Reviews by dohej

An album as bleak as 2003, Hail to the Thief captures the ambient dread, malice, and sense of distant violence of the metropole at the dawn of the global war on terror. It kicks off with 2+2=5's synths going off like an alarm. There There is that era's best song, a refusal of the injunction to become a terrorized paranoid freak sensing danger lurking in every corner - "Just cuz you feel it, doesn't mean it's there". The amalgam of electronic sounds and (relatively) raw guitar parts, chaotic techno beats, frenetic synths, close but off kilter harmonies, and bleated vocals ratchet up the tension over and over. Though there is the odd cathartic climax, there's little relief - the songs don't resolve into stable melodies or return to familiar terrain. Drunken Punch Up offers a bit of a groove to sink into, then layers with with discordance. Myxomatosis has a heavy synth riff that's used a platform for more textural experimentation. Sail to the Moon is a disquieting lullaby with its relaxed piano. ethereal reverby guitar parts, uneasy synths and searching vocals. Wolf At the Door is like a nightmare nursery rhyme with a guitar part that's always falling forward into the next arpeggio without resolving as the vocal descends wildly into a frenzy until catching itself at the last minute, fading away deceptively sweetly. This is the soundtrack of a world spinning out of control.

The two sides of Neil Young - the acoustic balladeer and the electric rocker - share the stage on Harvest, swapping songs, verses, and solos to create a country-rock masterpeice. Harmonicas, close harmonies, exquisite lap steel guitars, and banjos give the album a folksy twang, while the overdriven rhythm guitars and stochastic fuzzy leads bring a heavier, dirtier energy that cuts through the pretty country facade hinting, alongside the gloomy lyrics, of darker depths below. The songs are slow and reflective but the musicianship and vocal performances are so rich it's never dull. NY's voice especially is thin and fragile, almost weak, expressive of a lonely hurt. It's not all brilliant though, "A Man Needs a Maid" and "There's a World" are huge drags, burried under onslaught of ham handed piano and a terrible orchestral arrangement that go for BIG AND SERIOUS but end up sounding like a Disney cartoon.

This album is like a mad glam scientist messing around in the synth lab and emerging with a bizarre mixture of sweet pop (Faraway Beach, Some of them are Old, Cindy), haunted saloon player piano (Driving me Backwards), goopy ectoplasm midway to becoming new-wave (Needles, Dead Finks, Warm Jets, Paw Paw), and freaky avant-punk (Black Frank). Baby's on Fire is somehow all of that and more with an anthemic melodic hook, spooky harmonies and synth work, and a Robert Fripp going demented on guitar for a while section - extremely good. The album is restlessly inventive, alternatingly beautiful and bizarre.

The most soothing album there is, I love it. From the first few piano notes on the first track it announces what it is: spare melodies, vibrating textures, slow, calming waves of tranquil sound and gentle dissonance that resolves quickly into the settled swelling of ethereal synths. Tune in or zone out, pay attention or let it course through you, it's reassuringly there, rising and falling like the sky breathing.

The unique thing about this album is the brilliant sonic construction of space. There's a glossy shimmering surface: pulsating synths and ephemeral keyboards, vibrating tremolo/wah guitar lines, squiggly turntables, and a high hat heavy drum part. The bass is often part of this, high up the neck and melodic, but then drops down low for a big hit in tandem with a bass drum, and all of sudden the depths below the surface reveal themselves - they do this over and over and it's exhilarating in a blissed out chill way. The vocals move across these layers, soaring high and dipping low, breathy and intimate then angsty and ethereal. The exemplary album of a weird shortlived fusion electrorock mini-genre - thoroughly of it's time and place but transcends them and still stands out 30 years later.

From the fade-in on natural mystic, the deep hypnotic bass groove carries this album everywhere it goes, leaving ample room for funky electric piano, soulful horns, guitar stabs and solos, lively percussion, pitch perfect harmonies from the backup singers, and, obviously, an all-time vocal performance from BM. The album is full of inspired interplay and joyful back and forth between the musicians/singers, all feeding each other and running with each other's ideas creating endless layers of rhythm and melody. I could live without hearing jamming ever again, but the rest of this is a genre reaching its zenith.

Proto-industrial sounds with a strong emphasis on dark and moody keys and synths. Some good post-punk lead guitar work on a few tracks but as accent rather than the basis of the songs. The vocals are very Bowie-style: off kilter crooning and high drama. A couple songs at the end are a bit tuneless, extremely repetitive, and go on way too long.

Is this the thickest guitar album of all time? Layer upon layer of fuzzed out riffs, overdriven leads, detuned chords, crystalline clear intros, and double, triple quadruple-tracked harmonies are all compressed into a warm, oozey and totally distinctive sound. That sound paired with a great sense of melodic phrasing makes for some of the most inventive and memorable playing of the era. The drums cut through the density of the guitars with sharp bright and clear snare, tom and symbol sounds and an almost jazzy playing style that, rather than doubling down on the heavy riffs, elevates them with a more spacious synchopated approach. If the guitars are thick, the vocals are thin and raspy, nasal and heady: the range is more about volume/intensity than anything else, from whispered, gentle and introspective to searching screams and wails. Like the songs. then, heavy or tender. Amazing musicianship and recording is combined with some of the best alt-rock radio song-writing of the 90s on singles like Today, Cherub Rock and Disarm which still stand up after thousands of plays and brilliant album tracks like Soma, Mayonaise, Hummer, and Spaceboy.

Draws widely on 80s/90s British indie & post-punk influences, channelled through an electronica production and song-writing approach. Dark and heavy mostly, with distorted guitar riffs and synth leads on most songs over industrial drum/bass loops. A bit like Big Black of Nine Inch Nails, but with a bit more of a Happy Mondays dance sensibility. Iggy Pop doing a Sean Connery impression on Aisha is a treat, the slow build on the opener Dirge is draws you in, and the spacey garage track Broken Little Sister is a fuzzed out bit of psych. It's pretty derivative, but of good stuff.

Feelgood Afro-centric 1990s alternative hip hop at its best. Mostly original 'live band-style' jazzy/soul/funk beats with some samples and turntable stuff over the top. Upbeat and uplifting tone combined with dense lyrical content dealing with ISSUES. Sometimes it's a bit cringe, but hard to fault earnestness. The cadence, flow and expressivity of the delivery is great and the vibes are good as hell.

On the folkier pastoral end of the 60s psych spectrum - acoustic guitar songs with strings, horns, harpsichord, etc embellishment. Lots of Major 7 chords and not much a pop sensibility in terms of catchy hooks gives it a floating unresolved kind of listless quality. Some songs have fairly complex compositions with intricate, verging into prog, elements. The few guitar solos are interesting takes on the genre - classic psych fuzz tone, but they never really take off - sticking to kind of stochastic blasts in a pentatonic box, adding rhythm and texture rather than a climax. Overall it has a relaxed cabin in the woods kind of a feel that's undercut by tension/anxiety from the strings - making it an ominous vaguely dystopian album. The main vocal sounds a bit falsetto and artificial - not sure why so many of these late 60s psych/folk bands went for that la la la kids song type singing, it sucks.

Amazing recording and production; this album sounds like a top tier Motown band live in the studio with Lauryn Hill - the deep grooves of the bass, funky Stevie Wonder-sounding clavinets, the tight swing of the drums, and the soulful horns throughout build an incredible platform for her vocals - precisely rapped verses weaving together personal stories, sociological observation, and political critique - her delivery slides between rapping and singing as melodies seem to emerge out of nowhere. Other songs have a more PC-built beat feel, with classic 90s production, turntable scratches, and looped samples - good, but not as timeless or distinctive as the more neo-soul stuff. Her voice is a bit nasal and limited to a mid-high range, but has great expressive vibrato that wraps around the backing vocalists and her own overdubs to create a poly-vocal harmonic gospel choir sound. Nice Bob Marley Burning reference on the cover.

I always associated them with the annoying jangly early stuff so only recently really listened to the Byrds with any attention after following Graham Parsons' discography backwards, so don't think I'd heard this album (apart from the ubiquitous 60s documentary soundtrack song Change is Now) but there's lots to like: Twangy country licks, baroque harmonies, Beatlesy pop melodies, raga drones, psychedelic production tricks, horns, slides, and synths and the occasional blues rock guitar solo - it all comes together better than you'd think in this controlled concise experiment in hippy indulgence. After the elaborate Sgt Pepper-sounding composition of Artificial Energy, the vibes chill out and we get a more blissed out ethereal California sound. The spacey-drone stuff in particular is really good and genre-setting for more exploratory instrumental psych, garage, and high-desert metal.

A dense and punchy sound defined by a thick unrelenting guitar. Warm, bright and overdriven, Bob Mould's playing sits somewhere between rhythm and lead as heavy riffs turn into melodic hooks. Sonically they're often like the Pixies, but the songwriting doesn't use the loud/quiet formula so much and there's not as much space in the music, instead it's a dials in the red full on punk approach like Dino Jr, but with added Rem poppyness: harmonies, catchy controlled vocals, and the odd hard strumming acoustic guitar. 'If I can't change your mind' is a power pop song for 90s alt rock radio. It's a good album that starts strong, but I'd rather put on Husker Du or the comp bands.

Favorites: changes, helpless, the slim

This album samples lots of jazz and FUNK
Then it goes all hardcore PUNK
Beastie Boys rap in a group of THREE
Pretty corny now, but it works for ME
ok I'll stop. This album is good when it's a hip hop album - the BB's and guests' verses are all at a really consistently high level, with inventive beats and sampling, and distinctive cadence/flow. The punk stuff is like C-tier Minor Threat, the jazz stuff is kind of pointless.

Favorites: Sabotage, Update, Get it Together, Do It

This is the dawn of the arena rock sound that would take over the 70s. Who's Next has lots of experiments with sounds and production within fairly conventional rock song structures- from the synths of Baba O'Riley to the weird squirty fuzz guitar sounds and panning phaser lazer sounds on Going Mobile, to the recurrent pairing of big overdriven riffs with a bass-layer of folksy strumming acoustic guitars like on Behind Blue Eyes to the alternating close-harmonies and wailing vocal leads. Because so much of this has become classic rock radio cliche it's hard to listen with fresh ears, but Baba O'Riley and Won't Get Fooled Again are still grab your attention demand you turn up the volume.

There's basically two sounds on this album: Dirty punk songs with fast staccato riffs and fuzzy guitars over snare-banging drums & spacey indie rock with a more melodic lead guitar sound with big reverby toms-banging drums. The vocals are in a high register, alternately yelping and nearly operatic. They were always an ambiently around band listening to indie rock in college but never gave them much of a close listen and I actually though Maps was a Broken Social Scene song for years - that is the standout track on this album, both in terms of quality and aesthetics - it's much gentler, more atmospheric, and anthemic than the rest of the songs, which are tend towards the punk end of the spectrum.

Balaeric dance mashed up with mega-pop, it's somehow simultaneously uptempo, upbeat, anthemic and chill in a trancey way. Liked it a lot more than I expected from only knowing the song Ray of Light previously but it suffers from CD-era bloat. Nothing on here is as aurally infectious as her 80s classics. Basically a solid 90s techno-pop album with some star power.

For some reason I never gave Steely Dan much of a listen, my loss! This album has so much stuff I like - complex but uptempo compositions, dense jazzy arrangements with all sorts of instruments making quick cameos, close harmonies and memorable melodies, virtuoso musicianship and a bit of a sense of humor. The guitar work is great - a range of cool tones from bright clean and compressed to scuzzy and fuzzy playing tight punchy solos with inventive phrasing. The only knock is that it's so polished, rehearsed, and cleanly produced it ends up a bit plastic - it's like smooth Zappa. It seems like their legacy in rock is mostly in jambands.

Like a funky Van Halen or if the Red Hot Chilli Peppers didn't suck. Vernon Reid rips all over this album with a huge bombastic 80s tone, shredding solos, some great riffs, and some Nile Rodgers style disco rhythm guitar. The drums are big, reverby as hell, and go at full blast, the bass is busy and propulsive. All that doesn't leave much space for the singer so he creates it by belting out the vocals at the top of his register at film volume. Some prog elements in there, a bit of slide guitar, loads of chorus pedal, a talking heads cover and the all-timer Cult of Personality.