Reviews by apollo

You're Living All Over Me is a very enjoyable album. It may not have the same level of intense whiplash as something like Bug did but it still is very much there and this album feels better executed than that one. This album mainly stayed within it's grunge roots without too many noise rock sections. Granted like i said, there was some intense whiplash, especially with the song Poledo which had the biggest identity crisis of all time and should have been a song i would despise but i ended up loving it's incredibly unique nature. There are a few times where the album feels a bit weak and not punchy enough but over all, i still had a very fun time with this album.
Best Song: Poledo
Worst Song: In A Jar

Safe As Milk is a pretty weird and wacky album but it actually handles that pretty well. I can definitely admit that this is an album that absolutely belongs on this list as it seems to have influenced quite a bit of other artists with one notable one being Tom Waits who sited Captain Beefheart as a major influence. The album itself has this large psych-rock style on it much like a lot of it's other contemporaries with this one definitely being as weird as a lot of the others but not doing anything too differently from them. I guess one unique thing i will say about it is that little sample from the beginning of Yellow Brick Road which i thought was an ad at first. Definitely a good album but i can't justify giving it higher than 3 stars.
Best Song: Sure Nuff 'N Yes I Do
Worst Song: Zig Zag Wanderer

Spy Vs. Spy: The Music Of Ornette Coleman is easily one of the most chaotic albums i have ever heard. However, unlike something like War's The World Is A Ghetto, this one wasn't organized chaos, it's just chaos. Throughout the first half of the album, these people just didn't seem to know how to make proper compositions as they just wildly played their instruments with no rhyme or reason and it got extremely annoying. The second half was a bit more tolerable with them actually learning how to properly compose a song but they were still too noisy and abrasive to be anything that good. This album gets a 1.5, the extra 0.5 coming from the fact the second half was actually tolerable.
Best Song: Feet Music
Worst Song: C&D

I quite enjoyed Before And After Science. This one definitely feels like a really weird one even coming from Brian Eno who is a very experimental artist. This one seems to combine the glam rock style that was prevalent on Here Come The Warm Jets (and possibly the Roxy Music albums he worked on too but i have yet to hear those so i'm not completely sure). This one certainly did have some real funky moments and that was what i enjoyed most when it came to this album. However, the vocals here did not feel very well produced with them being simply far too quiet and i had trouble deciphering them at points. Still, i enjoyed this one and it's definitely not Eno's worst work.
Best Song: Kurt's Rejoinder
Worst Song: Here He Comes

Future Days is an album that i don't have too much to say about but it still was a fairly decent listen. I can see both similarities and differences between this album and the prior album i heard from this band (Tago Mago). Both albums are structured very similarly to each other and have the same general vibe to them. However, i think i like this one more as it is less noisy than Tago Mago which makes it a fair bit more palatable. The songs still can get pretty forgettable though even with their quirks. The main reason for this is mostly the length of these songs as well as the fact they seem to rely on ambiance a lot. That being said, this album was still a decent listen, just not very remarkable.
Best Song: Moonshake
Worst Song: Bel Air

When it comes to Echo And The Bunnymen, i find that their music is perfectly fine 80s new wave but just incredibly forgettable and Porcupine here did little to change that. As you can guess from what i said prior to this, this is a case of an album where i just don't have much to even really say about it. It's not bad, not great, just kinda in between. The music on offer is serviceable as are the vocals but most of them i just have trouble even remembering because they were just so forgettable. I really am just scratching the bottom of the barrel for things to say so i will just regurgitate this, Perfectly fine, but not remarkable at all.
Best Song: Higher Hell
Worst Song: Clay

I thought Space Ritual was a pretty great album. Apparently Lemmy Kilmister was involved with this show with him playing bass as well as providing vocals on a couple of the tracks and i can really see how a lot of the stuff he did on this record went on to inspire some of the music in the Motorhead albums that i listened to especially in No Sleep Til Hammersmith (Probably because that is also a live album). Lemmy Kilmister stuff aside, my opinions on the music are very positive. I enjoy a lot of the jazzy undertones a lot of these songs have and the bass was obviously incredible here. Granted this one did get long and some of the vocals were a bit weird for me but i still really liked this one.
Best Song: Master of the Universe
Worst Song: Sonic Attack

I'm not really a big fan of Bob Dylan but this album pleasantly surprised me with how shockingly decent it was. Granted, i did just listen to Pere Ubu yesterday and anything i listen to today will be a masterpiece compared to that but i'm still surprised with how much i enjoyed this album more than either of the previous two albums i've heard by him. The folk rock style that this album goes for isn't anything too special but with time, it did become pretty nice to listen to, albeit i could have done without the harmonicas assaulting my ears every few seconds. It still does have the positives the last two Bob Dylan had with the negatives toned down a fair bit.
Best Song: Obviously Five Believers
Worst Song: Temporary Like Achilles

The Modern Dance was genuinely atrocious. It definitely isn't your typical kind of album with it trying to do all the things it does but i kinda wish it was since while that would have been a little boring, at least it would have been infinitely more palatable than this garbage. The two worst parts of this album are two of the most important parts of any album, those being music and vocals. The music barely has any cohesive structure which is already bad but combine that with sounds that feel like someone is drilling a hole into my brain as well as vocals that were incredibly whiney and grating and this becomes an album that made me want to rip my ears off.
Best Song: Over My Head
Worst Song: Sentimental Journey

Swordfishtrombones is yet another great album by Tom Waits. This album is how my Tom Waits loving friend got into him (mostly because of "Underground" appearing in the movie "Robots") and i definitely believe that this is a good way to get started with his music. This album pretty much has all the Tom Waits quirks that you would expect from him like his use of various instruments and his deep gravelly voice and they are all executed very well here. The album also has some absolutely great production with even all the incredibly gravelly vocals sounding immensely crisp. The songs here aren't quite as memorable as the ones on Rain Dogs or Bone Machine which is why this album won't be getting 5 stars but it was still a genuinely great listen.
Best Song: 16 Shells From A Thirty-Ought Six
Worst Song: Rainbirds

Peter Gabriel 3 (or Melt as it is sometimes referred to due to the album art) is a really interesting album. This album seems to take a very experimental approach to it's sound kinda in the same vein as Peter Gabriel's old band Genesis. In fact, the song "Intruder" was one of the first songs to utilize the gated reverb sound made to make the drums sound more impactful while still maintaining the original mix. I did enjoy a lot of the things that this album tried. It definitely doesn't feel as accessible as So does but this album still managed to provide a pretty enjoyable experience in the same way that album managed to do.
Best Song: Not One Of Us
Worst Song: Start

Very is definitely one of the more bizarre albums on this list. It does the 80s synth-pop thing that was very popular around that era but this time it's in 1993 so it does feel a bit dated even for the time. That's not to say that it's bad though, in fact it is very good. There are quite a bit of bangers on this album, especially a lot of the B-sides are some really great songs. I still think that this album would have done much better if it came out in the 80s though since it has the sound that would have thrived there, some of that electronic sound still works in the 90s but still feels rather dated. I still enjoyed this album quite a lot for it's many quirks.
Best Song: Dreaming of the Queen
Worst Song: To Speak Is a Sin
Side note: What was i on when i was watching these music videos? They were absolutely trippy.

Beautiful Freak is an album that i am a bit mixed on. There are things i like about it and things i don't like about it on nearly every aspect of this album. The vocals are probably the only exception due to them being able to remain consistently good throughout the whole thing. The lyrics can be smart in some places but kinda creepy in others. The music is probably the part I'm most divided on. I would definitely be lying if i said there weren't any songs i did enjoy a fair bit as there were quite a few. There are a few parts where the songs get identity crises though, especially the first two songs. This album is far from perfect but there was still enough on offer for me to like it.
Best Song: Novocaine For The Soul
Worst Song: Susan's House

Felt Mountain is an album that has quite a lot of interesting quirks. This album feels like a combination of various other electronica albums on this list those being Gotan Project's La Revancha Del Tango, Tangerine Dream's Phaedra and even a bit of Portishead's Dummy. This album mainly goes for a trip hop sound with some ambient soundscapes and a slight dab of some tango music. I really do quite like a lot of the things it tries to do as it gives the album quite a lot of character. Granted, there are points in this album where the songs just kinda meander along and don't really do anything that interesting which is why i can't give this album 4 stars but all in all, i did enjoy what this album did.
Best Song: Human
Worst Song: Deer Stop

Bongo Rock was definitely an interesting album. I was thinking that this would be some kind of world album taking inspiration from South America or Africa but this one seemed to lean more towards funk rock and had a few covers on it. I enjoyed this album for the vibes it brought with all the guitars and of course, the bongos were always interesting too. However i could feel like this album could get rather repetitive especially considering it had parts which focused entirely on the bongos that went on for longer than i would have liked. It does make sense why those are there but those still weren't my favorite, However, it still is interesting enough to be a fairly enjoyable one.
Best Song: Apache
Worst Song: Dueling Bongos

(What's The Story) Morning Glory is an album that's iconic for a really good reason, and that reason being is that its an absolutely fantastic album. This album has that combination of melodic and decently heavy guitars that i always enjoy about not only Britpop but alt rock in general. The main show stealers are obviously the guitars but everything else is also handled insanely well too from the vocals to all the other instruments. Those vocal melodies are also a big reason as to why this album is so good. I think i like this album more than Definitely Maybe, I'm not sure why but there is something about it i really like more here, either way they are both absolutely fantastic.
Best Song: Morning Glory
Worst Song: The Swamp Song (Except 2)

This could just be the album's intended effect working better on me due to the fact i listened to it after i got home from an 8 and a half hour shift from my part time job but i really enjoyed Being There. This album had a pretty nice mix of both country rock and indie rock with each of the styles working pretty well with each other and generally being consistently good. I do of course gravitate a bit more to the latter due to me just liking the genre more. I still think i like Yankee Hotel Foxtrot more due to that album being more concise and generally just more interesting. But still, i enjoyed this album quite a lot for what it did.
Best Song: The Lonely 1
Worst Song: Forget the Flowers
Side note: Last Wilco album, you know the drill at this point
1. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
2. Being There
3. Mermaid Avenue

I think this site is doing that thing where after giving me a really bad album, it gives me a really great one. And this time it's going from Sex Packets to Eliminator. This album is an absolutely great time. I'm aware of some of it's singles due to hearing them on the radio back when i listened to my local classic rock station (before i switched to the alt rock one) but they are still fantastic songs. This album also feels like a major step up from Tres Hombres (most likely due to the fact this album came 10 years later) by sounding a lot less basic and having quite a bit of depth with all the synthy sounds. I really love this album and think that it more than deserves it's spot on this list.
Best Song: TV Dinners
Worst Song: I Got the Six

Sex Packets is an album i didn't like at all. Though honestly, what should i have expected from an album about these pills intended to give people sexual pleasure in generally not appropriate situations. The music is fine until it's not when it uses the most annoying and odd picks for samples. But the main offender is obviously the lyrics. These lyrics are so terrible that it often makes me wonder how these even left the drawing board and makes me wonder "How horny are these guys?". Albums like this infuriate me because its because of these that hip-hop generally has the stigma of being a very shallow genre in the lyrics department. And that is a shame because there are rappers that can make good lyrics, too bad these guys just aren't among them.
Best Song: Street Scene
Worst Song: The Way We Swing

I am absolutely shocked at how much i enjoyed Melodrama. I've never been the biggest fan of Lorde because all i really knew her for was Royals and not much else. So i was shocked to see that this is some of the best contemporary pop i have heard in quite some time. It was insane to see just how textured, deep and melodic all these songs were. I also think that Lorde's vocals were definitely a highlight and some of the best she has sang. The lyrics are also really good here too with them always sounding deep but never overly melodramatic (get it?). Some of the songs toward the end did get a bit forgettable due to not much happening in them but overall, this is a really good album.
Best Song: Sober
Worst Song: Writer In The Dark