Reviews by avoidperil

More enjoyable than I first gave it credit for. It's not afraid to push the boundaries without blindly following their contemporaries on every song. Songs like Harry Rag are... different. A few tracks fall totally flat, but there are clearly efforts to include more than just guitars and drums. The result is more fun than transcendent, and I can understand why some people swear by the Kinks.

There are genres that are just like the opposite of musical to me. This is one of them. Couldn't be bothered with it.

It's not you, it's me. I just don't like reggae. It has weird associations. I just don't care at all.

Immediate impression is that this was hugely inspired by Depeche Mode from earlier the same year. A lot of the sound of the first couple tracks draws heavily from Violator. It's a decent album that I need to look more into.

I was reading NME and following the British music press a little around this time, and it really felt like they were at a loss. The great Napster record label cullings had destroyed anything aside from mainstream pop and the internet was in its infancy. They were holding up Coldplay and The Doves and BDB as the next wave of future-music.

The world went in a different direction, a darker path, into rock revival and emo. But for a moment it there they were pinning their hopes on this softcock post-alt rock. Felt like a huge nothingburger.

Basically like every Rolling Stones album. A couple of interesting high energy tracks but devolves into a whole lot of blues rip-off noise stuff. I've got other stuff to listen to right now. This isn't interesting enough.

It was fine. It didn't really move me or speak to me on any level. Just kind of generic sounding radio soul pop music to my ears.

The only thing I don't like about this album is how it set up the expectation that every album I randomly discovered as a teenager in the 90s had a chance of being this good.

I don't like jazz. Let us be clear about that. Miles Davis - both albums - missed me by a mile. Coltrane? No thanks.

And then this upstart comes along and tries to play In The Mood by Glenn Miller on the piano and turns it into a cool swing riff for Bemsha Swing and I just have to applaud it. The whole thing is just weirdly compelling.

This is a way more cohesive and listenable album than I thought. When I considered early punk I believe it would be just loud formless noise, but this has pop chops.

I'm not going to go off and listen to it regularly, but hey, this is a real mood and I appreciate the listen.

I can't really muster any feelings about this. Some of it is fine, some of it is blues rip-off, and I can't stand blues and jazz.

This might be the easiest 5 stars I've ever handed out. Anyone who gives this a 1 star rating doesn't like music, it's that simple. They're just being obtuse and contrary.

On offer is the Comfortably Numb solo, the hellish guitars of Run Like Hell, the truly remarkable resolve on Goodbye Blue Sky? For an 80 minute album this thing is tight.

Another 'classic' that's just a really inconsistent record. Side A is really quite remarkable, with a solid run of quality songs with a lot of variation. Side B is a complete flop for me.

I have not enjoyed a Neil Young album yet, but this is the best so far.

6/10

There's a part of this that sounds like a group of young women just messing around, in the sense there are no great instrumentals, and the vocals are often nonsense with silly voices and put-on accents.

But then they're really committing to the bit. They're getting their boobs out on the cover. Baiting the censors by swearing. Typical Girls is a whole thing.

6 / 10

1 bullseye out of 10 (DNF)
This is an album for all those people who have ever thought "The Pixies are great, but they don't use the N-word enough". Plunders punk, colonises blues, fuses them into a garage-level produced proto-Pixies/Nirvana sound, quite reminiscent of The Replacements, just not as good.

Nah bro, just stay with it! Give it more than 5 minutes! It gets good, honest bro. You're just not cultured enough dude, you're not in on the references, so you're missing the point.

*sigh* Okay an actual review:

Spy vs Spy is loud, abrasive, a wall-of-sound. It doesn't easily resolve into viable textures like shoegaze, but challenges with highly unexpected turns. While difficult to ingest the ~45 minutes in one go, it is more rewarding to do so as the full-speed cacophony of the first tracks does get a fraction less frenetic, like an explosion of noise filling a cavity and exploring the space. There is a cheeky nod to existing song structure on one track that teases more that it pleases. It's worth a listen to see what the fringe of one genre (jazz) can sound like.

Pure brilliance. I don't know where it comes from or how he does it. I have been needing to dive into this one for a while, and it does not disappoint.

This is manufactured pop music at its finest. First time active listen, but there's so much going on here for a casual headphones listen. It's strangely compelling even though many tracks are intimately familiar. This is a joyful listen and has aged incredibly well.

I can appreciate that people spent years learning how to play instruments, forming a functional band, dealing with record labels and producers, and eventually this thing drops into my earholes.

It's entirely wasted on me. I have no need for this in my life. But if it's for you I'm happy for you or sad that happened.

This is fine. I do like David Bowie. I never really vibed with "Heroes" the song, and there's not much else here that stands out to me. It's a little too rock and doesn't have any hooks to bring me back. Towards the end it just goes into nearly 15 minutes of instrumentals which just seems like David took a break from the studio and someone just backfilled side B with their own vibes?

I don't think I'll be back but at least I know.