Reviews by henry-winchester

Just the right amount of psych.

Very of its time, not bad though.

"Alright" is such a blast of nostalgia for me, it just nailed the carefree optimism of the UK in the 90s. "Caught by the Fuzz," "Mansize Rooster," and "Lose It" are all pretty decent, too, in a gobby, cartoony way reminiscent of Blur. But it runs out of tuns towards the end, which is surprising for a 40-minute album.

I can imagine exactly what her house is like. There will be at least one cat.

So solid you could build a house on it.

Brilliant.

The songwriting is a little bland, but this album grew on me. The production here is superb; one of those albums that you'd use to demonstrate your expensive CD hi-fi in the 90s. It also sounds like this is where Justin Timberlake got a lot of his ideas.

This is fun and he has a nice voice.

I was initially worried this would be a bit too groovy, but then I heard the killer line:
"I hate you baby with a passion, you know I do."
And all was OK with the world. Nice to have a streak of cynicism and surging electric guitars among the bop.

I loved this album about 10 years ago; I remember playing "Fascination Street" at a Halloween party and it went down a treat. I think it's got even better in the intervening years; it's beautifully desolate. Had I been born 10 years earlier, I would have been the biggest Cure fan.

I listened to this on Friday and now, on Monday, I can't say I remember a single thing about this album. I think I liked it?

This somehow works in Neil Young-does-Goldfrapp kinda way. Love the orchestration, and it feels smarter and more polished than Odelay.

I love the first three or so tracks of this; the false starts, the growing menace of the throbbing bass drum. It's like trying to find a party at 3am, and then it finally kicks in. I think the rest of the album isn't quite the best party in the world, it's a bit too long, but it's still pretty damn good.

I'm totally biased, but I love Eno, and I think I even prefer this arty pop rock to his ambient works.

Just Anthony Kiedis singing about a blowjob he once had.

Nicely done, very chill, reminded me of Japanese pop in places.

Little Richard! An album! Little Richard! An album! Whoop whoop whoop!
^ basically every song

I can imagine this as being pretty popular in 2000. In 2023, not so much.

To be honest I was dreading another Bruce Springsteen album. But this is decent; more sombre and stripped-back than his other, more work. I think I like Grumpy Bruce more than Hollerin' Bruce.

Quite an important album to me. I was 17 when "OK Computer" came out. It was quite unlike anything I'd heard before, and it stood in stark contrast to the tedious Britpop that dominated the airwaves at the time. It was weird and geeky, the sound of uncertainty in a world where technology was taking over, and believing in conspiracy theories was fun and silly and not causing the collapse of civilization.

Fast-forward 25 years and I still know it inside-out; it's been engraved on my synapses forever. But it's also kinda patchy. For the initial sting of "Airbag" there's the literal let down of "Let Down," "Paranoid Android's" layered despair gives way to "Karma Police," which I never really liked. It's a good album, but, looking back, I feel like "The Bends" is more consistent and coherent.