Reviews by j-bizzle

It's a lovely, chilled time. I like the vocals, I like the instruments, it's just all very pleasant and smooth. Is it a bit limited? Possibly. But it is what it is, and it's very nice.

3.5 rounded down.

I’m not a fan of this one. Firstly, it can’t escape all the 80’s trappings, which make it sound incredibly dated. I really don’t like the idea of ‘vocals above all else’ either, which probably applies to a number of tracks here. Her cover of Let’s Stay Together is probably the perfect example of the fusion of these two things. The original is this incredibly soulful ballad, and here it’s turned into some kind of grotesque parody. She belts the whole thing out and in doing so strips out all depth of feeling from it, and it’s so abundantly worse for it. This may be sacrilegious to some, but I don’t even particularly like her vocals. I much preferred the upbeat campy tracks, that had a bit of flavour of Meatloaf. I had way more fun with those.

I like a bit of ambient / chill background when I’m working, but this was barely there. I may as well have been listening to rainfall. It’s a bad album to judge because the music is literally designed to be ignored. However, when I actually did focus on it, I found it boring. If you stick this on while giving me a massage, then fine, but other than that I won’t be listening again.

This is kind of middling for me. It’s easy-listening enough but I’m not excited by it.

It's very pleasant for the most part, with some nice technical guitar.

I’m not quite sure what to make of this. It’s a pretty nice listen overall. A little strange. Much like their other album I had I guess. It’s not going to be a re-visit, but I’m glad I spent the time with it, and got to get a better feel for the band.

I was way more up on this at the start of the album, but over time it started to drag a lot more and began to feel more repetitive and samey. It’s nowhere near as noisy and discordant as people are saying. I thought I was in for an ear-splitting time, but it’s just quite competent grungey / garage rock. It’s ok. There’s enough here that works.

They way this album mixes so many genres together while keeping a consistent whole is genuinely impressive. There’s rock, ska, punk, funk, soul and reggae all working together, but it also has a lingering sense of the 80’s about it. I don’t think there’s any real dips in form across the whole album. It’s really accomplished.

This is a perfectly nice, jangly 60's record. Lots of nice upbeat songs, with some good variation in music and instruments.

3.5 rounded down.

I really don't like this at all. It's way too twee, earnest and, frankly, boring.

The absolute best thing about this for me is the consistency and flow of it. One of those albums that drops little notes and flavours that follow-through to the rest of the album and make it work well as an individual piece of work, with a consistent mood.

On paper this isn't for me, but actually I'm down with it. There's some great tracks in here, solid instrumentation, some good covers, and he has a great voice to boot. And it has actual atmosphere that carries through like I said, with layers of sound. Quite the surprise as I was expecting this to be not for me at all.

3.5 rounded up.

I like how big and bold and varied this is. There's lots of layers of instruments, different styles being thrown around, theatrical elements, lots of pomp and sass. I like that something like this exists. It's quite confidently out there without being obnoxious, which (after listening to a lot of other albums in this list) I know can be a tricky thing to pull off.

3.5 rounded down.

I mean, his voice is nice enough, but dear lordy... yaaaawn.

For FUCKS sake, I've only just had these guys and it was one of the worst albums I'd ever heard in my life. And now you're subjecting me to another whole hour of them? Why on earth have they got two albums on here?

Once again they seem to think they're really funny, but they're just annoying. There's clearly some skill there, so it'd be nice to hear an actual serious album from them to see what they really have. Some songs have some promise to them, before they're inevitably ruined by some stupid interjection or undercurrent. Overall this is definitely better than the other album I had, but it's still SHIT. I hate them and everything about them.

1.5 rounded up.

I've had a lot of Bob Dylan albums now, but I'm pleased to say this is on the higher-end of the scale. I don't really like his warbly voice, and I'd still rather he wasn't always defaulting to his harmonica all the time, but the song-writing is undoubtedly good and there's some jams in here. It's got a real nice vibey upbeat feel to it for the most part.

3.5 rounded up.

I found a lot of this to be real nice. My kind of jazz. Super chilled and laid back, down-tempo, lo-fi. A bit moody, with some real atmosphere to it. Nice elegant keys and gentle backing bass.

I'm not as much of a fan when it introduces more of a chaotic element in some songs, maybe more 'traditional jazz'? Drums in weird time signatures and the like.

Overall, it was an enjoyable relaxing time while working.

3.5 rounded down.

I appreciate the skill, but I don't like it at all. I wish there was an option to have gifs in your reviews, because this could so much more easily be summed up by a single funny gif of a bored and frustrated looking dog or something. Maybe a dramatic eye-roll from a small child, wise beyond their years. Or maybe I could just include a static image of me lying down flat on the pavement, looking utterly defeated.

It's really good man. I have no idea why I hadn't properly dug into Faith No More before beyond a very surface level. I like Mike Patton's voice, I like the heavy driving riffs, and I like their style. It sounds super fresh given it came out at the tail end of the 80's. Rock \m/

This isn't really my thing, but I do respect it. It's interesting at least. I really like the moodier elements, and some of the more grandiose moments. So much is forgettable for me though, and it mostly wafts along in the background, with a lot of songs blending into each other.

It's weird, and oppressive, and murky, and very noisy. I'm not really sure what they're going for here. There's not really that many succinct, actual songs. It all kind of bleeds into one loud mess. Weird.