Reviews by galway_rat

August 15, 2024

HL: “Sometimes”, “Goodbye Toulouse” “Get a Grip”

+ bass
+ keyboards

- - the fact that a lot of quirky, punky albums around this era pale in comparison to the B-52’s debut, even though I have to live with the three stars I gave THAT one. Maybe I’ll be yearning for this one a year from now

P.S. hearing this and their 1979 album “The Raven” back-to-back; I appreciate them leaning into the (somewhat tacky) keyboard sound of Rattus Norvegicus

August 13, 2024

HL: “Murder Mystery”, “Jesus”, “Pale Blue Eyes”

Held off rating for a day to collect my thoughts, & I still don’t know wot I think of this
Not as strong as the Banana one, but definitely a gentler listen.
“Murder Mystery” is straight up a Sonic Youth song

Overrated

August 12, 2024

HL: “Skipping”, “Party Fears Two”, “Country Club”, the instrumentals

Perhaps I’m rating this too high, but I was fascinated with this album.
Look at a song like “It’s Better This Way”- it’s not worlds apart from what the Cure were doing around this time, but perhaps even eerier with its repetitive, discordant synth strings.
Or “Club Country”, one of the poppiest songs, yet the production drowns it in these aggressive, sci-fi sound effects in the background.
I’m not making much of a case for why I like Sulk so much, but unlike a few of the new wave/post punks on this list, it grabbed my attention and didn’t let go.

August 10, 2024

Oh God, I’ve:
-listened to this over and over
-seen the movie
- bought Roger Waters: The Wall tour on BluRay
- watched R.W. do songs from this album with my own eyes in 2017

Is there any point in listening again? Are there any surprises left that my seventeen-year-old self hasn’t already gleaned?

Well, I’ve never noticed the rhythmic breathing in “Don’t Leave Me Now”
Or just how much noise is in the background in “Is Anybody Out There?” & “Nobody Home”

But yep- “Mother”, “Comfortably Numb”, the “this is when the Nazi section comes in” section- they’re all where I left them.

As pompous and self-pitying as it can be, there’s also basically nothing I’d change about it- right up to the breathtaking dementia of “The Trial”

Take ya 5 stars & get outta my face

August 11, 2024

HL: "Willow", "Gold Rush", "Happiness", "Marjorie"

As good as the music has been lately, much of it seems suited to much colder weather than what I've been having; Seventh Tree, Porcupine, & especially this,
tisn't the damn season

Funny that around the same time I started this project (early 2021), both this and Folklore were still pretty new & fresh. However I gave the latter my attention (rare for anything Swift-related), while only hearing a couple songs from this one.
Since it's been a few years since I listened to Folklore in full (& a year since listening to 1989), I can judge Evermore as its own release and not just offcuts from the preceding album.
It's definitely the most interesting of the 3, in my opinion; the electro/acoustic sides balance themselves really nicely, & some rich, atmospheric moments ebb and flow by like in "Happiness", "Closure" & "Gold Rush".
I do wonder whether my preference for this over 1989 has more to do with the "sad Christmas" aesthetic than actual lyrical content & song structure. For every "Willow" that I was vibing to, there was a "Champagne Problems" that I didn't really engage with. It's still a pretty consistent listen. A far cry from 1989, which had at least one song I plain do NOT like ("Bad Blood").

3.5, maybe a 5 later

August 9, 2024

Not first listen, though it’s been awhile (I seem more familiar with the 1st half than the 2nd)

One of those albums I like more than when I first heard it the first time (see also: Ok Computer, The Wall, Prefab Sprout’s Steve McQueen)
A lot of people on this site (understandably) prefer Rumours’s illusion of a band united; however, I appreciate how in Tusk, each of the creative forces get away with doing their own thing.
Part of me believes that Lindsay doing his own drums on some of his songs instead of Mick is arrogance; the other part feels that it probably was the quickest way to reach his idea of modern/punk music.

Sara, Storms, Brown Eyes, The Ledge, Not that Funny, Save Me a Place, Beautiful Child, the TITLE TRACK 🎺
I friggin love this

August 7, 2024

HL: “Sumthin’ Wicked”, “Waterfalls”, “Diggin’ on You”, “Creep”

I haven’t really given classic hip-hop its due recently (with both Digital Underground & Eminem ranking pretty low on albums I can’t wait to listen to again).
CrazySexyCool, while more neo-soul than rap, has been more enjoyable. Like the previous two, it also has the skits working to, if I had to guess, fill out the length to an hour. Idk if it's an essential album, but it contains some essential songs ("Creep", "Waterfalls")

August 8, 2024

It’s been a long road to get to a THIRD Echo album

Gee willikers I did not care about this album until about 10 seconds into “The Cutter”, & now it’s one of my favourite albums in a minute.
I didn’t get the gothy fix I was craving with The Sisters of Mercy, but Porcupine, with its strange song structures, “found” percussion & cavernous reverb, gets me there.
The austere glacier on the front cover talks a mean talk, but is appropriate for the icy contents within

August 7, 2024

HL: “Clowns”, “Happiness”, “Eat Yourself”, “Caravan Girl”, “A&E”

August 2, 2024

HL: title track, “Freedom Train”, “Rosemary”, “Empty Hands”

A little patchwork in quality, but I enjoyed this debut for its mix of the Beatlesque (title track) & psych-funk (“Fear”, “Freedom Train”)

3.5

not the BEES
I know exactly one song of theirs that I'm very fond of, which I found in a chance LimeWire discovery. I was looking for "Stand" by R.E.M. and I somehow downloaded a 2007 Bees song of the same name. Worth the untimely demise of my parents' Windows XP PC

Okay, recognized that riff from Os Mutantes immediately

Sometimes I sniff at white (usually British) bands co-opting sounds of the Caribbean, or Brazil, but, ehh *gestures at Paul Simon, The Police, The Clash, this album* clearly there are a lot of examples I enjoy

Okay, despite the fact that it got almost too breezy towards the end, Sunshine Hit Me is also exactly what the doctor ordered on a hot, hazy afternoon.

HL: "No Trophy", "Bimmel Bay", "Zia",

August 1, 2024

(the night of) July 31, 2024

HL: "Lucretia", "This Corrosion", "Driven Like the Snow", "Never Land"

Points for being big & gothic & ridiculous; points taken for the canned 80s drums & talk-sung vocals that I feel take away from the atmosphere these songs could have possessed.
I bet the Sisters would be better live

3.5

2021: I got Blue,
2022: Court & Spark,
2023: The Hissing of Summer Lawns,
Now Hejira, on July 31, 2024

ooh I'm liking the echoey, dark, desert landscape this evokes so far

The less conventional song structures are back, last heard in Hissing. Though this album is a lot more consistent sounding than that one, it lacks Hissing's element of surprise (insert African drum loop here).

The interplay between Mitchell & Pastorius's guitars may be the best thing about Hejira.

I suspect this might be numero uno for Mitchell albums on this website, but I also thought that about the last 3.
This & Court & Spark are the two I have a physical copy of, so maybe they can fight for the top?

HL: "Coyote", "Amelia", title track, "Black Crow"

HL: “Gimme All Your Lovin” "Sharp Dressed Man", "Legs", "I Need You Tonight"

At least we’ll always have the 1st half of Eliminator

I’ve heard the singles (not “Tv Dinners”, thank goodness) many, many times growing up on BOB FM; they were one of my entry points into 80s rock culture, along with The Cars, Guns n’ Roses and the legendary Weird Al.
It’s clear after the halfway point that it doesn’t really get better than those singles, though I appreciate “Thug” & “I Need You Tonight” for being the outliers in a pretty homogenous-sounding record.

3.5

July 30, 2024

HL: "Sunflower", "Holy Man", "Country", "5th Season", "Shadow of the Sun"

Okay, we're at Paul Weller #4, after two the Jams & one The Style Council.
Does this need to be on the list? My answer is no, it sounds like from my extensive Wikipedia skimming that Weller wanted to make a Traffic album and succeeded, but we already have Traffic (plus the aforementioned Weller albums, plus John Martyn who was another major influence on this album).
H O W E V E R
This may also be one of the best ones on the generator this week, besides Bone Machine; the straightforward, easy-going nature makes it a great companion to the morning of my day off.
"Shadow of the Sun" is the longest track by far, but it's also my fave

Let me preface this by saying, I try to listen to every album like a friend has recommended it to me. Most of the time it has helped keep my mind open, but I hated PiL’s First Issue almost immediately. Imagine my disbelief when I found out there was another on this list, longer and even more abrasive (according to reviews) >:0
But, like many entries on this list, my opinion of First Issue has changed over time, most notably with the opening track “Theme”. Once an atonal slog, the emotion & intensity became more believable to me on repeat listens. It also seems to be the prototype for how this album sounds, cold & uncompromising.
Yet against all odds, this longer offering felt easier to listen to. While the greater focus on the rhythm section and atmosphere drove many of the songs into repetition & abstraction, it also means there’s less of Johnny Rotten’s more annoying vocal tendencies.
If you’ve heard Trans-Europe Express, you might agree that despite the repetition, you feel like you’re in transit, on the way somewhere. Metal Box/Second Edition, gives me a similar vibe, except the destination sounds a lot more ghastly.
There are perhaps too many stinkers to rank it higher (um, “The Suit” for one, don’t really like “Albatross” either), but overall I loved the strange guitar tone (which maybe isn’t as strange compared to later new wave releases), as well as the more dubby bass from Jah Wobble.

HL: “Radio 4”, “Graveyard”, “Poptones”, “Swan Lake”, “Memories”

July 27, 2024

July 28, 2024

:/

July 29, 2024

HL: the title theme, "Romantic Theme", "Aaina Wohi Rehta Hai", "Hum Bewafa Hargiz Na They", "Baby Let's Dance"

I didn't do this justice. Apple Music didn't have this (despite claims on the Internet to the contrary), and the YouTube upload turned out to be in a random order, so my primary criticism about the songs not flowing properly doesn't hold up.
There was enjoyment to be had, despite the fact that I've never tried listening to a Bollywood soundtrack before today. It's kinda trippy, although some of the effects (esp. the reverb on the vocals) were distracting. For those confused about this inclusion on the list, let me make the following suggestion:

wah wah sitar

3.5/5

Now I'll listen to College Girl, out of a desire for completion; it's not a real entry, but the book lists Shalimar & College Girl together, and I just do as the book guides
update: "In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida" jumpscare

July 26, 2024

HL: “Between the Bars”, “Pictures of Me”, “Speed Trials”, “Say Yes”

One of those albums I feel like I should enjoy more than I do. Punisher by Phoebe Bridgers was a favourite a few years ago, and it’s clearly inspired by Elliott Smith. That isn’t to say he doesn’t strike a chord from time to time, particularly in songs from his later albums (“Waltz No. 2”) but Either/Or’s honest, conversational lyrics come with songs that aren’t as remarkable to me.