Reviews by ikejiri

Guitar Town
I really like Steve Earle. Copperhead Road is a great album and he has an excellent run from I Feel Alright to Jerusalem, where he branches a little further away from his country rock sound. I’m not as familiar with this album as those, but this is a very enjoyable country rock album, with some rockabilly and Latin accents here and there, if not quite as ambitious as some of his later stuff.

Although the production is pretty conventional 80s country rock, particularly the drums, I do really like the ‘big’ sound to it and there is some interesting instrumentation on some of the songs, the odd synth or string part here and there, and there is some good country guitar riffing and interplay too.

Lyrically he is quite atypical for the genre, there’s a lot of Springsteen in the tales of blue collar hardship and longing to escape, but he’s also not coming from a Conservative-Christian-Country viewpoint, he has a much more empathetic, progressive perspective and some righteous anger about lack of opportunities and small town hypocrisy.

It gets off to a great start with the first 3 songs, all great uptempo country, and Good Ol Boy is great as well, a more rocking song with a nice organ and guitar line. Someday has a really interesting loping swing to it, always feeling like it’s slightly behind the beat, and a very Springsteen small town lyric. Little Rock’n’Roller is a good song too, it has a kind of doo-wop country vibe. I really like Down the Road, it has a Tom Petty vibe to me and I really like the organ and mandolin.

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Playlist submission: Good Ol Boy

Medúlla
In other people’s hands this could very easily be pretentiously unlistenable and just too much hard work. While parts of it are definitely not easy to listen to, particularly the pervy sex-fucking noises at the end of Ancestors, it's always interesting and engaging, tripping from dreamlike and ambient to discordant, chaotic and jumpy, via a bit of beatboxing and Gregorian chanting.

A few tracks stand out individually - Where is the Line, Vokuro, Who Is It, Submarine (feat. Beaker from the muppets), Mouths Cradle and Triumph of a Heart (beatboxing and cats) - but it definitely works better as one 45 minute piece of music.

You can’t help but admire her singularity of vision. To make a 45 minute album created almost entirely from human voices, encompassing melody, harmony and rhythm is pretty amazing, and then to make it listenable, interesting, engaging and moving too. I don’t think many people would be able to do that.

Feels like something I’ll come back to and delve into again, it really is a fascinating album. 4.
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Playlist submission: Mouths Cradle

Achtung Baby
U2. I don’t know if I like or dislike them. I definitely like a lot of their songs as well crafted bits of pop rock. But as soon as I start thinking I like them as a band I start thinking I don’t like them and as soon as I start thinking I don’t like them I start thinking I like them. That seems to happen within the first minute of many of the songs on this album.

Maybe it’s the earnestness that gives them a bit of naffness, whether they are knee deep in Americana rootsiness, or if they are doing their Bowie/Eno euro rock like this. I don’t doubt they mean it, and take it very seriously, but there often seems to be an underlying sense of meaninglessness to it all, that they really seem to be oblivious to. One for example, I think I liked it back in the day, but listening to it now, it does have a feeling of vacuousness, a Coldplayian emptiness underneath the pseudo-sagacity of the words. But I suppose you could level at many of their songs, they aim for universal but end up a bit nothingy

They clearly know how to craft good melodies and hooks, and an appealing sound, and there are good songs on here, Even Better Than The Real Thing, So Cruel are good, but that sense of a lack of meaning below the surface does become clear on repeat listens. Some lyrics and delivery start to grate - the ‘sheer face of love’ line in The Fly has always bothered me

I do think their desire to change their sound and style from the Joshua Tree to this is to be admired, although underneath the production and electronic rhythms and sounds many of the songs are pretty conventionally U2 - Even Better Than the Real Thing and Mysterious Ways would sit very comfortably on The Joshua Tree if they were produced in that style.

Overall though this isn’t a bad listen, it’s enjoyable enough and I really like some of the songs, particularly So Cruel but it doesn’t linger long on the musical tongue and it does feel quite long at nearly an hour. A 3 feels fair
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Playlist submission: So Cruel

Raising Hell
Peter Piper - It’s Tricky - My Adidas - Walk This Way is a superb, exciting run of 4 songs. The interplay of the two voices and the bell hook on Peter Piper is excellent. It’s Tricky is superb, the vocal hook is very catchy and the Knack sample is excellent. My Adidas is great and despite it;s ubiquity Walk this Way is a banging bit of rock-rap pop music.

It’s hard to maintain that quality thereafter, although Raising Hell’s guitar mash up is good and You Be Illin’ is great, as good as those first few songs.

Aside from the songs I love the whole sound of this, it’s got an almost minimalist focus on beats, scratches and vocals, with samples and instrumentation sparsely deployed to accent the drum machines and rapping. It makes a nice contrast to what would come in the following years with the density of the sound of Public Enemy and the intricate, complex layering of samples on 3 Feet High and Rising and Paul’s Boutique.

Thoroughly enjoyable and hugely influential, it’s still a fun and exciting listen. Solid 4.
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Playlist submission: It’s Tricky

Imperial Bedroom
His 7th album in 5 years!

I’m not really that familiar with the albums after Get Happy!!, I always assumed they start the slide into things like Brutal Youth, ie fine but with a lack of excitement and dynamism.

That’s not entirely the case here, there are some great, energetic tracks and some great instrumentation and varying styles, but there’s also stuff like The Long Hands with its accordion, and the jazzy dullness of Almost Blue, both the kind of EC I struggle with.

Beyond Belief is a great opener, I love the rhythm pattern, Tears Before Bed Time is very good, the organ and piano are excellent. Shabby Doll is good, it has that great bass/synth part. Man Out of Time is excellent, lovely instrumentation and that sped up section at the end is a great shot of excitement. …And in Every Home is really interesting, the debt to the Penny Lane horns and George Martin string arrangements is clear but it works well.

I love the Sitar and Horns on Human Hands. Pidgin English is a great melody and I really like the harpsichord both forwards and backwards on You Little Fool, it’s a very catchy track.

As on previous EC albums Steve Nieve really shines, his piano and keyboard playing is excellent throughout. The bass is perhaps not as interesting as This Year’s Model or Armed Forces but the drumming is great. And you can see why he wanted Geoff Emerick to produce it, as the Beatles influence and inspiration is very clear - the instrumentation and arrangements are very Sgt Pepper.

Kind of stuck between 3 and 4. I enjoyed it, there are some great tracks, but it also starts to develop the feel of a lot of his music from the mid-80s onwards that I have a hard time enjoying, and it does feel pretty front loaded, with a definite dip on the 2nd side. It also, like Brutal Youth, has a feeling of being longer than it actually is. Ultimately I’m not sure how often I’ll revisit, it’s more likely I’ll just whack the highlights on a playlist, so I’ll go high 3
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Playlist submission: Man Out of Time

Machine Head
This is really only about Highway Star and Smoke on the Water - both songs clearly stand well above the rest on here.

Those other songs aren’t bad, and there are some good moments among them, but they did pass me by rather unmemorably. Never Before does have a nice psychedelic middle eight and Space Truckin’ is decent enough.

The organ/keys do give them a point of difference and I can appreciate their influence on metal/hard rock, but it does feel more like they established the rather generic template for it, which adds to the slightly forgettable nature of it.

Overall, one of those albums that’s fine and doesn’t elicit a particularly strong reaction or many other thoughts beyond liking some of it and not being that fussed on the rest. For Highway Star and Smoke on the Water I’ll give it 3.
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Playlist submission: Highway Star

More Songs About Buildings and Food
This might be my 2nd favourite TH album behind Speaking in Tongues, on a par with, although very different than, Remain in Light and slightly head of Fear of Music and Talking Heads: 77

It definitely feels like a step forward from their first album, the rhythm section is similarly groove driven, but it feels more stronger and more agitated, and the guitar is slightly more prominent and more intertwined with the bass and drums. And Brian Eno’s keyboard and synth augmentations add a different texture than their first album, as well as his production skill adding a different dynamic.

The lyrics are also slightly less opaque, although still enigmatic enough, but David Byrne’s bemusement at his inability to understand how ‘normal’ people live their lives is clear, particularly on The Big Country.

It also has some of David Byrne’s best melodies and some of their best musical hooks. Thank You For Sending Me an Angel is a banger, I love the stomp of With our Love and as it changes to and from the synth bass parts. The Girl Wants to Be With The Girls has the great twinkly piano and an excellent bass riff and that great guitar motif around the chorus. Found a Job has that brilliant break into the synth/piano riff from 3.16 onwards and a brilliant rhythm overall. The Take Me to the River cover is great, excellent synth/organs. And Big Country is superb, with its country twinges and marching rhythm and detached lyric.

There really isn’t a weak track for me, it’s a great album, unsurprisingly a 5
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Music for the Masses
Quite partial to a bit of Depeche Mode even if I’m not that familiar with them outside Violator and the singles/greatest hits.

This does feel like a bit of a mix of their more overtly pop stuff and their more gothic whips and semi-knocking tinged electro stuff, it has some echoes of People are People, Everything Counts and New Life and Just Can’t Get Enough but also echoes of Master and Servant, Personal Jesus and Enjoy the Silence.

They are really great at catchy synth hooks, seemingly done with one finger. There’s a couple of great ones in Strangelove, but they are scattered throughout on some of the excellent tracks on here; Never Let Me Down Again, Things You Said (hello Kraftwerk), Sacred, Behind the Wheel, Nothing. The combination of those poppy hooks and the drum sound with the dark lyrics and gloomy, brooding atmosphere is great. Aside from the obvious Kraftwerk reference you can also get a sense of Bowie and mostly Joy Division if Ian Curts hadn’t died, kind of meshing the music New Order make with the lyrical and atmospheric approach of Joy Division.

It doesn’t always work though, Little 15 is way too musical theatre cabaret and is pretty annoying as a result, I Want You Now’s sex breathing and horizontal melody feels pretty flat. I half like and half dislike Pimpf, the repeating motif is nice, but that circularity does make it feel it never really goes anyway.

I enjoyed this a lot, the great songs are great, but it doesn’t quite sustain the highs of Never Let Me Down, Strangelove and Nothing. But it’s still a very good album. 4.
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Playlist submission: Strangelove

Rejoicing in the Hands
One of those artists I’m very aware of but have never actively listened to, so nice to give an album a go.

I like its sparseness and kind of outsider art feel, like someone who isn’t aware of musical conventions and starts writing and performing folk songs. But at the same time he’s obviously very talented and steeped in all sorts of folk music as well as Indian and blues too. I think it takes a lot of thought and skill to get the balance of innocence and familiarity right and conjure those feelings of outsider primitivism. His voice probably does help carry that feeling too, and I can imagine it’s a bit marmite for some people, like Joanna Newsome, but I like it a lot, it does suit the songs and style of the songs really well.

However It does also feel quite long, even if it’s only 42 minutes with relatively short songs. Maybe it’s that there are 16 songs that makes it feel that way, as though it loses a bit of focus by having so many songs.

There are some great songs, particularly the first half; This is the Way and a Sight To Behold are a great opening pair, The almost gallic The Body Breaks is great, I love the eastern tinged, slightly wonky and odd Poughkeepsie and the short but sweet Dogs They Make Up in Dark is really good. After that Rejoicing in the Hands has a lovely almost Incredible String Band feel, and I like the injection of the lively rhythm of Fall, and I love the ethereal slide on When the Sun Shines on Vetiver, There Was the Sun has strong echoes Nothing in the World by The Kinks nicely.

Overall, despite the great songs it does feel a bit wooly and the dip in the middle does affect it. Right on the cusp of 3 and 4, I’ll go 4 for the highlights
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Playlist submission: Poughkeepsie.

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
I don’t really like saying why is X on the list and not Y, and obviously I’m a fan so I would say this but I do think it’s odd that this is the only Tom Petty album on the list, when Sonic Youth have 5 and Elvis Costello has 6 and considering how good Damn the Torpedoes and Hard Promises are.

I do love this album, despite some roughness around the edges and some patchiness in song quality. There are some excellent songs; Breakdown, The Wild One, Forever, Anything That’s Rock’n’Roll, Fooled Again, Luna and Last Nite, I mean American Girl, but it definitely sounds like a debut album. You can hear elements and signals of the future in those songs, but even the patchier tracks have moments and ideas that make them interesting, the rhythm on Rockin’ Around, the Springsteen pastiche of Hometown Blues, the backing vocals on Strangered in the Night, the doo-wop groove of Luna.

It also feels a bit inconsistent in production and sound in places, particularly Mike Campbell's guitar, the sense he’s searching for a sound, eg the tone on Strangered in the Night just doesn’t quite sound right.

Musically this is easily a high 4, and any album that has Breakdown, The Wild One, Forever and American Girl is a banger, but as this is their only album on here and I want to acknowledge how great they are as a band, it's a 5. And if you don’t like that you can tongue kiss my shithole.
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Playlist submission: Breakdown

Born to be With You
I really really liked this, but there’s no clear discernible, describable reason quite why though. It’s not necessarily musically groundbreaking or thrilling or melodically inventive, but there is a feel to the whole thing that I really liked, a kind of slightly quirky middle of the roadness that I found interesting and engaging.

It definitely shares that feel with Spector’s early-mid 70s work, especially Lennon of course, and it is a sound I really like; slower tempos, lots of reverb and separation, but great overall. There is some really nice instrumentation throughout as well, and I like the slight country influences scattered around, particularly on something like New York Song, and there is also some very George-esque slide in places.

I’ve also always liked his voice, my mum had a late 80s album of his and although it was a bit cheesy he sounds great on it, and despite being pushed back in the mix a little he sounds great on this too, I love his tone and the New York accent that slips through. He sounds particularly great on In and Out of the Shadows and Only You Know.

I listened about 5 times on repeat and it got better each time, and it’s definitely going in rotation. Solid 4.
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Playlist submission: In and Out of the Shadows.

Felt Mountain
Hmm, a bit of a curate’s egg. I really liked Lovely Head and Utopia, and Pilots, Felt Mountain are decent, and some of the instrumental touches here and there, theremin, organ, synth etc are nice, and it feels like it’s the sort of album that could be great, however I get an overriding sense of annoyance with the whole thing and it reminded me a bit of that Ute Lemper album we had, which I felt similarly about.

The cabaret/lounge/50s & 60s soundtrack thing has to be done really well and I don’t think this is, the breathy, jazzy vocal style feels too close to musical theatre and I don’t think the string arrangements capture the atmosphere they are going for, so overall it, unfortunately, creates a sense grating boredom, which only really dissipates on Lovely Head and Utopia.

It’s not truly awful, but there are much better examples of what they are going for with the smoky, cinematic atmosphere, Portishead being the obvious one. I can’t think I’d listen to this again, which puts it as a solid 2.
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Playlist submission: Lovely Head.

At Newport ‘56
My main thoughts of Duke Ellington are of his spirit living in the attic in Big Mouth writing songs full of sexual innuendo and trying to bang the ghost of Whitney Houston.

Nothing like that is happening here though. This is a perfectly fine live big band/swing/jazz album with two stand outs. The smoky, piano-led Blues to Be There is great, the horns are used to augment it brilliantly and it genuinely feels like it tells a musical story. And the frenzied energy of Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue is undeniable, you can really feel the feedback loop of the players and the crowd and the resulting manic excitement. Generally I’m not a fan of this sort of uptempo Jazz, but this performance feels genuinely electric and you can’t help but be carried along on a wave of jazzy commotion. Jeep’s Blues is probably the best of the rest, with Festival Junction and Newport Up being fine but forgettable.

Outside Blues to Be There and Diminuendo there probably isn’t a great deal to return to, but those two and Diminuendo in particular are so good they carry it to a medium-high 3.
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Playlist submission: Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue

Harvest
Dual BBC Cups!

I can’t quite remember the timeline, but I think I got this in Makro with my parents, or my parents bought it in Makro and I subsequently nicked it, but I think I got into it around Christmas in the 2nd year of Durham. But I don’t know what prompted the purchase or nicking it, whether Paul already liked him, or he was on TV or I just heard this album somehow. My parents also had the BBC concert recorded off the telly, so I nicked that, which sparked off a quest to find the song Dance Dance Dance. There was scant information about it and it didnt seem to be on any albums. I remember buying Fly Like an Eagle by the Steve Miller Band album because it had a song called Dance Dance Dance and I thought it might be the same one. (It’s not, but it's a great album anyway)

Harvest though was the start point for Neil Young and he is one of those few artists, and this is one of the few albums that felt like a truly transcendent discovery. Not like the first bands you get into at 13, 14 or 15, but one you get into slightly older, you liked music before and after, but finding this particular artist feels significant. All my other favourite artists I was aware of in the ether growing up, The Beatles, Stones, Dylan, but with Neil my fandom just appeared one day.

Without the nostalgia it’s still, of course, a fantastic album. I think I’ve said it about all the NY albums on here but this album has some of my favorite NY tracks; The yearning, desolate Out on the Weekend, the rolling Harvest, the classic and catchy Heart of Gold, the stomping Are You Ready for the Country and of course the resonant and enduring Old Man and The Needle and the Damage Done. 6 bangers. But then I also love A Man Needs A Maid, There’s a World, Alabama and Words.

I also love how this was recorded, you can hear some bum notes here and there and sounds of people accidently hitting things and making noise, but it adds to the whole warm, welcoming atmosphere, despite some of the lyrical themes, alongside some of the great guest appearances and excellent playing, particularly Ben Keith and Kenny Buttrey.

Oh and obligatory mention of the 4 album run from After the Gold Rush to Tonight’s the Night

A bit like On the Beach I’m struggling to think of anything further to say about these songs, they’re so familiar and so well loved there’s nothing much I can add that’s worth saying.

It’s great and its a 5 - Don’t Miss It!
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Playlist submission: Out on the Weekend, Old Man or Needle and the Damage Done - today I choose Old Man

Sail Away
I think I preferred this to Good Old Boys, although I broadly feel the same; on some listens and with some songs it’s really engaging and with others it seems to pass me by.

The comparisons with Nilsson are more apparent on this than Good Old Boys, and not that I need to prefer one to the other but I do find Nilsson’s version of vaudeville-pop-rock generally more engaging. Although Newman is probably more interesting lyrically, Nilsson is more interesting and varied musically and melodically, which helps the songs stick a bit better.

There are some great songs on here though, probably more than on GOB. Sail Away is a real grower and a great track with a great sardonic lyric, He Gives Us All His Love has a lovely downbeat feel. Last Night I Had a Dream is a nice bluesy bit of rock pop, building and falling very nicely. Burn On (Major League!) and Dayton, Ohio 1903 are both great tracks along a similar theme. Memo to My Son has nice jauntiness and God’s Song is an excellent religious take down.

Maybe I need more time to get into Randy Newman, there’s lots I do like and I could see myself getting into him, but I still can’t quite help zoning out from time to time and after 4 runs through I was keen to listen to something else. Although I preferred this to Good Old Boys I’m not sure it crosses into the 4s, so I’ll say a high 3.
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Playlist submission: Burn On (because of Major League)

Signing Off
UB40 are one of those bands that just exist and seemed to have always existed, but I’ve never been that curious about them. I do like One in Ten and Rat in Mi Kitchen, but I don’t really like their versions of Red Red Wine, I Got You Babe or I Can’t Help Falling In Love, which appeared on the soundtrack to Speed 2: Cruise Control.

I liked this album though, especially on repeat listens. It’s way more dubby than I expected, I suppose easy to compare them to The Specials as a similarly multi-racial band from the same time, but rather than the uptempo, energetic punky-inflected ska this has a much more woozily atmospheric haze to it.

I suppose it’s the nature of the genre that the songs have similar structures and on first listen sound alike. But after a few listens it felt like the songs started to reveal more individual character. Tyler, King, Burden of Shame, Food for Thought, Little By Little and Madam Medusa really standing out, as I started to notice some Jazzy and eastern inflections and some nice keyboard touches, like the almost harpsichord stabs on Food for Thought. The rhythm section as well is excellent, the bass and drum combination on something like Madam Medusa is great.

I really enjoyed this, much more than I was expecting I would, the dubby atmosphere and slow tempo grooves are great, suiting the ideological bent of the lyrics and themes. Solid 4.
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Playlist submission: Food for Thought

On the Beach
I remember the anticipation after buying that bootleg copy at the Dunelm CD fair - it was great the first time and it’s still great now. See the Sky About to Rain, Revolution Blues, Motion Pictures and Ambulance Blues are some of my favourite NY songs, but every song is great and the whole album is fantastic - melancholy, angry, loose, atmospheric. I love the Wurlitzer on See the Sky and the banjo on For the Turnstiles, and the bass, whoever is playing, is excellent.

After the Gold Rush, Harvest, this and Tonight’s the Night is an incredible run of albums, 4 of his best. Sometimes those ‘lost’ albums can be better in the imagination, but this is excellent in reality.

Actually hard to say much more, it’s just brilliant. Easy 5.
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Playlist submission: Really depends on my mood, today I’ll say See the Sky About to Rain

Vulnicura
I don’t think I’ve ever actually listened to a Björk album before. Which is strange as she makes the kind of music I like, but I think it’s probably a product of my teenage brain not understanding her back in the 90s and then never really getting round to trying any of her albums.

I’m not sure if this is the best album to start with, but I thought it was great, getting better each time. It’s hard not to use words like icy and glacial to describe the music, as it’s probably too on the nose for someone from Iceland, but the detached coolness of the music; the strings, the synths, the discordant fractured rhythms and percussion against the very personal and expressive lyrics is a great combination. It’s kind of moving, chilly, distant and uplifting at the same time.

It feels a grower, its not immediately melodic, but the tunes do start to burrow into your brain through the textures, and it probably works best as whole piece rather than individual tracks, as the more austere and crawling first half evolves into the spikier and more rhythmic second half, with some more melodic string parts.

I think it needs to sit a little longer, and I’m keen to give it some more listens with some space in between but it’s a solid 4 for now.
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Playlist submission: Atom Dance

New York Dolls
I was quite into this album around the time of The Strokes etc, although I don’t think I ever completely loved it. It’s definitely one of those albums loved by the bands you like, and you can really see its place in music lineage and its influence, coming 3 years before punk but creating a template; scuzzy Chuck Berry / Stonesy guitars, simple songs and energetic tempos with sneering vocals and attitude.

Some of the songs are great proto-punk rockers, I always liked Personality Crisis, Looking for a Kiss, Trash and Jet Boy, and of the moments when they slow it down Lonely Planet Boy is great, with it’s slight country touches. The rest, while not always that memorable or great, is at least all carried along by attitude and enthusiasm, and there are always some great Johnny Thunders licks strewn about each song.

I like it, it’s a decent album of trashy proto punk and it’s clearly very influential. Not sure how often I’ll come back to it, so it sticks as a high 3.
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Playlist submission: Jet Boy

The College Dropout
The man is mentally ill, I’ve seen him eat a plastic pie

It’s kind of hard to think back to before he was a bit Nazi and before his megalomaniacal narcissistic personality emerged when he made great pop-rap like this album.

It is a bit long, and like many hip hop albums the skits are completely pointless, but it is a great pop album, full of great hooks and samples and it sounds excellent. You can tell it’s from the mid 2000s but it has a nice round fullness to the sound, there are no sharp edges to it, or much rhythmic harshness, and the pitched up soul samples and gospel inflections give a nice bit of warmth, adding to the overall accessible feel.

Lyrically it’s also really accessible, ranging across religion, race, working at the Gap, fame etc and mixing bravado with introspection and a degree of self awareness that is pointedly different to what came along later.

Jesus Walks and Through the Wire are bangers but there are great tracks strewn across it; We Don’t Care, Spaceship, Never Let Me Down, Get Em High, School Spirit, The New Workout Plan and Two Words are all great, diverse tracks.

Dickheadedness not withstanding this is a great listen; catchy, melodic, amusing and great sounding. Solid 4.
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Playlist submission: Jesus Walks