Reviews by gnarkillbeast

i have a similar problem with this album that i did with the willie nelson stardust album; none of the songs are hers. she has a great voice and did a good job with these songs but i wish there was some original material here. its a fun album that id happily listen to again but i cant give it a 5.

nothing on here is particularly impressive but its better than his other album on the list. at the very least there are one or two songs that i didnt hate.

man this reminded me so much of leonard cohen: poetry over very sparse arrangements. almost every song is beautifully written and performed, but there is little contrast between them making the entire album feel static. any individual song(except green eyes) could be a five on its own but as album it drags alot.

my favorite of the my bloody valentine albums we've had(it didnt take much). i still dont really get the hype. most of the songs are like sitting next to a guitarist who just discovered fuzz and reverb and insists they only work when cranked to the max. in the next room over theres a drummer playing while submerged in water and also your neighbor is doing karaoke in the shower. the last few songs were way more interesting than anything offered by than the rest of the album and brought the score up by 1.

this is a tough one to rate. on one hand every song is genuinely enjoyable; great singing and great playing. on the other hand, youve heard 90% of the song in the first 20 seconds. he establishes the motif immediately then that ostinato repeats for the remainder of the track, with what little development there is coming from additional instruments slowly layered in. from what ive been able to find it seems that is typical of african blues, potentially due to alis influence. i think if you removed the vocals and sold this to me as an ambient album i wouldve received it much better.

this was fine, not something id want to listen to again. the fact that ben gibbard is a big fan of this makes a lot of sense in retrospect.

i was over this album halfway through. there were some decent songs on here but an absolutely incredible amount of filler. i was between a 2 and a 3 until i hit the last song which had a 10 minute one synth chord outro. i kept listening expecting it to kick back into the song or go into a hidden track but nothing ever materialized. wish i wouldve read the reviews mentioning it before i listened to the whole thing. either way it loses points for adding to an album that was already too long.

nothing groundbreaking but an interesting listen. to me they sound like an indie version of the doors.

i did not expect to like this as much as i did. overall i thought most of the songs well performed and well produced. that said, the songs arent good enough to warrant the runtime. the fact that manson is apparently a terrible person and the repeated use of slurs in the opening track dont help. realistically if you cut a few songs this couldve been a 4 but as it stands its a 3 with a point knocked off for personal antics.

ive heard this album before and didnt enjoy it. its been many years but looking on spotify i see a mono version and a stereo version. im guessing i listened to the mono version back then. i listened to the stereo version this time and i enjoyed the album way more. production is still pretty rough around the edges compared to what their contemporaries were doing at the time. the instrumentation is great, especially guitar which makes sense given jeff beck played on every track. overall not a bad listen.

R.I.P. Chris Cornell. i'd never heard this full album but was familiar with half the songs already so i had high expectations and they did not disappoint

some absolute bangers and some decent filler. fun listen nonetheless

this one is nostalgia bait for me; i used to really like this one. unfortunately it doesnt hold up as well as i remember. i still enjoyed the genre bending that beck gets into but i could easily see some of the weaker tracks dragging this down for someone who doesnt already have fond memories of them. my favorite song from this album has always been "girl" due to the super poppy groove contrasted with the darker lyrics about stealing the life of his sun-eyed(cyanide) girl. i have to give it a 5 even if it really only deserves a 4

a little dull at times but a pretty good album for the folk rock genre. really enjoyed the instrumental songs and a bit of a detour to a more jazzy sound.

like asmr recorded at a german construction site. lots of beating and banging and some shouting in german. this isnt nearly as bad as people make it out to be. theres lot of tension created by the various sounds but underneath there is a steady mechanical groove that drives the songs forward. i will admit my view is influenced by the bonus tracks on the end of version i heard. the bonus tracks have a lot of similar ideas but are more akin to what to what someone would expect from an album of music.

ultimately id rather listen to this over another boring post punk, folk, or britpop album by an artist no one has talked about in 40 years.

great songs but they werent interesting enough to warrant the 5 and 6 minute runtimes; not every song needs to be a sprawling epic.

i was disappointed in this album. i didnt expect it to live up to the hype of karma chameleon but i did expect it to be better than it was. i guess i was expecting more church of the poison mind and less black money. overall it was fine

expected more run of the mill post punk so the industrial elements really took me by surprise. a few of the songs dragged on a little too long but most stayed pretty fresh through their runtime.

this album is the logical stepping stone between the funeral dirge that was his debut album and the more haunting poems of his third. unfortunately its more like the former. id probably enjoy the songs performed by another artist.

fantastic listen. short, hooky songs with just a touch of talking heads weirdness