I just wanted it over with, like my divorce" -- before imperceptibly resurfacing in 1997 with a new project, Mayfield.
Listening again to those '90s trifles is to hear the halves of Tears for Fears in isolation -- Curt returning to pretty melodies on acoustic guitar, Roland sinking further into self-indulgent production wizardry. "Happy Ending," however, solders them back together seamlessly.
If anything, it's the late-blooming sequel to "Seeds of Love," every bit as Beatlesque as before -- the title track and "Who Killed Tangerine?" are like XTC circa "Skylarking" concocting symphonic-pop miniatures a la "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" -- yet now with a less heavy-handed, more personal outlook on life.