Reviews by dohej

The forbidden riff. 5/8 good songs (even if 1 is ruined by overplay), 1 amazing song (When the Levee Breaks), and 2/8 forgettable fillers (Evermore, Four Sticks). IV sees LZ's transition from proto-metal hard blues rock towards proto-prog, developing more complex song structures, more elaborate instrumentation and production, and goblin-type lyrical content. But don't worry, fans of white dudes screeching "mama", you will not be disappointed. The delicate mandolin/acoustic guitar duet on Going to California is an unexpected highlight. The huge drums on Levee are undeniable. And corny as it is, the solo on Stairway rips.

Surprising melding of early 70s country-rock sensibilities with soul/RnB sounds - not what I was expecting at all. The funk bass lines are great: dancey and hypnotic they propel the songs along. Hammond organs and sparse electric guitar build up the jazzy chords, rhythm and vamps. Bongos add more texture on top of the drums and horns come in for quick solos (move with me) in transition and strings appear for dramatic effect (sweet surrender). The vocals are not my thing. Impressive range and strong delivery, but it always sounds like he's doing a bit. So much wailing and the scatting is way too much (get on top). Nighthawkin veers into 70s sitcom theme song territory. Honk Kong Bar is more of the acoustic folk sound I associated with TB. Make it right is a jazzy western.

Favourite: devil eyes, make it right

This is an album for people's who's favorite band is Spinal Tap. I can't believe this is on the list, I always thought this was a novelty act or the glam Jackie Jormp-Jomp. The Darkness is a mash up of AC/DC and Boston with Geddy Lee on vocals regurgitating every 70s rock cliche. They're good at it (the guitar tones and harmonic leads do replicate the 70s arena rock sound perfectly) and its pretty fun but because the hooks don't have the worn-in familiarity of decades of radio super-saturation the songs don't elicit the begrudging hum-along of even dreck like "More than a Feeling." Could see this being a fun bar-band, but an all-time album? At its best you could put this on while you're painting a wall and forget is on, but when it calls attention to itself its extremely annoying.

Favorites: Growing on Me, the first 20 seconds of Holding my Own

Nice layering of textures and sounds and creative production. The sound is very full across the band - as the bass/keys/rhythm guitar form kind a driving mush that pulses along while the guitar leads work really well to propel the songs from verse to verse, experimenting with some interesting tones. It's very contemporary sounding. Bowie isn't retreading old sounds, but digested the alt rock and indie sounds of the 90s/00s (that he influenced) and comes out the other side to make an album that's very much in synch with rock of the 2010s. Some signature elements are there: his voice and melodic style, the interstellar lyrics, the squigly reverb-drenched guitar bursts, cheesy synths and noodly sax. It's never quite as anthemic his classics, but has some catchy hooks. In the end though, this is Mid-tempo rock with very tasteful production/arrangement, but clearly carried onto the list by being Bowie.

Favorites: The Stars, Dancing Out in Space, You Feel so Lonely

Sparse sythn-driven slow-burning 80s sad-guy pop - a bit like Killing Joke or a less exuberant Peter Gabriel. The vocals are the dominant element; slightly hoarse, plaintive, searching, and introspective, operating within a fairly narrow range but using volume dynamics to shift intensities they convey loneliness, loss, and a sense of life happening elsewhere. There's a lot of lyrical repetation, emphasis on choruses and individual lines rather than extended verses. The synths are more upbeat: shimmering and arpegiatted with bright tambers. The bass and very reverby drum machine tracks are very synth-sounding too, giving the whole thing that pure-plastic post-modern sound. There's the odd bit of very compressed-clean guitar that comes in as an accent in key moments to build up tension (like in Stay). Easter Parade is a slow piano ballad and big change of tone. Heatwave is another ballad, but much more interestingly arranged, with a very layered bed of synth and keyboard parts as chill and inviting platform for the singer to float over.

Favorites: Stay, Heatwave

"Anyone who's ever been on it, knows exactly where it's at"

This album is all about the lyrics and the guitars. The sound is traditional guitar rock with the odd country-twinge. When it dials in the three guitar attack is a blistering force of distortion and harmony. The vocals aren't virtuoso or anything but perfect for the songs, raspy and hoarse with a heavy accent. Great songwriting overall, and all tied together through an exploration of 'the duality of that southern thing' and a radical act of self-mythologizing, projecting the band into the southern rock cannon in Skynard's wake. Though the valiant effort to articulate an anti-racist Southern heritage and de-exceptionalize the south as THE site of American racism sometimes comes across as mostly self-exculpatory. The personal songs and family stories are the strongest. I love Cooley's songs on this album: Highway 72's verses, Women without Whiskey's jangly guitars, Zip City's yearning angry vocals and squeaky squirrely solo. A bit too much of a good thing though; the double album drags on a bit even though the quality of the songs doesn't dip, it's a bit samey. Decoration Day would be my pick for a DbT album instead. It makes sense they've released so many live albums, as this is really a band you have to see to believe.

Suffers from being over-played when I was a teenager, too much radio play, and an over-hyped reputation so it's impossible to approach with any freshness. This is my least favorite of the first 4 Led Zeppelin albums and the big hits songs (Living Loving Maid, Whole Lotta Love) here are the most over-familiar and least interesting. Heartbreaker still goes though - even if the riffs are all too familiar, the heavily distorted fuzzed out guitar on here still sounds amazing and Page's blistering pentatonic solos still scratch that teenage itch. Ramble On is my favorite track, pointing at the direction they'd go for III and Houses of the Holy (Thank You as well). Driven by an acoustic guitar riff, layered with distorted electric leads, delay and reverse effects, organ adornment, and propelled by the kinetic bassline. The Lemon Song especially is a bass masterclass. Jimmy Page and John Bonham get the plaudits, but John Paul Jones's hyperactive bass playing is really fantastic throughout: ranging, melodic, pulsating under the riffs and holding it together while the guitar and drums are going off.

Easy listening blues rock, the best bit is the harmonizing guitar leads and melodic (vs shredding) solos. The songs are overlong - chugging along through one basic chord progression over and over verse chorus chorus chorus solo chorus. Tuesday's Gone is good, the rest is pretty meh and I cannot listen to Freebird one more time. Listen to Little Feat and the Allman Brothers instead.

Amazing combination of dark and honest lyrical contentwith incredibly light-hearted, blissfully corny, and over the top songs. I only knew the hits coming into this, so am surprised at how deep the album goes and how wide-ranging it is. George Michael appropriates huge swaths of the 70s & 80s pop sound pallet: the kitschy achey breaky heart country sounds on Faith, the ghostbusters keyboard laying it down on I Want Your Sex, the Procul Harum-style organ vamp on One More Try, the Parliament space-funk bass on Hard Day; the minor-key Pet Shop Boys synth on Hand to Mouth; the Dire-Straights guitar/horns poprock of Look at Your Hands; the Peter Gabriel response song Monkey. He ends up creating some exuberant pure-pop that's moves across genres and styles - that mix keeps the album interesting from song to song. The coherent strand is his singing/lyrics that really sell it and mean it doesn't come across as ironic pastiche - he's having fun with it, but it isn't a joke. It's pop, so the vocal performance is the star: ranging with tight control from whispered intimacies to wailing lovesongs to anthemic affirmation. The songs are all maybe a minute too long.

Lindisfarne soundsystem represent. Dark techno combined with monastic chanting, complex rhythms and layer upon layer of sound shifting in and out - the music never settles for very long. Definitely more like the soundtrack to a video-art installation than radio music - but that's what she's going for. Between Icelandic lyrics on some songs and Bjork's vocal style there aren't a lot of hooks or memorable melodies to hang on to. Instead, this is about sonic textures, dissonances resolving and harmonies dissolving, poly-vocal stuttering, singing degrading into noise-making...like the voices in your head having it out on a windswept hebridean island. The album is all about the vocals, but there are some fantastic synth parts like the delicate, shimmering and fuzzy marimba-sound pulsing out the rhythm on Desired Consellation.

Favorites: Where is the Line with You; Who is it... ; Desired Constellation; Triumph of a Heart

The album opens with three tracks of spacey funk: all wah-ed out guitars and astral synths/keyboard sounds grounded by rock-solid bass grooves and locked-in drums. This peaks with the extended jam on Papa was a Rolling Stone that gets pretty psychadelic. Transitions into a soul ballad with cheesy strings then a jazzy doo-wop story song and then a piano and strings-led ballad - these are really plodding and drag on and on - it's really not helped by coming right after such good funk material. Despite that there are some nice clean guitar tones (perfect reverb/tremelo) hitting the chords and the bass lines are so damn good - that's really the stand out performance on this album. "Mother Nature" has a jazzy-RnB soul sound (think Curtis Mayfield) and though slow, is a lot more interesting than the dull middle - more great bass work, and the best vocal performance of the album. "Do Your Thing" brings us back to the funk with a slow, deep groove, great harmonies and horns that fade out but could go on and on. Overall, The Temptations' 60s pop-soul stuff is much stronger and other artists would take this space funk sound much further in the 70s but this is an interesting transition between the two. And the bass is so good.

Favorites: Papa was a Rolling Stone, Do Your Thing

Classic case of not for me, dawg. There's just an inante sci-fi looser energy coming from this whole thing - sounds like they're huge fans of all of the worst aspects of Led Zeppelin and learned all the wrong lessons from the Who.

The first four minutes is just a series of intro-riffs, so you're just left wondering when the song is going to actually start, then a bomb goes off, a stupid bible quote, and more intro riffs into the first verse (4:50). Then it ends with a few notes on a lute before burbling water takes us into the next song in the overture. They do the 'chinatown riff' at the start of passage to bangkok. They make the typical prog error of confusing having lots of parts in songs for having interesting song-writing. The songs just seem like cobbled undeveloped ideas, but sound totally sterile. They have a reputation for being super technical complex prog-wizards, but these riffs are just power chords! His voice is powerful, but if you're not into it its pretty grating. The drums are too hyperactive to actually establish much of a beat.

Think of something positive to say...The breakdown at the 19 minute mark of the overture is pretty fun. The bass playing throughout is good. The guitar tone is cool and there are spurts of twin-lead harmonies I liked. The guitar solos are ok, and a respite from the singing. Despite a 20 minute opening track, it's only 38 minutes long...

It's amazing how stripped back these songs are: snare, kick & high-hat, some jazz samples for horns, and a bass line - the perfect platform for Q-Tip's hyper-enunciated clean and clear delivery with his classic cadence that itself carries the beat. You see how this that spawned a million cringey mystical-lyrical slam poetry imitators. Playful and conversational, the lyrics here vary between story-telling and abstract - mostly upbeat and bright-eyed. Overall the sound is laid-back and affirmative with a underlying sense of humor. Description of a Fool and some of the other songs with longer instrumental sections hint at what would become down-beat, instrumental hip-hop, and trip-hop.

They're having fun messing around with samples and peicing it all together, could have more restraint sometimes (Why does it start with a 7-minute collage of 4 song-ideas with one good verse between them?! Why the tag 'say rhythm' bit at the end of Ham and Eggs?). These sample-heavy albums can be kind of distracting (where's that from? What else have I heard that in?) but some fun bricolage as they graze on, digest, and renew the archive of 20th c pop rnb soul and rock.

Lots of great tracks: Luck of Lucien, El Segundo, Bonita Applebum, Can I Kick It, Youthful Expression, Go Ahead in the Rain

Along with Live/Dead this is the best live album there is, capturing the red-hot Allman Brothers giving birth to the jamband. Duane Allman is unstoppable on slide guitar - the phrasing, the rough-fuzzy tone that becomes crystaline as he climbs the neck, the electrifying runs and perfect fills between his brother's lines. Dickey Betts isn't bad either, adding major-key country melodies and jazz sensibilities that bring a joyful climax the blues jams. Gregg Allman's singing is deep and corny and moving; the drummers can't stop and Berry Oakley's bass holds it all together. The only thing wrong with this album is that it isn't the deluxe edition, where Whipping Post fades and those first few gentle notes of Mountain Jam kick emerge. Blues rock should have stopped after this really as what's the point, but don't hold the millions of tiresome blues-dads that followed them against the Allman Brothers, this is an all-timer.

Ray Charles is strangely a gap for me, so I'm pleased to sit with this one. With RC's singing and piano at the center of a selection of mostly ballads, this oscilattes between genres depending on the accompaniment from upbeat Swing & Jazz with horns (bye bye love, half as much, just a little loving, don't tell me your troubles) to slow-burning Scmaltz with strings (you don't know me, born to lose, I love you so much it hurts).

It's as if the album was constructed to demonstrate how much better one style is than the other. The schmaltzy stuff is really pretty dire - as good as RC's vocals are they only rarely (I Can't Stop Loving You, I'll Never Stand in Your Way) elevate this tedious plodding chintzy 50s crooner crap. The horns songs really rip though, punctuating the vocal performance with jazz riffs, the odd solo, and lots of energy to go with the walking bass and swinging drums - providing the classic counter-part to the lovelorn ballads. "Worried Mind" brings the two sides together into a cool blues with strings supporting a jazzy piano-forward arrangement.

In a nod to the album's title, "You Win Again" brings a country-inflected gospel sound to support another unbelieveable vocal performance. Another Hank Williams Classic, "Hey Good Looking" is re-invented as a really lively big-band swing, while the childish "You Are My Sunshine" becomes a fully adult motown soul track. His "You're Cheating Heart" is less successful: it's slowed way down and uses swelling strings and thick harmony from the backing singers that takes too much of the honkytonk life and cheekiness out of the original.

No surprise, but the singing really is the star here - reaching and tender but always in control - we hear hints at the latent virtuosity, but always delivered in service of the song.

The whole THE BEATLES thing is annoying as hell and I'm always tempted to reactively underrate them because of their obnixious place in the pop cannon, but then you hear the albums and try to forget that stuff and, well, damn... This album is all Jangle and Swagger, incredible melodic and harmonic sensibility combined with propulsive energetic playing, high tempos - like they're impatient with the boundaries of the pop-rock song and about to burst beyond it. Tried playing along on guitar and the changes come so fast, incredibly restless music. The John-led stuff hits hardest of course.

The best songs on here are dreamy and chill with Christie McVie & (obvs) Stevie Nicks vocals and her distinctive melodic phrasing.supported by spacey textures, and the bass carrying a lot of the music forward (Over & Over, Sara, Storms, Brown Eyes) or other SN-led songs with a more full chugging along on a groove rock-sound (Angel, Sisters of the Moon). They're experimenting with a lot of other stuff (sounds, tones, genres, instrumentation): there's a Stevie Wonder-style clavinet sound (The Ledge), generic 80s arena rock sound (Thing about me, walk a thin line), 70s country-rock sound (save me a place, that's all for everyone and the synthy I know I'm not wrong, honey hi), some devo-sounding synthy stuff (not that funny). There's some interesting guitar work (messing with reverse tape effects, volume swells and stuff) like on What makes you think you're the one? but the song is too Elton-John mashing a piano in 4/4 staccato to be interesting. Again, best stuff is when the guitar is drenched in reverb nicely compressed, sitting alongside SN vocals. Lots of songs on here - nothing as stand out as their greatest hits and a fair bit of filler - but the best songs highlight the best aspects of the band.