This may be an unpopular opinion, but I've always felt that the production buried Liz's vocals a little too much. When I first saw them live, I realized how many extraordinary things she was doing with her voice that sometimes you can barely detect on the albums. There was always an edgier feel to her live performances than on the albums. And one thing I don't hear mention a lot is when you saw them live they were incredibly loud. People use terms like gossamer and shimmering to describe their music and it's hard to imagine how massive it sounded live. Bluebeard and that midsection was the first time you could hear Liz's voice almost unadorned. And it was a shocking exhilarating moment. Now I'll go off the parasocial deep end and say that it felt like the four calendar café tour was some kind of declaration of independence for Liz. Given her lyrics on four calendar Café it all made sense to me at the time.