Reviews by galway_rat

October 18, 2024

Album 930: After 7 main albums and 5 solo ones, no more Beatles for the rest of the list! I kinda liked knowing the next random album might be an excuse to revisit the Fab Four, but since many of the albums I dreaded the most- Napalm Death, Public Image Ltd., 2-hr-long drum-and-bass records- are also behind me, I shouldn’t need my comfort listens to fall back on for a while 🥺

About AHDN: In a perfect world, it would contain “This Boy”, labelled as “Ringo’s Theme” in the actual movie soundtrack. But alas, we must settle for near-perfect.
The songs that ARE contained within are gems. If I had to choose a least favourite it would probably be “I’ll Cry Instead”, but only because John did the country ditty better on Beatles for Sale and Help!.
If I had to choose a favourite… today it’s “If I Fell”, a fragile duet that heralds the more artsy direction they would be heading in. But most days- it’s all about that title track baby 🎸 🎸 🎸

“I’ll Be Back”, “Things We Said Today” & “I’m Happy Just to Dance With You” shoulda been big, but considering the saturation of Beatles Billboard hits at the time, maybe it’s best they didn’t

October 16, 2024

HL: “Tainted Love”, “Youth”, “Entertain Me”, “Say Hello Wave Goodbye”

Sometimes creepy, sometimes bizarre, always camp, always 80s

Very much a ‘time and a place’ kind of album, but overall a fun ride that got better on a repeat listen.

October 15, 2024

Post-rock is one of those subgenres that, on paper, looks boring & dreadful. But my experiences with Sigur Ros, Godspeed! & now Tortoise prove otherwise.

I listened to Echoes and Shine On You Crazy Diamond literally this week, so I reallly shouldn’t complain about the length of “Djed”. Though I wasn’t prepared for all 20 minutes (I should state I knew nothing about this album before today) it IS an impressive feat in moody atmosphere, sometimes more IDM than alt-rock (Radiohead is that you?)
I also really enjoyed the final track, “Along the Banks of Rivers”, for it’s noir-ishness, and “The Taut and the Tame”, despite its proggy noodling.

4/5

I mvst admit… I’m a fan

Screen Violence was one of my favourite listens from 2021. I should admit that I didn’t listen to a second CHVRCHES album until today. However:

*rocks in a rickety chair* back in my day iTunes used to give away free songs to promote new artists. Through that I got tastes of artists like Phosphorescent, Bahamas, Bastille, and CHVRCHES, the last of which gave away the song “Recover”. Long story short, I was rocking to “Recover” years before I bothered to learn any other of their songs

Maybe due to that early exposure, I find this a joy to listen to. As indebted to yesterday's Cocteau Twins as the summery pop in She's Not Unusual by Cyndi Lauper, CHVRCHES’s debut holds up 11 years later. No notes

HL: “Recover”, “The Mother We Share”, “Tether”, “Science/Visions”, “Lungs”, "Night Skies"

October 13, 2024

Is that not the snare from “When the Levee Breaks”…? Either way, it’s really distracting

Bad drum machine aside, I did enjoy the overall experience, definitely fits an old forest in a dark fantasy movie. Hearing another album with Fraser's wordless vocals convinces me Sigur Rós was inspired by the Cocteau Twins.

HL: “Persephone”, “Pandora”, “Donimo”, “Lorelei”

October 12, 2024

HL: "Good Old Days", "Enfant", "Broad Way Blues", "Chippie"

Imagine being the double bass player having to compete with two drummers

Well, apart from a single listen of "The Shape of Jazz To Come" last year, I can't speak much for the source material. And the other main influences at play, thrash & hardcore punk, are ones I generally avoid if I can help it. Yet all these elements smashed together provides a surprisingly compelling listen. I threw some highlights up there but trying to separate the little pieces from the chaotic whole doesn't really do the experience justice.

I may be reading into this, at times, literal noise, but for all that talk about free jazz being intimidating and inaccessible, you don’t need a music education to *get it*. Maybe all one has to do is just Get! in! THE PIT!

2 hrs, 19 minutes and 54 seconds of FUNNN

Wikipedia says "Ballet Dance" is the last song, forgive me if I don't get into the extra 3 hours on A.M.

Like the D&B compilation spearheaded by LTJ Bukem, Logical Progression, this also contains propulsive, intense beats with more atmospheric breakdowns. However, said breakdowns are less enjoyable this time around. They seem less like part of the track and more like a necessity to protect your brain from sensory overload.

"Trust Me", on disc 2, sounds like fragments of a more intriguing album is buried in here. The samples are like something RZA or Nas would've used, but chopped up in an otherworldly way.

Unnecessarily tedious

HL: "Destination", "Share the Fall (Vocal Mix)", "Watching Windows", "Hi-Potent"

10/11/2024

October 10, 2024

HL: "Anti-Pope", “Plan 9, Channel 7", “Love Song”, “Smash It Up”

Well, I like it better than the Dictators & the Stranglers

In fact, one day when my fatigue over early punk has faded, I’ll probably praise this as one of the most unique entries from that era. Less Sid Vicious than Syd Barrett

3.5

October 9, 2024

HL: "Love is Lost", "If You Can See Me", "Heat", “The Stars”

‘How does the grass grow? / Blood, blood, blood”

Not my favourite Bowie, but being a Bowie fan to begin with I didn’t exactly waste an hour. There’s enough musical zaniness to compete with the overall darkness of the record.

In the time since my last Supergrass review, where I typed “hoping they’ll reunite”, they have announced they are in fact reuniting, for the 30th anniversary of this album. Cool!

Coco is punkier than In It For the Money, rarely letting up except in the pause between one song ending & another starting. There's also a sense of restlessness I appreciate, especially for a first album, even if not all of it lands (the pitch-shifting in "We're Not Supposed To).

It's not groundbreaking, it's just likable af

HL: "Sitting Up Straight", "Alright", "Lose It", "I'd Like To Know"

Later on October 8th

October 8, 2024

HL: “Guilt”, title track, “Working Class Hero”, “The Ballad of Lucy Jordan”

I like less than half of this record half as well as it deserves
The other half is brilliant

At #918, it's Jimi Hendrix! Last Jimi was.... album #286.
Now this isn't one of those cases where I get to coast and revisit an old favourite; I only really knew his most popular songs before this challenge. Everything that isn't "Crosstown Traffic", "All Along the Watchtower" or "A Slight Return" is basically new to me.
It's definitely a touchstone of psychedelia.... I probably shouldn't dwell on its length so soon after praising The White Album, S&M & Physical Graffiti, but the hazy, meandering structure did frustrate me a little. The last two songs are about as grand a finale as any album, and "Merman" did provide a journey that no other Hendrix song has provided.

HL: "Voodoo Child (A Slight Return)", "1983....(A Merman I Should Turn to Be)", "Burning of the Midnight Lamp", "All Along the Watchtower"

October 6, 2024

HL: "Karmacoma", "Three", "Sly", "Heat Miser"

could very well be because I'm listening to this while under the weather, but it doesn't do for me what its predecessor, Blue Lines, did.
It's quieter, spookier, & loungier, so I acknowledge it provides a different atmosphere despite the musical similarities to Blue Lines.
Will say it's apropos to this time of year 🍂

October 4, 2024

Perhaps I should’ve saved this after I got caught up on the Metallica double album, but it’s the friggin’ The Beatles (The White Album) [2009 Stereo Remaster]. When it calls, I answer

Matter of fact, I’ll tier-list the whole thing:

C Tier: “Wild Honey Pie”, “Cry Baby Cry”, “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road”, “Savoy Truffle”
B Tier: “Bungalow Bill”, “Rocky Raccoon”, “Don’t Pass Me By”, “Birthday”, “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide”, “Sexy Sadie”, “Honey Pie”
A Tier: “Back in the USSR”, “Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da”, “I’m So Tired”, “Blackbird”, “Piggies”, “I Will”, “Yer Blues”, “Helter Skelter”, “Revolution 1”, “Revolution 9”, “Good Night”
S Tier: “Dear Prudence”, “Glass Onion”, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”, “Happiness is a Warm Gun”, “Martha My Dear”, “Julia”, “Mother Nature’s Son”, “Long Long Long”

I might find this ranking laughable in a couple years, since as a teen I would’ve ranked “Glass Onion”, “I Will” & “Julia” much lower, and perhaps “Monkey” and “Birthday” a bit higher. It is telling that a lot of my favourite moments are among the album’s loneliest & quietest moments, like Paul’s “Mother Nature’s Son”; considering the White Album’s indulgent length & jarring genre shifts, it has provided a comfort listen many, many times.

It’s not even the best of the Beatles, but it may be my favourite album, period. Blame me in the late aughts for choosing the least accessible one to start my Beatles journey with.

Everybody wanna be demons / til they play Revolution 9 at night with the lights off

Late October 3rd, 2024

HL: “Big Iron”, “El Paso”, “Cool Water”, “The Master’s Call”, “Utah Carol”, “In the Valley”

If not the finest country album I’ve heard on this list, definitely in the top 5

Shoutout to “Billy the Kid” & its flipping between A major and A minor

October 2: not today, Metallica

October 5, 2024

Pro: It's Metallica with the S.F.O.
Con: they were still promoting Load/Reload :/
Pro: Pretty much all those cuts sound gud with orchestra
Con: realizing the song "Hero of the Day" was not even halfway through the whole concert
Pro: reading that "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and "One" are yet to come in the 2nd disc :)
Con: "One" is not as good as the studio version
Pro: "Bell" is pretty fantastic

I think my enjoyment of this album needs context. For one, I've never been a real heavy metal fan, with Metallica's albums generally wearing me out before they're actually over. The orchestra, while ofttimes ridiculous & over-the-top, also made me forget I'm listening to a 2-hour heavy metal album.
The other thing is that the rest of the Metallica on this list were all generated quite a while ago (last one was October 2022), so it's a bit nostalgic at this point, hearing these revamped versions of "Nothing Else Matters" and "Battery". Like no time has passed at all ;)

HL: "Master of Puppets", "Fuel", "Wherever I May Roam", "For Whom the Bell Tolls"

October 3, 2024

HL: "North Country Boy", "How Can You Leave Us", "Get On It", title track

I don't know if I'm just saying this because their keyboardist died during recording, but the keyboard is the best thing about this album.

Again, maybe a therapist is the only way to find out what my aversion to 90's rock trends is, but the hip-hop lite: kind of tacky. The Jagger-lite sneering: kind of tacky.
I guess the songwriting & performances are enough to make this an album I decently enjoyed, but ranks pretty low on albums I personally consider essential.

October 2, 2024

I found this on CD :) this’d be the 3rd or 4th time I’ve heard this, then

An upside to the book editors’ tunnel vision after 2010 means that this is the 3rd album this year relating to the Sault collective. Black Is has Kiwanuka, GREY Area has Kiwanuka & Cleo Sol, this has Inflo on production duties. All 3 stunning in their own right, but also each pretty distinctive. I think part of the reason this doesn’t sound like a Sault album has to do with Danger Mouse, who I’m not ENTIRELY sure was an appropriate fit. His compressed beats seem at odds with the orchestral grandeur simultaneously at play.

That’s a minor quibble, though; most of the movement & emotion comes from Kiwanuka’s voice, as well as the songs gracefully overlapping like Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On. I forgot how moody KIWANUKA was, despite the lightness of the closing & opening tracks.

Gotta go with my gut for this rating

September 29, 2024

Spent half of this album frustrated that I wasn't in on the jokes like Tom Waits & his audience were, and the other half going ‘"get the puck outta here", aha hockey I understood that reference’ 🤓

A pleasant enough time, I’d like to come back to this album on a cold day in winter, since the faux live setting is undeniably cozy n’ immersive.

This is probably the least essential Waits on this list, but has tons of character & spontaneity even for a Waits album. Still a bit mad at how long it was, but the good far overweighs the not-so-good this time.

September 28, 2024

I’ve been hearing the name Cedric Bixler-Zavala in the news for a while; however my only exposure to the Mars Volta has been through a song in Guitar Hero IV.
Deciding to dig a little deeper today, pairing this album with Relationship of Command by At the Drive-In, Cedric’s former band, to get a sense of this songwriter.

Alright, that was At the Drive-In. Pretty shouty, but also high energy without being completely exhausting. Reminds me of the (newer) band Alexisonfire. Interestingly, the sfx, sudden changes & odd atmospheric passages suggest that there is already some prog pre-Mars Volta.

Edit: now for the actual album at hand. Deloused is not that far from the earlier band’s post-hardcore sound, though the vocals are more dynamic. The lyrics are hopelessly obtuse, with any attempt to follow the story met with failure. However, the album really shines in the instrumental passages, where hard riffs meet Santana-esque Latin grooves.
The hour (well closer to 2 hours, since I restarted it after getting distracted during the 12-minute “Cicatriz”) was exhausting in a way I usually only get with the heavy metal albums on this list, or experimental ones by Can & Zappa. Yet I can’t help but admire this monstrosity, even though I acknowledge its aggressive moments aren’t generally what I go for.