Rattlesnakes

It was a nice album, but also a little boring. I probably won't listen to it again. 3/5

Never heard of this before. Some early REM and Cure sounds here.

I played this quite a lot when it came out (or thereabouts), but then significantly went off it later. Listening now after a long gap, its somewhere in the middle. I quite like the guitar sounds in Forest Fire. But Cole's voice is a little affected.

Very enjoyable jangle pop but a little same-y.

I enjoyed a few songs here, especially “Patience” and “Are you ready to be heartbroken?”

There are much better albums that could be on this list instead. But anything that started in Glasgow and isn't really shit has to get at least a 3 from me.

ALBA GU BRÀTH

When you order The Smiths on Wish

Yeah this is pretty pleasant, not a lot stood out though, maybe with another listen or two I might change my mind

3

A really important album in its day, great confessional songs delivered in Cole’s unique vocal style. One of those artists whose first effort was probably his best, although he shone intermittently in the 40 years since.

I'm running out of things to say for albums that are just ok.

3 Fine, Bit forgettable

It was fine, but I already forgot what it was like.

Grew on me

I'm not sure if this album really deserves to be on a list of 1001 albums you need to hear before you die. It wasn't bad per se, but it just didn't really do anything for me. It was inoffensive and quickly became background music. I'm usually waiting for an album to end when I dislike it or wanting to hear more if I liked it, but this is right in the middle.

This was only 35 minutes long but it felt like forever. What a dull album. A real snooze.

Solid jangle with annoying 80s vocal. Makes me appreciate the gin Blossoms vocals way more.

The album is perfectly encapsulated by the cover. All brown. Dull and lifeless. Boring. There's some nice instrumentation in here, and it's easy enough to listen to I guess, but all the songs bleed into each other with no real distinction between themselves, and no real elevation into anything more interesting.

2.5 rounded down.

li jangle pop na wikipedia deles fiquei animado. mas eh bem medíocre, bem bobim!! nada demais não. é meio folkzinho new wave, não machuca ninguém, besta demais.

não eh ruim, só medíocre. poderiam entrar mil albuns melhores no lugar desse, mas poderiam ser piores tbm i guess

I’m at a 5.

Once this album gets past some of its most Dylan-y inspired growing pains (I think 3 of the first 4 tracks have some issues, save for “Rattlesnakes”), the album just finds itself really nicely by “Forest Fire” and glides all the way to the finish line. The new wave soundscapes here feel really mature for 1984, and while I know “sophisti-pop” has a negative connotation at times, I think the label here is accurate, in the sense that these feel really smoothly fleshed out for the era, often sounding much closer to the early ‘90s (or in the case of the last track, maybe even the mid to late ‘90s).

That mature “sophisti-pop” label also applies to the lyrics, though in a good way – given this came out the same year as Prince’s Purple Rain, I think the way both albums approach the labor of love is worth a comparison. Prince’s take on love is idealized, overtly sexy, a bit flashy, & while it appropriately matches the bombast of the album, it does feel unrealistic if you were trying to approach it from a more grounded standpoint. Granted, anyone who tries to tell Prince to be “more grounded” would be as futile as asking Stevie Wonder to produce a Slipknot album.

This album fills that “more grounded” gap; love is portrayed as messy. It’s not as sexy, it’s usually circumstantial, and it takes a lot of work to even get a relationship off the ground, let alone maintain it. There’s one track here that feels like an idealized love (“Charlotte Street”) and even then, it’s appropriately acknowledged as a kind of dream scenario. The track immediately following it (“2cv”) is one where it falls apart immediately, due to one shared interest, ending in a whole lot of nothing. This album’s glue, however, and what keeps it as a coherent piece of work, is that the DESIRE for love drives the whole album, with a few tracks lyrically blending into each other to create a more cohesive world. All of these tracks are either in the process of maintaining it, trying to salvage it, trying to start it, or being prepared to end it. They’re all really personalized snapshots, and more than that, they feel realistic. I think it’s a really fresh attitude to have in an era of music where every singer seemingly got the girl (or boy) in all of their love songs.

Lloyd Cole’s vocals are… I mean, they’re not super flashy or THAT charismatic, but they do their job nicely. His talk-singing approach can feel a little worn at times, and I do think some of these tracks could use a little more of an elevated emotion from him, but I never once saw his vocals as a negative. There are times here when he does lift up just a bit, and it does energize the track. The way the instrumentals build themselves up around his performances help too, with a timing sort of reminiscent of R.E.M. at points. The only track that kinda fails at this is “Down on Mission Street”, with the chorus feeling too different from the rest of the track, but even still, it’s just a stylistic choice I disagree with.

Ultimately, I really liked it. I think it’s good to be grounded sometimes, and this album just feels grounded in a really nice way, whilst still giving a lot of energy to the instrumentals. The percussion & guitar in particular really drive a lot of these tracks, keeping everything from hitting any duller points. It does feel like a sort of underrated new wave gem, and while I can understand bouncing off of this album early if “Perfect Skin”, “Speedboat” & “Down on Mission Street” are just a little too lyrically confusing or Dylan-y for one’s tastes, if you can get to Forest Fire & beyond, the whole album elevates to a really tight 35 minutes, and one that feels a lot more lived in than the empty room of the cover art would suggest. I definitely think it’s an album worth listening to before you die, and I think it’s a strong 5.

Not being familiar with LLoyd Cole and the Commotions I was actually excited to see that I would be treated to "4 extra tracks" of rattlesnakes. Surely if 4 extra tracks could be shoehorned in that means the original 10 tracks were so exemplary that these 4 couldn't even make the cut for the already long running 35 minutes and change of music I was about to treat myself to.

WRONG.

This sounds like the music you hear in the background of a bar in a mediocre 80's movie. I can see Patrick Swayze stone faced turning down the town hottie without saying a word and the bad guy somehow being mad that his woman got turned down by the new bad ass in town. That sounds more entertaining than this album was.

Here is a quick lyrical excerpt: She reads Simone de Beauvoir in her American circumstance.

Oh fuck all the way off for suggesting this is an album anyone MUST hear before they die.