Reviews by applaud01

Like Kate Bush met Aphex Twin.

The song Layla is such a towering work on this that it's hard to think of it as more than "Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs that No-One Cares About"

Some of the others - Bell Bottom Blues, Keep on Growing, Anyday, Why Does Love Got to be so Sad? - come pretty close to Layla's brilliance and I am Yours and Thorn Tree in the Garden are at least interesting near misses.

But the covers are unnecessary. When you've got Hendrix's Little Wing do you need Clapton's? Bessie Smith's Nobody Loves You When You're Down and Out and Freddy King's Have You Ever Loved a Woman are not improved upon. And let's face it Keys to the Highway in one form or another is such a standard, but Bill Broonzy or Little Walter make other versions unneeded.

If you cut the covers and trimmed the jams this would make a fine dingle album, but there's quite a bit of bloat here.

Perfectly serviceable and completely unremarkable rock tracks.

The lead singer is described as."reminiscent of Tom Waits or Nick Cave", presumably by someone with a bad memory.

The band is tight in a sort of "almost Pearl Jam" fashion.

No-one is going to say it isn't sincere.

But it does get a bit samey. The tracks all mice along at much the same tempo and with the same serious intention.

Ketchy Shuby is probably the standout.

The problem with doing satire and parody is letting the audience in on the act. You need to give people a wink just to let them know you're performing, not actually being.

Either these guys are furiously satirising Fascism and Totalitarianism or they actually are Fascists. But the act is so straight down the line and since many of their lyrics are in German it's not that easy to tell. And the lyrics that are in English don't help make things clear. And how much of their fan base can tell the difference is also up for debate.

I felt a bit like I needed a shower after I heard it.

Profound, meditative, beautiful.

Bitches Brew is all aggressive "look at me" while this is its exact opposite.

One to live with and get to know.

Falling somewhere between The Sweet and Iron Maiden, this is more Cartoon Metal than Hair Metal.

Kind of good fun and they sold a lot of albums and posters to 16 year olds.

The next album, Hysteria, was where they really took off, bowever.

I have no idea what to call this or even what it is, but it is extraordinarily beautiful.

Would I listen to it on high rotation?

No.

But am I happier for having heard it?

Absolutely yes.

The level of Musicianship is incredibly high, the harmonies are goegeous and the production is so smooth it's almost burnished.

How much you enjoy the album might depend on how much you need a cover of a 1926 Duke Ellington track or a song about Charlie Parker or need to go down the rabbit hole of deciphering obscure lyrics that might be about time travel or perhaps the pressures of touring.

They're possibly the greatest, artiest, Dad rock band ever. Or possibly they're prodigiously talented smart arses.

What is clear is that while they were touring for this album, in August 1974, The Ramones debuted at CBGB and this stuff suddenly looked very old.

Well, if you're looking for the next Disco 2000 or Common People this isn't the place.

Dour, self-indulgent and sloppy.

And whatever that last track is should never be allowed again.

a-ha are pretty much remembered for one song - or rather one song's music video - and the good news is that it's here.

Even better, it's the first track on the album, so listen to it, then switch off and you can say you've heard the band's greatest hits.

A lot of fluff, dressed to kill in some computer console synths, the most 80s drum sound you'll hear outside of a Human League record and the sort of pre-teen friendly angst driven falsetto vocals that were the rage at the time and, as an added bonus, a jaw line that could slice bread.

Really does not need to be remembered.

13 songs. 32 minutes. Hell yeah!

Punk tinged with Surf Music, Rockabilly, even a touch of Country and then distilled into a heady mix of L.A. ferocity.

Back 2 the Base and When our Love Passed out on the Couch are punk gems.

Year 1 is 1minute and 18 seconds of pure punk pleasure.

A guitar, three chords and a rhyming dictionary.

Recorded in a time of band tension, this is Country Punk with experimental overtones.

Not my favourite, but not the worst I've heard either.

Queens of the Stone Age are a band I only know by name, but I live in a house with a fervent fan who assures me that this is the least of their albums and they only get better.

Mind you, this has some cracking rock and roll tracks, familiar enough to feel comfortable, but with enough tricks and complexity to be interesting.

As a starting point this is fine. I'm looking forward to see what they got up to next.

Surely there's an irony in setting out to make a big statement about the hollowness of American life, its consumerism and excess, business and art only to have it become one of the biggest selling albums that everyone had to have, so it became almost a symptom rather than a diagnosis.

It's expert, if, at times, overblown with its own importance, although any thought of the Eagles being desperado cowboys has long gone.

This is about as AOR as it gets and at times veers dangerously close to yacht rock. Probably seemed a lot more daring in 1976, before everyone had heard it too many times.

Sub Allman Brothers Southern blues-boogie full of simple, manly men thinkin' 'bout guns an' whiskey an' movin' on down the line because o' their woman.

You're not about to hear anything you haven't heard elsewhere. Even "Free Bird" - the magnum opus - recycles the whole "don't tie me down, woman, don't fence me in" stuff that countless country songs have tried. Think Merle Haggard or Conway Twitty with flash guitar solos.

Sort of all over the place with electronic instrumentals, a bit of rapping some folks things.

All of it pleasant, if hardly life changing.

Their cover of Norwegian Wood is a head scratcher, particularly when George Harrison's Indian influenced songs are right there.

A lot of nostalgia for this as a relic of a place and time, but maybe better as a memory than something to listen to today.

Some sort of line could be drawn from The Kinks and Squeeze to Pulp.

Full of songs about the disappointment of suburban life, sex and relationships.

It's like what you might get if Morrisey had an ounce of talent.

Snarling, spitting, scratching like an alley cat, this debut album comes out of the blocks at a hundred miles an hour and just doesn't let up.

There are highs and lows, but when the highs are White Riot Career Opportunities, I'm So Bored With the USA and Police and Thieves, you an forgive the lows.

Punk as it should be.