Reviews by ikejiri

Protection
While Protection and Karmacoma are among Massive Attack’s best songs I’ve never felt this is a particularly strong album, particularly compared to the albums either side of it, Blue Lines and Mezzanine. I’d likely rank it below 100th Window and Heligoland too.

There are pointers to the sound on Mezzanine in the title track, the piano chords and arpeggio in particular hint at the more dramatic, more widescreen sound to come. I love Karmacoma’s tinny, metallic clanging and the way the bass rumbles beneath it, with Tricky’s rap on top, a great song.

While Three is a level or two below those two songs it’s a great track, Nicolette’s vocal is excellent as is the pulsing rhythm. We hit the first rocky patch with Weather Storm, which you could generously describe as aimless muzak, so devoid of atmosphere that it is. I love Horace Andy’s voice, but he can’t quite liven up Spying Glass, again it has slight aimlessness to it.

Better Things is fine and Eurochild is good, but they clearly feel like retreads of Protection and Karmacoma. Sly might be the strongest song outside the opening pair, with its John Barry-esque swirling strings. Heat Miser is a return to that aimless feel of Weather Storm, and I’ve never really been into their version Light My Fire, and it feels like its just been tacked on to the end of the album

While the high points are good, there does feel like a lack of inspiration elsewhere, making for an underwhelming and unsatisfying listen, especially when Blue Lines and Mezzanine are so great, and I think that leaves it as a high 3.
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Playlist submission: Protection

Locust Abortion Technician
Pretty much exactly what I expected, it’s noisy and discordant, and wilfully erratic, with snatches of melody or harmony amongst the deliberate eccentricity.

Generally I like music that comes from an art-conceptual origin, even when it's not that listenable, but I wasn't really that into this, its studied bizarreness feels a bit too contrived. Its origins in the infertile grounds of US punk and hardcore also don’t endear me to it greatly either.

It's not totally without merit though, there were a few things I liked, the doomy bass driven grooves of Graveyard and 22 going on 23, and the mucky blues of Pittsburgh to Lebanon and the post punk Joy Division vibes of Human Cannonball. Outside that I could take it or leave it ultimately.

It’s not a bottom dweller, but it’s not something I’d come back to, ergo its a 2.
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Playlist submission: Human Cannonball

Twelve Dreams of Dr Sardonicus
This is one of those albums where you find yourself tapping along quite happily but then find it all sort of drifting by. I’ve listened through 3 times and have enjoyed each listen, but I can’t actually recall any songs or anything much in particular.

There’s some very good bass playing, some nice guitar, leaning more on country than acid blues, and they do a line in catchy, if not exactly memorable melodies.

I like the picked guitar figure of Prelude, before it moves into the relatively rote Nothin’ To Hide. The kettle drum in the intro of Nature’s Way really makes me think of Black Beauty, and it’s quite a nice eco-ditty. Animal Zoo is another nice song, anchored by some nice bass, electric piano and a catchy, singalong melody. Mr Skin’s rhythm and horn section gives it a nice late 60s/early 70s soul-rock feel, and the pummeling bass gives When I Touch You a nice proggy drama. I quite like the Kinks-esque Life Has Just Begun, Morning Will Come is a fun, bouncy track and I like the very west coast soft rock feel of Rougher Road.

A funny one altogether. They try on a few styles and nothing quite fits I think, and there’s nothing quite as good as their Nuggets mainstay I Got A Line On You, but it is a pleasant listen. Think that makes a 3.
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Playlist submission: Rougher Road

Sex Packets
These are sex people!

The Humpty Dance is one of my hip hop playlist staples, but I’ve never delved further into their discography.

Which ultimately is fine as I don’t think I’ve really been missing all that much. Humpty Dance is the best song by far. Lyrically it pretty much says everything they have to say, but they still seem keen to hammer the point home that they are keen to boff anything in sight. Although to be fair they add a different shade to this with their Dragons Den-esque song suite about sex pills. And they also do a line of faintly naff self-aggrandisement in The Way We Swing.

Sound and production wise though it’s pretty decent, the low end is particularly good on The Humpty Dance, The Way We Swing, Underwater Rimes, Freaks of the Industry, Doowutchyalike and Packet Man. Those are probably the best songs, despite some of the lyrics.

There is also a nice contrast between Shock G's straightforward late 80s rapping style and Humpty’s nasal oddness. Humpty is definitely the more compelling and amusing of the two, the songs brightening up when he comes in, eg on Underwater Rimes when raps about kissing goldfish

Overall, despite some good songs and sounds, the thematic one noteness does pull it down, especially stretched over to an unnecessary 65 minutes. Between 2 and 3, but I’m not sure I’ll come back or add any other songs from it to any playlists.
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There is Playlist submission: The Humpty Dance

Ys
A colleague of mine in Japan absolutely loved this album and used to play it in the office a lot. Kind of through everpresent osmosis I grew to like it back then, although I haven't listened to it since.

Her voice is a bit of a taste I’ve had to try and reacquire after these 20 years and it's helped by how many people have subsequently used and exaggerated her off beat sad indie girl ennunciations and delivery (eg mornin’, mornin’ or meteroid in Emily) to the point of complete irritation.

Once I got past that I remembered why I liked it 20 odd years ago. Emily really is fantastic in its free flowing brilliance and etherealness, a play of a song exploring childhood, memories and loss through religious touchpoints, comfortably sustaining and justifying its 12 minute run time. I like the fable-like story of Monkey & Bear, even if I’m not totally sure what the allegory is, other than the Monkey seeming to gaslight the Bear. Sawdust & Diamonds is also rather inscrutable, but also fantastic. Only Skin is genuinely epic, with another set of image laden lyrics, with too many fascinating lines to digest. I think she is referring to the other themes on the other songs, I think the line ‘Rowing along among the reeds, among the rushes mirrors similar references to Moses in Emily. Cosmia is also fantastic, as the perspective shifts melancholically from human to moth it strikes a beautiful note of hopeful sadness about death and rebirth.

The narratives of each song demand that they are lengthy, but they all have such a beguiling atmosphere, often lulling you in with a pastoral softness, before suddenly peaking and bursting into life, e.g. the superb couplet of ‘I wasn't born of a whistle, or milked from a thistle at twilight
No; I was all horns and thorns, sprung out fully formed, knock-kneed and upright’ over the final minute and half of Sawdust and Diamonds. The string and horn arrangements are terrific throughout, but her harp is the key instrument, both melodic and, without drums, percussive and rhythmic.

In other hands this could easily come over as twee and contrived and self indulgent, and while there is certainly a degree of ostentation, with the labyrinthine alleyways she moves around in each song feel natural and genuine.

It’s a superbly singular album, almost bardic in its long form story telling and medieval feel, something that would normally put me off, but in this case I think it's fantastic. It took a few listens to get back on its wavelength, but it was worth the effort, as it really is a uniquely excellent album. 5.
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Playlist submission: Emily

Heavy Weather
Although I think it's a great song, Birdland somewhat encapsulates the whole album, oscillating between stone cold groove and hotel lobby cheese. Which I suppose is also the issue with jazz fusion as a whole - similar to ELP and prog, the virtuosity is clear, and the desire to showcase their skill amplifies what often seems to be a deficit in taste and discernment.

That bit of tasteful restraint and minimalism wouldn’t go amiss on here, and for someone who likes filling every moment it's notable that Jaco Pistorius’s two compositions, Teen Town and and Palladium, are, alongside Birdland,the most engaging tracks. Most of the remainder are a curious mix of somewhat aimless drift interspersed with moments of supreme jazz fusion precision, The Juggler and Havona both a case in point, on the latter the initial intro establishes a nice dramatic motif, before the bass goes popilape and the whole thing just starts to move out of focus for me.

I’m on the fence about Jaco as a bassist - sometimes he really is superb, augmenting and improving songs, but at other times his relentless fretlessness is almost oppressive, surely only pleasing those who solely value technicality over feel and sense.

Overall it’s a funny one, despite the above there’s much I like and I have the feeling it might grow on me, certainly more than the similarly musically self satisfied ELP yesterday, and I can see myself giving it another listen so I’ll just nudge it to a low 3.
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Playlist submission: Birdland

Pictures at and Exhibition
‘Is this a joke, is this some kind of joke?’

I didn’t not enjoy this, but I didn’t quite enjoy it either. It’s not Keith Emerson’s fault that at the time all the noises he was making on his Moog were novel and futuristic, but now they sound completely daft, and they undercut the proggish self importance and seriousness with which they tackle Mussorgsky’s music. This is most egregious on The Gnome, where it also sounds like the bass is imitating springs pinging off the Hammond while Emerson presses ‘space laser’ on his Moog.

There’s no questioning the virtuosic skill of ELP, and on the Great Gates of Kiev Greg Lake and Carl Palmer hit a superb groove, and there are moments, when they and Emerson’s organ and vocals come together, that are genuinely fantastic. But then they too often thwart themselves by adding absurd noises or fall into overwrought Prog cliche and melodrama and when you factor in that it's an uneven live recording it all just feels rather silly.

I didn’t enjoy Tarkus much, but I would probably be interested in hearing this as a studio album. But as it is I don’t think I’ll come back to it, so I’ll go 2.
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Playlist submission: The Great Gates of Kiev

Rust Never Sleeps
_Never die, never die_

A seminal album in the NY journey, with powerful memories of Hawthorn Terrace - I can see and I can _feel_ the brown carpet in the small bedroom watching this on VHS.

I’ve always been more attuned to the acoustic side of the album. My My, Thrasher and Pocahontas are definitely 3 of my favourite Neil songs and I also love Ride My Llama, particularly that move into the aah aah aah section and just for its general theme of jamming with aliens, and I’ve come to appreciate the countrified melancholy of Sail Away more recently.

And I should pay more attention to the electric side, Powderfinger is of course fantastic, a superb narrative of war and death and with some excellent guitar. Welfare Mothers is a bit of a funny one based on the main refrain, but it's a great riff and groove. You can see the influence of Mothersbaugh and Devo on the sped up and slowed down sections of Sedan Delivery, although it is resolutely Crazy Horse with Ralph Molina’s customary steady thumping.

I haven’t really listened to this for a while, having really loved it back at Uni, so it’s been great revisiting. My adoration of Side 1 remains but I really enjoyed side 2 more than I remember. 5.
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Playlist submission: Pocohontas

Hard Again
I didn’t know the version of Mannish Boy used in Goodfellas came from this album.

Aside from the exemplary electric Chicago blues guitar, a couple of things really struck me with this. Firstly how great his voice is, resonant and authoritative and utterly compelling, and secondly that this came about in the late 70s under the eye of Johnny Winter, with that organic 70s feel, rather than say in the mid 80s where you can imagine synths, gated drums and digital production overwhelming it. The band is excellent too, Willie Smith on drums and Charles Calmese on bass are great. They hit excellent pockets on Bus Driver and Crosseyed Cat in particular.

However it is pretty samey to my ears over what feels like quite a long 45 minutes. I know that it is an excellent example of electric blues, but structurally the songs are pretty formulaic and tend to stick to two tempos, slow and not so slow. Each song taken individually is actually great, but as a whole I felt the drag by side 2, which means it doesn't quite reach a 4.
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Playlist submission: Mannish Boy

La Revancha Del Tango
I got this a bit mixed up with Wamdue Project, I was expecting King of My Castle but got Franco-Swiss-Argentine electro-jazz-tango instead.

They are obviously capable and highly esteemed musicians in their fields, so to say it is a curio is a bit of a disservice, but I think in the end I certainly appreciated and for the most part enjoyed it, or at least found it an untaxing listen. It is at the very least a change from much of the list, and although this sort of thing can easily be very cheesy, and it does definitely flirt with it, especially the vocals on Chunga’s Revenge, it has a definite solemnity to the way it treats Tango. And on the percussion side it often does nail the early 2000s hip hop sound, the bass and drums on Queremos paz, Epoca and, again, on Chunga’s Revenge, do feel like something Cut Chemist might come up with for Jurassic 5.

However it is also long at an hour, Santa Maria, Una Musica Brutal, El Capitalismo Foraneo and La del Ruso kind of fusing into one, the last few tracks kind of merging into one, although I did like Last Tango in Paris and enjoyed the final track a lot, particularly the vocal.

I’m genuinely not quite sure what to make of it, is it coffee shop music or is it a nice niche project that fuses tango with beats and samples? Accordions and Tango aren’t necessarily my favourite musical styles and production wise it sounds very much of the early 2000s, which is not really helping me get to grips with it either.

Ratings-wise it really comes down to how often I think I will come back to it. It’s intriguing and easy enough listen, particularly while working, so I think it just, just edges to a 3.
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Playlist submission: Vuelvo as Sur

I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight
I’ve never listened to this before, even though I know it's one that I should have.

I’ve really been missing out, as it's easily as great as its reputation. You can hear a bit of Sandy Denny in Linda Thompson’s voice, but what she might lack in etherealness she makes up for in versatility and vitality, particularly on the excellent title track.

It’s not really folk, it's not really rock and it’s not really folk-rock either, even though it has elements of all of those in varying degrees across the songs, but it also has a feel of Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac, both in song and overall sound, with a warmth to it all, particularly the electric piano on Down Where the Drunkards Roll I’ve always heard people praise Richard Thompson’s guitar playing, and it is wonderful on this, whether electric on The Cavalry Cross, acoustic as on the Great Valerio or mandolin as on The Little Beggar Girl. There’s bluesiness to it, as well as folk of course, but it doesn’t seem tied to either of those, and it compliments the mood of the music superbly, particularly on The End of the Rainbow, with a lovely plaintiveness.

That plaintiveness is a theme throughout the album, a strain of rueful melancholy threading through it. It’s not completely hopeless though, despite the sadness inherent in Withered and Died, The End of the Rainbow and The Great Valerio, it’s more contemplative of life’s vagaries and sorrows, and things like When I Get to the Border, The Cavalry Cross and the title track, although thematically mournful, are dappled with shaded optimism.

I’m sad I never listened to this before as it’s a fantastic album, an easy 5.
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Playlist submission: I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight

The Man Who
Listening to this now and looking back its kind of strange how big Travis became off the back of this album. But also kind of inevitable with its soft and muted Post-Britpop hangover vibe, pointers to Coldplay and its channeling of Britpop’s softer edges, most notably Oasis on the opening Writing to Reach You, lifting the Wonderwall guitar rhythm and namechecking it in the bridge.

They clearly have a good facility for melody and hushed, shuffling atmospheres, The Fear works really well in this regard, but it often feels to me they struggle to break out of the deliberate, tasteful restraint they’ve imposed on themselves. As You Are builds with some overdriven guitar and anguished vocals, but it feels too controlled and far less impactful as a result.

Of the big singles I was never really a fan of Why Does it Always Rain on Me, although I can appreciate the festival-singalongness of the chorus, but I do like Driftwood, the music matching the theme of drifting, even if the lyric does dip into banality too frequently. I’ve always liked Turn too, a good bit of safely moody indie rock.

Outside that it's all tastefully fine, if not particularly memorable or interesting, The Last Laugh, Luv and She’s So Strange feel pretty fillery, but I do quite like the 60s-ish Slide Show, referencing all those songs.

Alongside Writing to Reach You, The Fear and Driftwood the strongest point is probably the production, it’s perfectly matched to the songs and their style, a bit more rounded than the prevailing trebly Britpop sound.

It is a very three-ey album, so it has to end up as a 3.
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Playlist submission: Turn

The Sun Rises in the East
I’ve not heard of Jeru the Damaja before, and the album artwork is terrible, looking very much like a teenager's hamfisted first go at making something on InDesign that is ‘cool’ and ‘badass’

So I wasn’t necessarily primed for it, so I was pleased to find the whole thing pretty enjoyable with some undoubted highlights, even if overall it felt a little subjacent to Nas or Wu Tang.

I like the drum sound on Intro/Life but I thought D. Original was a real highlight. DJ Premier is a great producer, and it’s obviously influenced by RZA, but it’s got great drums, some nice horror film strings and a creepily discordant piano. I also like his voice, it’s got a little bit of 80s-ness to it in its baritone clarity, and I like its forthrightness. Brooklyn Took It continues the strong start, particularly for the nagging hook/sample, and I like the laid back tempo and slightly old fashioned boom-bap of Perverted Monks in the House. Mental Stamina has much more of a West Coast G-funk feel and is a decent groove, but it starts to herald the start of some flattening out, and despite the nice jazzy production, hitting an unedifying low point with Da Bichez.

It picks back up with the echoey and swimmy Come Clean, a great, odd track and continues to finish strongly with Jungle Music and the excellent Statik, despite its lyrical obsession with musical spunk.

I’m glad this came up as there are a couple of great songs and some great production and I like his voice, but it’s definitely a step or two behind his contemporaries and the Wu Tang multiverse specifically, so I think it rises to a high 3.
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Playlist submission: D. Original

Songs From a Room
Although I’m not that familiar with this album it does essentially feel like Songs of Leonard Cohen part 2, continuing the structure of picked acoustic, half sung half drawled vocals (probably for the best when you listen to his straining on A Bunch of Lonesome Heroes) and image laden poetical ruminations on love and mortality.

The bass tone throughout is great, particularly on Bird on the Wire, Story of Isaac, You Know Who I Am and The Old Revolution (great organ on that last one too). I also like the liberal smattering of Jew’s Harp, sounding a bit didgeridoo, but giving nice accent amongst the bass and acoustic guitars. The Butcher has a nice nagging rhythm to the guitar, and Lady Midnight has a great organ swell. And I really like the cowboy-ness of a Bunch of Lonesome Heroes, and Tonight Will Be Fine shares some of the clippity clop vibes, but with a nice drollness to the lyrics and some (I think deliberately?) wonkiness to the woodwinds.

Overall with his songs in this period there is a sense that he just has one type of song and vocal cadence, but it is one I find pretty pleasing. There isn’t much daylight between this and the first album. I think I vaguely prefer the first over this one, but then it does have a couple of my favourite songs of his in Bird on the Wire and The Partisan. So I’ll give it the same score of 4.
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Playlist submission: Bird on the Wire

The Undertones
Caveat lector: I listened to both the original release and October 79 re-issue, but am writing about the latter, as I want to listen to Teenage Kicks.

It’s notable how much Family Entertainment sounds so much like a mid 2000’s indie band, the kind of song that might play over the end montage of an episode of the Inbetweeners, I guess showing the enduring influence of The Undertones’ pitch perfect punk pop. That continues over the whole joyous 34 minutes, with no song lasting longer than 2 minutes 40-odd and many under 2 minutes, it’s a succession of gems, each one melodic but sharp, balancing punk immediacy with accomplished songwriting.

There’s some excellent melodic guitar runs, and the tom-tom heavy drums and bass suffuse everything with teenage energy, and Feargal Sharkey has such a great voice for the songs - charismatic with a touch of both naivety and tremulous worldliness, and great, playful, universal lyrics, albeit ones that occasionally move into heavier matters than teenage lust or teenage fantasy, as with suicide on Jimmy Jimmy. They also add in a few atypical touches, the organ on Here Comes the Summer (a little like the one on Going Out by Supergrass), the keyboard stabs on Wrong Way, True Confessions has a superb electric/motorik pulse and drone and Listening In has more swirling organ.

The Ramones were clearly an influence, but again this shows the difference between the US and the UK. While the Ramones tend to focus (brilliantly of course) on dumb headed nihilism, The Undertones are much more relatable and interesting, with a more rounded observational angle to their lyrics.

The context of the times it was written in also gives it an added defiant effervescence, and alongside the great songs themselves it really makes it an archetypal punk pop album, clearly influencing many bands thereafter. You could have released it 1995 or 2004 and it would have still sounded as vivid, joyful and relevant. Easy 5.
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Playlist submission: I suppose Teenage Kicks doesn’t really count, Jimmy Jimmy is great too, but I’ll go True Confessions

C’est Chic
I love the precision tooled sound of Chic Cheer, everything sounds clear and pristine, yet still warm, and everything sits perfectly in the mix, and it’s a great groove powered by Nile and Bernard’s twin guitar and bass magic.

And obviously there’s a reason Le Freak endures, it's probably the archetypal disco-soul song, Niles’s syncopated, percussive, bright, chugging guitar, the superb string arrangement, Bernard’s bass under the verses, and the hypnotic groove and vocal hook. I Want Your Love is not far behind, another classic disco banger.

Between those its oscillates between lush and tuneful ballads like Savoir Faire and the excellent At Last I Am Free, disco grooves like Chic Cheer and Sometimes You Win and upbeat side closers like Funny Bone and the brilliantly joyful Happy Man.

For the proportion of bangers to luxurious ballads, Nile’s guitar, Bernard’s bass, Tony Thompson’s drums and the overall sheen of laser focused songwriting, arranging production its an easy 5.
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Playlist submission: Could be Happy Man or I Want Your Love, but I’ll go obvious with Le Freak

The Freewheelin’
I have heard Blowin’ in the Wind too many times. Clearly it's a great song, but the album only really starts for me with ever superb Girl From the North Country, the template for wistful, lovelorn sad boy singer-songwriters, but no one gets close to the brilliant tenderness and acceptance of this song, and you can really feel the heaviness of the wind and cold at the borderline.

Masters of War occasionally veers towards heavy handed 60s folky earnestness, but it’s testament to his skill that it never really tips into it, drawn along masterfully by the relentless, mesmeric guitar. Down the Highway and Bob Dylan’s Blues are also testament to his fully formed troubadour persona that two relatively slight songs can still be so captivating.

A Hard Rain and Don’t Think Twice are a superb pair of songs, right in the middle of the album, both with that same tenderness of Girl From the North Country, even if the latter is a song of goodbye. Bob Dylan’s Dream seems to me to signal some of his classic mid 60s albums, in its unfolding stream of consciousness feeling, like it could take up a whole side on a later double album. I’ve always liked Oxford Town, even if it is relatively slight. I absolutely love the melody of Corinna, Corinna, and it benefits from the classical Spanish arrangement and percussion, a wonderful version of the song. I like how I Shall Be Free feels like the flip side of Talkin’ World War III Blues, a nice bit of comic puncturing of some of the preceding earnestness.

He essentially nicked a load of folk melodies that other people taught him to make an album that still sounds excellent 60 years on proves the aphorism that talent borrows and genius steals. 5.
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Playlist submission: Girl From the North Country

The Low End Theory
Just on drum sound and the samples alone this a great album, but add in Q-Tip and Phife’s laid back delivery, those jazzy hooks and samples and some great songs and it makes it a truly excellent album.
It may be missing a song as big as Can I Kick It, but in Check the Rhime and Scenario it has two of their hookiest tracks. The horn sample/riff on the former is superb and I love Busta Rhymes on Scenario.

But there’s loads of great tracks elsewhere; Excursions is an excellent opener, the double bass sample and the hit of the first snare and Buggin’ Out follows it brilliantly. Rap Promotor has a very Ill Communication wah part and a great lyric about the music business. Butter is one of two tracks along with Infamous Date Rape around the topic of women and hip hop, eschewing the normal cliches, with a clear sighted honesty. Show Business is another banger, impossible not to tap away to the drums and bass. I love the big echoey sound of Vibes and Stuff, a great track before Infamous Date Rape. Everything is Fair is another great track, built around a Funakdelic sample. Before the closing Scenario, What is superb, a simple Questlove-esque drum pattern and a great lyric.

I don’t really think there are any lulls or dips, although they tend to keep in the same jazz heavy sample style, the tempos, themes and interplay between Q-Tip and Phife always keeps it interesting and enjoyable. 5. Excellent artwork too.
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Playlist submission: Could be a few, but I’ll go Check the Rhime

DOA and Final Report
I really don’t think this is the worst album on the site, and I feel broadly similar about it as I did Kollaps, although I think you can kind of tell this was made by British Art School people, as opposed to abrasive Germans, as it has a bit of a sarcastic performative feel running through it. I do feel like I’ve heard quite a few tracks soundtracking a short film in an art exhibition somewhere in London on a Thursday night about 30 times though, particularly recorded conversation tracks like Valley of the Shadow of the Death and Hometime, or an exercise in unsettling noise like Walls of Sound.

There is still quite a bit to like though, and I started to get quite into it on repeat listens, its atmospheres becoming quite entrancing. Dead on Arrival is great, the rhythm ordering it while the noises and sounds circle around, and it's followed by the disquieting Weeping, the only time that a glimpse of human feeling peeps through. Hamburger Lady really grew on me, the air raid siren propelling it, and sounding similar to some of the stuff on My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. AB/7A is obviously the most immediate track, and it is great, proto synth pop with echoes of Eno and Low. E. Coli has a bit of Public Service Broadcasting to it, and is another ominous, creepy grower.

Enjoy is not necessarily the right word, but I really liked this, possibly the most interesting of the abstract/industrial/experimental albums we’ve had, perhaps as it seems to pull in influences from Eno and Bowie, rather than just being noise for noise's sake, and has some genuinely great moments and a unique, haunting but engaging atmosphere.

It’s probably on the edge of 3 and 4, and I’ll just tip it to 4, as I found it something I really liked listening to, as well as being a genuinely interesting art-industrial album.
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Playlist submission: Dead on Arrival

Smash
I’d have presumed the album with Pretty Fly for White Guy would have made the list, given its popularity around the time the book was first put together. I still do really like that song, but it never made me want to listen to any of their albums.

Which in retrospect was probably a good thing, as this isn’t that great. For poppish punk it’s kind of boring, without a great deal of character or melodic strength, and for hardcore adjacent it's just sort of bland. The obvious comparison is Green Day, and it's clear they are well ahead, musically, melodically and charismatically than The Offspring

It’s not uniformly awful though, Self Esteem is obviously the best song on here and they do occasionally hit some other good moments; I didn’t mind Gotta Get Away and Come Out and Play has an interesting guitar figure, but as a whole it is very samey, with very samey vocals, and it just doesn’t do a great deal for me.

I remember reading a profile of them and that Dexter Holland has a Ph.D in biology or something, and that he has quite an interesting hinterland outside the band, and they came across as decent folk, but I can’t really find much in this album. 2.
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Playlist submission: Self Esteem