Reviews by j-bizzle

I'm not as hyped as some others on here. It's quite good fun. I think the different musical influences and collaborations bring a bit of a different flavour to it. You Can Call Me Al is the most famous song on here and is the standout.

Wow, this is some album.

It's not often that I feel compelled to read the lyrics and really take in each song, but this was certainly an exception. He's really channelling something through his music, and it's so open, and honest, and raw.

Despite it being incredibly sad, the whole thing is genuinely beautiful. There's such vivid imagery in the lyrics, and so much mood and feeling comes from what's implied rather than outright stated, in a way you find in so much of the best writing. In Spinning Song there's this whole dramatic, poetic story of a king and queen, and death, and renewal, and it suddenly cuts to "And you're sitting at the kitchen table, listening to the radio". And right there, you're brought back to modern day, and the cold reality of living with grief. And his really tender vocals repeating "And I love you" and "Peace will come" over the top. The whole thing is a mood, and you're taken straight to the *feeling* of the thing. And thus sets the template for the rest of the album, which holds up to the strength of this incredible first track.

On top of that, the music creates this really haunting and ethereal atmosphere throughout. There's sweeping strings and moments of searing synths that have such an impact. The whole thing is incredibly moving.

I'm not sure it's one I'll come back and revisit that often, but that takes nothing away from this. Stunning.

It's a fun album this. I think the standout is just the general production and composition of it. It's a kind of happy, floaty vibe for most of it, and quite dreamlike in places. There's some unusual instrumentation in here, but it works well.

3.5 rounded down.

It took me some time to warm to this. I really didn't like it off the bat and thought it was really boring. However... there's a decent amount of good tracks in here. The tracks where they're straight-up rapping together work well. Some of the tracks are pretty chill and have some good rhymes.

It's not really my thing... pleasant but a bit boring. As it is *just* him and his guitar it doesn't have a huge amount of oomph.

2.5 rounded up.

I don't really have any strong feelings about this one. It's alright. It's a little murky and rough around the edges. It all kind of bleeds into one. But.. I kind of dig its shabby charm.

It's got quite a good vibe to it, and it was an easy listen.

It's really dour and I'm not enjoying it.

Generic "I don't like the vast majority of Country music". She has a nice voice I guess, but I just find it so boring.

Bits of this are funky. Bits of this are cool. There's some good bass lines in here. But it's just so long. All of those details become lost when they're repeated and developed over such long track times. It becomes annoying and it's too much.

Cool album cover though.

2.5 rounded down.

This was a nice time. She's got a nice voice, the tracks are easy listening, and I like the instruments broadly across the whole album.

3.5 rounded down.

I was all ready to join the pile-on here and come up with some kind of funny take or two, but it's actually pretty decent. I like the music, and it's a real nice, mellow time.

3.5 rounded down.

This wasn't necessarily my scene back in the day, so I completely overlooked this album outside of any singles I would have heard. I'm pleasantly surprised actually. They're a much different band to what I realised, and it's a much better album than I would have thought.

There's some good dirty riffs in here that I'm really digging and an upbeat energy. It's really approachable, but far from generic.

3.5 rounded up.

This is pretty good! It's good fun and quite consistent.

3.5 rounded down.

Morrissey isn't nice, but this is pretty nice.

It's pretty pleasant. It was a nice thing to play on a day where Spring was finally threatening to arrive and there was a bit of sunshine in the sky.

I like the cover.

Frank Black just knows how to write a good tune. There's loads of great songs on here, and a good array of instruments and styles. I love his energy. I’d always been daunted by dipping into his solo career outside of a few tracks, and I don’t know why. This is excellent and consistent across the whole thing pretty much, which is saying something given the number of tracks. It IS long though. I think it would be more digestible if it were shorter.

4.5 rounded down.

I quite enjoyed this! I found myself headbanging and tapping along a decent amount. It's not massively my thing, but I had a good time with it in the moment. Big guitars. BIG drums. Big energy.

3.5 rounded up.

Man, I haven't heard this in so long. It's kind of weird to come back to it to be honest. I first came across Pardon Me on MTV's 'The Return of the Rock' CD, which I picked up on a dodgy marketplace in Malta when I was a teenager. That was a good CD! But it was Incubus that resonated with me the most, and I promptly picked this up on my return to the UK - before coming a bit of a fan and getting all of their stuff.

I think if I were listening to this fresh today, I'd still definitely enjoy it quite a bit. I'd enjoy some of the musical production, the bass, the mixing... but I think I'd be lower on some of the 'bigger' moments. When the guitars kick-in and he starts belting it out a bit... it tends to feel a bit more generic and one-note at times. It's strange because I'm sure it would have been the complete opposite as a teenager.

Still, I did enjoy this a lot. It's an accomplished album, and there's some great stand-out tracks on it.

Straight down the middle, 60's-70's bluesy rock. It's pretty decent for what it is.

A straight down the middle 3/5.