Reviews by jonathanptait

This is so fucking corny it's unbelievable, sounds like it was dreamed up in a C-suite office and stinks of trying to target light beer enthusiasts

I think this suffers from being overproduced in contrast to Five Leaves Left and Pink Moon - much in the same way Nick Drake allegedly expressed.

The album is at its strongest when it showcases Nick, and not the band that was assembled for him. The instrumental tracks range from good to fair. It's my least favourite of his, but it's still a very good record.

I don't know what he's trying to achieve with this album, I assume it's a gesture towards the vibes of the great American songbook writers but it just doesn't land. For such an iconic guitarist, it's also a bold choice to spend so much of the time behind the piano - and Keith Jarrett he is not. A few good singles save it.

There are some fantastic pop/r&b songs here, the biggest tracks are somewhat cheapened by their ubiquity but four HUGE singles is impressive. Nothin' Else is a great Stevie Wonder parody, but after that, the album really starts to lose it's way - the final seven tracks send us into the weeds with them ranging from non-descript half baked single ideas to the straight up uncool.

High watermark of English folk rock

Once you've heard it, you can't unhear it; a life-altering recording. I love and hate it in equal measure. Today, I loved it except for the repetitious acapella tracks

Since this album isn't on Spotify, and I therefore can't save songs that I like to my playlist to prompt future reflections -here's my amateurish and hasty listening notes:

Frownland - A baptism by fire, chainmail voice and dense atonality.

Dust Flows Forward and Dust Blows Back - ominous to hear the isolated voice and natural vibrato, with a strange, somewhat pastoral poem

Dachau Blues - the groaning of the industrial death machine is absolutely evident here

Ella Guru - a more straightforward psychedelic rock number, comparatively with a jazzy drum part and chorus refrain

Hair Pie Bake 1: cacophonous horns in the Ornette Coleman tradition.

Moonlight on Vermont - a chainsaw and axe of bluesy treble-rich freakouts going through the bathroom door; my favourite track.

Pachuco Cadaver - second mention of the fast and bulbous trope, a bouncy accented trip, enjoyable

Bills Corpse - a more challenging polytonal drag with horrorshow lyrics, that bouncy feel remains, but feels like a carnival bungee cord starting to fail

Sweet Sweet Bulbs - funky gunky and makes all kinds of pastoral/spring/sexual comparisons

Neon Meate Dream of a Octafish - what am I actually listening to here?

China Pig - the recording quality changes, aping old blues records and blues 78s, definitely the straightest composition here

My Human Gets Me Blues - like a swamp witch doctor leading two bands at two different songs at once. When that bass comes in the last quarter it hits like a bowling ball

Dalis Car - Is this Glenn Branca? Who invited Thurston Moore?

Hair Pie Bake 2 - like all leftovers, better the second time when thoroughly warmed up

Pena - fast and bulbous again, is this the point in which you realise they're kind of joking and having fun?

Well - the best pure acapella track

When Big Joan Sets Up - makes me feel like being on a rollercoaster, some of those little guitar motifs are brilliant. The horn cutting through is genuinely hilarious at first. Can would be proud

Fallin' Ditch - lives up to it's name, sounds like a band falling down a slope

Sugar N Spikes - lives up to it's name, sweet and jagged - another relatively straightforward one!

Ant Man Bee - John Lewis Hooker(ISH) at the outset and by the end I've no idea what I'm listening to, maybe a semi-truck carrying a jazz band through LA traffic

Orange Claw Hammer - a touchstone would be Richard Dawson, although far less folksy, or perhaps the melodies of Gregorian chant

Wild Life - I hope to never feel as shitty as this song feels, it's like a migraine in a nursery

She's too Much for my Mirror - it's only now I notice Zappa when I hear him, even though I know he was producing! The drumming here is chefs kiss.

Hobo Chang Ba - is this a sensitive depiction of immigrant alienation or should we cancel Don Van Vliet?

The Blimp (Mousetrapreplica) - how tight were the band? I bet they loved rehearsing together in harmony under no pressure

Steal Softly Thru Snow - the band seem to get progressively tighter as the album wears on - is it intentional or my ears adjusting?

Old Fart at Play - you can hear what he would do on Ice Cream for Crow, I think. Why the vocal take lasts so much longer I've no idea!

Veterans Day Poppy - a seriously strong finish, I think - it's like 60s psych meets European Son meets One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest meets rockabilly

It's good, there are some seriously off-putting vocal affectations that make otherwise great songs just par

It's so weird and quaint, I loved it

We Will Fall is an extremely unwelcome addition to this otherwise straightforward and vital proto-punk record. Probably would've been an amazing EP without it - or could've been improved by including Asthma Attack in its place - which covers the same territory of weirdness in a briefer, more direct but equally dark way.

This would've been a four, but it genuinely loses a point for this songs inclusion.

Otherwise this is guilty of aping some pretty huge artists and doing so obviously from a compositional standpoint, but brings enough to the table from an ethos and timbre to remain a worthwhile listen.

Somewhere between The Doors, the Velvet Underground and MC5 exists the Stooges, and this is one of their records - sometimes that's as much as you can say.

Fun House and Raw Power are better.

Has to be up there with one of the strongest second sides in album history, and a supreme album in its genre

Yeah, canny fine, I can't believe this is on the list though? I wouldn't have given Chems the plaudits except for Dig Your Own Hole?

Shite, turgid Gallagher-lite dross. It's chock full of meandering dirges. Pedestrian sound of British decline. Feels like going 3mph bus tour of Bolton in a clapped out British Leyland. Sixty four minutes of watching magnolia emulsion soak into a white wall.

Two versions of the same song is always weak filler, it's pretty decent but Wayne Coynes voice isn't the strongest

Great record!

Why do people think the Berlin trilogy is Bowies three best mid seventies albums? THIS shits all over Lodger, and although an LA album is a much more focused and a natural stylistic pairing to what he would do in 1977.

To go from Blue Eyed Soul pastiches to a Brechtian art rock with jazzy undertones in twelve months is INSANE. The fact his lifestyle didn't destroy him around this time and he could be so creatively fertile is wild.

Some massive tracks, enjoyable jams and tones that cut like a buzzsaw on Keep On Chooglin. Only let down by two blues by numbers style songs in the middle

It's JUST a four, just about, maybe it's a three but there's a few big songs.

Guilty of picking his earlier work over this routinely. It's so angry and sad I find it hard to want to get into the album. But it's a real treat.

Oh I wish I enjoyed this more, annoying vocals and timbres ruin it. I didn't hate it though

Their first perfect album? Maybe a touch too much John for my liking, but there are so many massive songs here - and probably kicks off their most prolific pop period