Reviews by gregorsmith

Portishead took 10 years between their last release and this and there's always a fear that a prolonged hiatus would ruin the bands chemistry.... but no, this is a swirling, brooding, bleak, anxiety ridden masterpiece.

I don't speak the language, but the catchy, late-night Mediterranean energy and blend of North African beats with '90s production felt like a fresh change of pace. At 80 minutes, it gets a bit repetitive, but it was a fun way to step outside my usual comfort zone.

Nothing entirely memorable along the lines of a "Waterloo Sunset" or "Lola", but the whole album flowed together nicely, great compositions, great harmonies, and Ray Davies is just a great songwriter

Happy, breezy New Wave goodness, just quirky enough to make you smile. The unhinged cover of the Stones' "Satisfaction" remains the highlight for me.

You can tell this band influenced Pixies and in turn the whole grunge explosion, but as much as i love those bands, this was a hard listen... Super long, very disorganised, and the good stuff is few and far between

Contemporary Folksy Country, not Country and Western... Just great singer/songwriter vibes that could have been transplanted from Laurel Canyon in the late 60s.

45 minutes of hard driving Blues infused Texas rock that never overstays its welcome, good to great as this genre would be added on to by others, but you can't dispute its groove.

Mark E. Smith doing Mark E. Smith things... but this time it's weirdly accessible.

What's with these mid mid-90s alt/indie albums with a proclivity for going long lately? I had The Verve's Urban Hymns the other day and that too suffered from way too much length, these guys need better producers and editors to make them cut this shit down, not everything needs to fill every second on a.CD, and it definitely doesn't need to be a double album. I mean, if you have multiple 6:00+ songs on your album, the problem isn't the listeners attention span, the problem is you Jeff Tweedy, it's you...

"Epic" is epic, rocks for the most part, but after a hard cover of "War Pigs" it ends on an almost jazzy loungey number in "Edge Of The World", It's then you realise the whole thing is a jumbled mess of contradictions and a better run order would have made it a lot more listenable

Nu Metal really doesn't stand the test of time, and under the modern gaze a lot of this is downright reprehensible. I was never a Korn fan, so I didn't come in here with the cloud of youthful nostalgia, but this just didn't sit right with me at all... Lots of stuff to talk to my therapist about though.

Much like my review of The Charlatans Tellin' Stories from a few weeks ago...

I'm of the age where I could appreciate The Verve when they broke out, they're a tidy band, neither too flashy nor underperforming and were more infamous with their never ending in-fighting and breaking up every other week and Richard Ashcroft properly hating Nick McCabe, but there's no world where this album is in a list of albums you must listen too. You could give me the entire paper content of an office supply store and I still wouldn't get to this album on that list. There's enjoyable stuff on here but it's only cracking the "best of 1997" top 10 lists of old british music rag journalists who wanked themselves blind over any band that knew three chords and could pull an unlikely hit out their arse (looking at you NME & Q).

I mean, 1997 gave us great albums from Radiohead, Blur, Ben Folds Five, Notorious BIG, Foo Fighters, The Prodigy, Missy Elliott, Elliott Smith, Marcy Playground, Sneaker Pimps (those last three being released on the same day), Oasis, and Portishead, then even lower level UK guitar music scene stuff like aforementioned The Charlatans, Stereophonics, Cornershop, Robbie Williams, Ocean Colour Scene. And these were all released either before or the same day as this.

"Bittersweet Symphony" is the stand out but it's long since been played out, and the whole album is overly long and wrought with the notion that length somehow equals epicness and endless lovelorn ballads is what the people wanted. Yeah, there's love if you want it, but it literally didn't need no sonnet.

Bonafide classic and still the best rap album of this century, Outkast at the absolute peak of their powers, putting a little stank on ya.

Basic stock electro beats and echoey processed vocals does not equal good.

Finding I See A Darkness on YouTube after its Spotify absence felt like a chore, and forty minutes of self-indulgence isn’t my idea of fun. Though I like slow, sad music, this lacked depth, more like a rambling street performer mumbling over an out-of-tune guitar, heavy bass, and chaotic harmonies. The title track and “Death to Everyone” might suit Johnny Cash, but overall it’s a tedious, atmospheric indie minimalism that feels like a depressing waste of time... One I'll skip.

Earnest folksy country, almost spoken word poetry put to music

This is the good shit that I'm glad this endeavour makes me listen to, a genre bending tour de force that I never knew existed.

Bonnie Raitt is a wonderful musician, I adore her follow up to this album, Luck Of The Draw, which is a 4.5 to 5 star album on any given day, but this... I *know* it won the Grammy for Album of the Year, I *know* its preserved in the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" but... I just don't hear it....

Its fairly bland, nothing stood out, it was a passable time and I was never compelled to hit skip or stop, but I just don't hear what's so good about this.

Playing Tame Impala music before Tame Impala was Tame Impala...

There's a reason this is in the bottom 20 of lowest rated album, its pretty much purely, offensively shite. And the fact this links through to a 2 disc "deluxe" version is even more offensive to me, personally. 2 hours of shit dance beats, twinkly electronic piano pieces, occasional jazzy trumpets, and breathless generic lyrics by repetitive "featured" singers makes for a NOT FUN TIME. WHEN WILL IT END? DID I HAVE REPEAT ON BY ACCIDENT AND IT'S LOOPED BACK AROUND? I'M ABOUT TO GOOGLE "HOW TO TIE A NOOSE".

I'd give this 0 if I could, just strap the master recording to a rocket and blast it into the heart of the sun, rid us of this monstrosity... And I mean that, sincerely.