Reviews by dohej

Folksy acoustic singer songwriter stuff with a nice, kind of jazz, backing band giving it a bit of nice oomph. The country leaning stuff is great - approximating Johnny Cash and incorporating a bit of slide and twang. The the blues leaning stuff and the really slow ballads are pretty boring and predictable. The raga at the end is really amazing, gives the acoustic guitar a real workout on some mesmerizing psychedelic drones.

Favorites: Everybody's Talkin', Everything Happens, Sweet Cocaine, Cynicrustpetefredjohn Raga

Post 9/11 america was all jumped up on nu metal and revenge, and needed calming down - a pretty dark haired lady with a nice soothing voice was the warm bath the nation needed. The 2002 suburban anesthetic starter pack: nasty cinnamon candles, cheap australian wine, Old Navy fleece, Amelie on DVD, and drowning out the beating drums of the impending forever war with this album of smoothed over corporate Nina Simone impersonations. I didn't really work though did it?

Like a classic fuzzy bluesy garage psych record played on a dying record player through a crapped out broken speaker and hit by a bolt of lightning. Dumb as bricks and sounds like shit, a dirt bag acid trip masterpiece of manic sludge.

The only ok album by the most annoying and inexplicably hyped band of the 90s who, for reasons science will never explain, are still going strong?! and it's got like 7 minutes out of 73(!) that are good and they've been overplayed beyond the threshold of any possible further enjoyment. Hyperactive, aggressively silly, grating raps and overwrought juvenile emotion, they're an overgrown novelty act. Guitar guys love John Frusciante for some reason? He's fine but just plays Hendrix leads and Nile Rodgers rhythms...

Cornier than Iowa, this is the Talking Heads x Kenny G mash up you don't know you needed (you didn't). XTC for band geeks, Orange juice for yuppies, it's all smooth funky artifice, a disco mirrorball synthpop sax jam session. It oscillates wildly between fun and God awful, even within each song, even simultaneously - very confusing.

The step up from the basic boom bap beats drum machines and dj scratching of late 80s hip hop to the flourishing of styles in the early 90s is incredible - the jazzy style of native tongues, the dark demented world of Wu tang, and the commercial dominant style of g-funk Dr Dre cooked up for this album that took off and took over. The grooves on this are so fucking good - ripping off parliament and mainlining bootsy Collins bass parts will do that. The raps are decent - introducing snoop's signature flow, a novelty that has truly worn off, and dre's ultimately pretty limited montone tough guy delivery - even if the content is mostly indecent. Lacks the gritty social realism and righteous anger of other gangster rappers, even in the song about the Rodney King riots, and leans mostly into cock/glock raps. 4 all time great iconic 90s hip hop tracks on here. Deeeeeeeez nutz!!

Tight tight tight. Hyperactive melodic bass gives this a relentless propulsive energy, powerful high-up the neck dirty rhythm guitar bursts into surprisingly rock solos and melodic lead parts. Lots of tension building up and up then bursting out into a big major chorus. Some basic 1st gen punk songs as starting points but too much chaos and musicality to stick to that formula - instead they get weird and artsy. Absolutely rips.

Shaggy slacker rock surprisingly brimming with hooks. Loping melodic bass, fuzzy guitars, sweetly earnest vocal harmonies, a bit of noise around the edges. Jangly power pop with the gain up high that tumbles occasionally into grittier terrain.

A thunderstorm without lightning. The darkness before the pop dawn of the cure, this is an album of despairing desperate depression from the bleakest British night. It's an incredible achievement of swirling synth textures, guitars picking out melodies through a heavy cloud of modulation effects, of vocals the fade and decay before drawing breath to go again. none of this has the hooks or choruses of their greatest hits, but makes up for it with the full spectrum lush wallowing.

So hard to listen to this on its own terms as opposed to being just a progenitor, as something typical of one of the major traditions that fused and morphed until it became the basis of huge swathes of American popular culture. But what it is is a man and his guitar and a nice singing voice who isn't afraid to yodel or trade verses with a pal.

It is funny to see how far back anxieties about Americana authenticity go, how long city slickers have wanted to play cowboy, how much traditional genres are co-opted and re-animated by interlopers and commercialism, and how unstable the whole mess of roots has always been. In the end, the real America is wanting to be country, being worried someone will call you phony, and overcompensating by being as old fashioned as possible.

Dark grimey stuff emphasizing dissonance and discord, deconstructing the synthy indie dance punk music of the era by running it through an industrial shredder and attempting to recompose the remainder.

Dumb rock and roll fun from dawn of punk, they're doing budget glam with all the skill and production nous of a highschool battle of the bands, but that gives it a great mix of ironic joking and earnest commitment to the bit.

Probably the most polished commercially designed smoothed over and predigested album of nu metal. All the parts are there: down tuned riffs, bad raps, dj scratching, big shouty hooks, vaguely directed anger at liars and 'you' - but the aggression is dialed back and reigned in, made safe for the teenage suburban bedrooms where this ire is most strongly felt.

One of the strangest parts of aging is seeing the shitty radio bands of your youth become beloved legacy acts. I thought this was just disposable fake metal for tasteless morons and that once or went away once we were done for good. But as LP themselves say 'nothing seems to go away' and we're stuck with this juvenile - but not in a fun way - bullshit for ever. I do love using the phrase 'everything you say to me takes me one step to the edge and I'm about to break' in casual conversation though, so thanks for that.

The birth of corporate americana. The high fructose corn syrup of music. Unbridled commercial drive meets rock solid musicianship, expert recording/production, a few ears for a hook and a great flair for harmony. This combination of endless self pity and smarmy good time smooth easy feeling is the pure uncut essence of boomerism. Overplayed, but for a reason. Perfect lead guitars and some slinky baselines. But God it sucks. Bloated and boring as an album, they're the definition of a greatest hits band.

Buzzing guitars, gritty doubled up bass riffs, hard hitting drums, guttural throaty vocals, all assembled with grinding aggresive production make this a bit of an assault on the sense. A bit like, but a lot more unsung than, the classic post-hardcore bands like Sonic Youth, Fugazi, Dino Jr, Husker Du etc, this is from a bit later, from the grunge/alt rock era, where this heavy distorted sound had all been a bit more normalized, and more melodic sensibilities had crept in to make the leap from the diy space to the radio. This album is still on the harsher, more aggressive, less accessible side of that spectrum though, leaning heavily into the scuzzy low end, the abrasive textures, and the violent dynamics - and it fucking rips. Very strange I'd never heard of this before...

Favorites: Bughouse, Rockets are Red, Go Be Delighted

I've always like but never quite loved this album and still don't fully get the hype. It's an experiment in distortion and dissonance and layering, of lettting waves and waves and waves build up and crash around and seeing what difference patterns, warbles, echoes, shimmers, tremors and modulations emerge - it ends up as an impossibly thick fog of fuzz barely illuminated by the ethereal vocals that shine over the top, brightening the mist without clearing it away. It's at its best when it lets an actually melody emerge from the mire and introduce more dynamics to the shifting field.

Favorite: When You Sleep, what you want, only shallow, soon

The most mellon twisting album of the 90s - at once ecstatic and miserable in a uniquely Mancunian mode. Sprawling dance rock that's wild, ecclectic, hedonistic: a triumph of the pure desire to have a good time over the necessity of talent. Fun remixes too.

An album that captures a moment of eclosis: the glam butterfly emerging from the chrysalsis of garage. An album that asks: what if Ziggy Stardust was a SICKO and TWISTED?! It's basic rock and roll played for high drama, leaning into the HORROR persona and SHOCKING SICKENING REPULSIVE content that would come to define the band. Even if the spectactle of the band was something DEMONIC, these are still 60s guys at heart who can't away from the damn harmonica and white boy blues rock rhythms and so musically this is pretty boring stuff. Wish it was half as SATANIC and SCARY as the pearl-clutchers feared...

Extremely cool glam punk that's a rocking stew of television style spindly lead guitars, Elvis Costello new wave synth, Doorsy psych organ parts, Iggy Pop garage rock drive, Modern Lovers aloof cool guy vocals. It's got a real spacious spare production and an almost disco inflected rhythm with actual danceable beats - damn this really rips.

A band I always feel I ought to like but never quite manage to. Something about the way their albums are mixed ends up sounding thin and tinny, so the abrasive aggressive guitars end up come across as scratchy and grating and the voice as overly nasal and annoying - the overall effect is fizzy and muffled. The recordings really don't do justice what could be great songs, proto pop punk brimming with hooks and tight riffs and inventive playing.