Reviews by krill_42

This is (maybe) not a five-star album in the classical sense. It’s neither all killers, nor is it wildly inventive or groundbreaking. But here is the thing: my judgement is clouded. Because from a subjective perspective, this is where it all started for me personally. As a teenager growing up in a rural town, this album was hu(uuuu)ge for me. Fake Tales of San Francisco is an all-time favorite, and even today it transports me back to the cold winter of 2006, when my brain was rewired after actively hearing this melange of indie and post-punk for the first time - made by someone roughly from my own generation.

Over the years, I’ve listened to thousands of different albums, genres (and of course to the godmothers and godfathers of this style) but this one still feels special. Unlike many other releases from that era, I think it has aged remarkably well (with the debuts from Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party, and Maxïmo Park also standing the test of time). Alex Turner is a great lyricist, the drumming is sharp, and the whole thing carries an amazingly raw energy - youthful yet timeless.

As much as I like The Doors’ first outing, I detest this one. Where their debut was raw, wild, inventive, and fun to listen to, L.A. Woman drags; it’s bloated, self-indulgent, and at times an uninspired blues-rock cliché (especially Been Down So Long, Crawling King Snake, and The WASP). L’America, which follows after L.A. Woman, is an extraordinarily annoying song („Change the weather, change your luck / And then he’ll teach ya how to… find yourself” - ahem, wow).

Of course, there is still quality songwriting: in the moody Cars Hiss By My Window, Morrison conjures up vivid images of estrangement, longing, and ennui. However, that a largely improvised, fragmentary track stands as one of the album’s strongest is telling.

In other songs, Morrison’s songwriting craft has waned significantly (he actually sounds tried), which is a pity, because he was the one who elevated The Doors from a good band to a special one. It’s also unfortunate that the group weren’t able to meet the standard set by the opener The Changeling in the following tracks. I can understand why people judge the quality of L.A. Woman based on the strength of the title track and Riders on the Storm, but this overlooks the record’s filler-heavy reality. Their producer even went so far as to call parts of the recordings “cocktail music.” He wasn’t entirely wrong…

On Foxbase Alpha, Saint Etienne manage to walk the fine line between pleasant, house-based sound washes and carefully orchestrated bliss. Don’t mistake it for mere easy listening, though — it’s not. Whether you fall for its modest, 60’s-tinged pop approach is a question of perspective. It’s club-rooted music for the after-hours and the comedowns; music for those who find beauty in the cracks of society at dawn, when most of us are still asleep.

Best digested while waiting at rural bus stations in the wee hours of the morning, as dust slowly drifts in the shy sunlight across fields waiting to be plowed. But there is more than just a soft indie music/alternative dance element to it. Saint Etienne know how to write an instantly memorable melody and a catchy hook — and this is why it stands out from the pack.

What’s truly engrossing about the album, however, is Saint Etienne’s playful handling of their source material. Be it the profound re-arrangement of the Neil Young classic Only Love Can Break Your Heart (ever wondered how it would sound in 4/4 with a dubby backbeat?), the looping of a Hey Jude cover (Wilson), or the Dusty Springfield sample in Nothing Can Stop Us. The scatter of odd and brief movie or audio samples strewn across the release only adds to its timeless yet melancholic feel.

I was sad to learn that, after more than three decades, Saint Etienne have announced that their upcoming release will be their final studio album. They’ve been around so long that I’ve somehow taken new music from them for granted. While certainly not reinventing the wheel on their latest records, they have always managed to refine the formula they crafted on Foxbase Alpha. And that’s a feat far from common.

Much like Dylan’s Bringing It All Back Home, Rust Never Sleeps has both an acoustic and an electric side - and it’s all the better for it. The latter even proved formative for the sound of grunge that would blossom in the ’90s.

Partly tracked live and later overdubbed, these recordings sound raw and yet fantastic. Plus, the collection features some of Neil Young’s absolute finest songs (Thrasher, Pocahontas, Powderfinger, Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)). Man, does he shred on the B-side with his Les Paul.

I’m not particularly crazy about Ride My Llama, Welfare Mothers and Sedan Delivery, as they pale in comparison to the other towering songs on the album. But that’s really just nitpicking.

Neil Young reportedly included “rust” in the title of the previous tour as a metaphor to avoid artistic stagnation - however, if you’ve got these songs sitting around, one does wonder what exactly he thought he was rusting into.

Just two years after the maestro himself peaked in his experimental late-career phase with The Drift, two British boys (barely adults and still one of them already spearheaded the new British wave of post-punk-ish indie in the mid-2000s), decided to make a Scott Walker (circa Scott 2-4) pastiche record. It wasn’t something that won me over when it was initially released. Maybe it was because I was still a teen, and anything that sounded vaguely like grandeur drenched in Morricone-style string arrangements seemed automatically like the product of some pseudo-intellectual bourgeois. But now that I’m older and wiser, I can finally correct my ignorant past self and say: this is a pretty decent record and proof of just that would be My Mistakes Were Made For You. Plus, the line “Declaring war on the underclass / Public enemy, I guess / But we’ll find out in the end” in the album opener actually speaks against my initial “bourgeoisie” suspicion, haha.

Alex Turner has always been a great lyricist, and his texts work quite well in their orchestral incantation on The Age of the Understatement. The album sounded far more ambitious than his prior work with Arctic Monkeys, and in retrospect, you can tell that - rather unusual for a side project - the writing and recording of this album influenced the trajectory of Turner’s “main” career. Just play this back to back to Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino…

Unlike Scott Walker’s career, I don’t love the “later” Arctic Monkeys albums. This is why The Age of the Understatement is a rare example where I think Turner’s artistic vision and crooner-style really shine in such a highly embellished musical setting. So it’s a blessing that this collection exists. By the way, Miles Kane: his voice blends well with Turner’s - especially the vocal interplay is great but it reeks like Alex Turner must be the brainchild of most of these songs. But sometimes to add vibe is just as important.

Phew. A apparently rotten personality making a hellishly dull and obnoxious album. Every original track Clapton covers is better - and that’s by a long shot. Did he even adapt a single thing in the arrangement of his Bob Marley cover? And yet here we are, 50 years later, still pretending that white musicians “borrowing” (read: looting) from Black music are breaking some kind of artistic ground. Seriously? Looking at you too, Chicago and Blood, Sweat & Tears. Eric Clapton, though? Next-level shite: Not everyone has the audacity to ride to fame on the backs of others and be outright racist while culturally appropriating.

Yes, Dare was hugely influential at the time of its release and helped pave the way for synth-pop to come (you can hear the Kraftwerk and Cabaret Voltaire aesthetic all over it). It’s undeniably a crucial document of the 1980s and contains some great ideas: The pulsating The Sound of the Crowd, the ska‑beat‑driven Do or Die, the dark, Krautrock‑influenced I Am the Law.

However, the album as a whole doesn’t really stand the test of time (ironically, Open Your Heart deals with just that topic: “But if you can stand the test, you know your worst is better than their best”). The production sounds mostly outdated - even compared to other synth/dance/new wave records from the early ’80s - and the songwriting isn’t as sharp as some want you to believe. Maybe it’s the overuse of use of contrast (high v. low frequencies) or the Linn drum machine that occasionally annoys the hell out of me. Some of the synth sounds are outright annoying too (like the high/shrill flute imitating tones in Open Your Heart, Darkness and Seconds).

And then there’s the ultra creepy Don’t You Want Me. I’m glad we now live in a time where toxic masculinity and stalking are no longer mistaken for romance.

On the bright side: the Ramones name-dropping line in the opener, The Things That Dreams Are Made Of, made me chuckle.

Even if you don't think that the White Stripes were musical pioneers, you've got to acknowledge their dedication to the craft. What I love about them is how they wear their influences on their sleeves, lovingly take their forebearers' legacy, add a good portion of garage rock ferocity, and create hooky songs out of it. That's how you do it. Plus, a word about Meg White's drumming: I adore her barebones, no-bullshit, clockwork-like approach. She really propels these songs; it's utterly brilliant. The art is to make it seem simple. But if it really was that simple, why can so few bands replicate it? The secret ingredients might be the great and, frankly, palpable chemistry between these two musicians.

This is one where Björk takes you to the club.

It’s astonishing how fully formed Björk’s artistic vision was already on Debut. While she would go on to elevate her craft to sublime heights on the following three albums, this one - even though not as stylistically cohesive as Post, Homogenic, or Vespertine - contains some standout tracks: Human Behaviour, Venus as a Boy, Big Time Sensuality, Violently Happy or the closer, The Anchor Song.

With Debut, Björk laid the foundation for one of the most inventive and unique bodies of work in Western pop music. Over these 11 tracks, Björk channels genres and styles (Acid House, Drum and Bass, Trip Hop and Jazz included) as if it were the easiest thing to do and her vocal performance is simply out of this world.

Nellee Hooper, Björk’s producer on Debut, built her a fitting and brilliant hybrid of analog warmth and digital crunch (Roland TR 909 and sample based percussion/processed beats) to deliver her idiosyncratic vocals on top.

Oh so brilliant.

Imagine Simon & Garfunkel stripped down to their basic chords, throw in some gain, add bass and drums, and replace the angelic voice of Garfunkel with a weary, drug-addled, morning-after rasp - more Gram Parsons than Art Garfunkel’s angelic choirboy tenor - and you’ve got the sound of It’s a Shame About Ray. It’s Simon & Garfunkel via The Replacements or Big Star. Wondering if I mean that in a positive way? Hell yeah.

Sometimes all you need are great, hooky tunes, an electric guitar, and lyrics about human relationships, alienation, or drugs. If it were that simple to stir up an album that works as well as this one, why don’t we have more of them?

Just listen to: Confetti, the title track, Alison’s Starting to Happen, Kitchen, My Drug Buddy. The melodies are saccharine - in the best possible way. It’s A Shame About Ray is mostly pristine early-’90s Boston jangle/alt-rock/underground pop bangers, with L.A.’s sublight baked into the fabric.

The tunes are insanely catchy, the runtime is concise, and it’s rough around the edges. In short: it’s pretty close to perfect.

While undoubtly a transitional record, this is still Dylan at his best.

If you’re feeling particularly numb today, lying on your sofa with no motivation to get up at all, giving this a play comes highly recommended. I can confirm: it will not disturb your insufferable state of mind.

As for why I think So Much for the City is included on this list: I think this is because it is a record that explains… nothing at all. Look, there was a portion of good indie (folk) pop in the early 2000s. A word of warning though: if you want to convince an unbeliever of this, do not play them So Much for the City by The Thrills. Yeah, it’s not a terrible album, but it’s a far cry from being a good one either — and, in theory, even further from being worthy of inclusion on this list. It’s mostly mundane, forgettable, folksy-tinged music about some Irish dudes spending time in California. And I think this is exactly the reason why this should, in practice, belong here.

There were already thousands of copycats of this sound, and there will be thousands more to come — which is fine. And if the editors wanted to prove exactly this point by including a random act such as The Thrills, they fully succeeded. So Much for the City is a “powerful” reminder that indie folk always existed, will continue to exist, and that it’ll produce bazillions of records that will be immediately lost to time. Sometimes the sound will be more popular (as it was back in 2003), and sometimes it will be absolutely unpopular (as it is in 2026). Sometimes you will feel shitty, sometimes you will feel better. Two vicious circles aligning…

But one thing is for sure: So Much for the City and its countless peers will always be here for you on your streaming service of choice.

This is… obnoxious.

I tried, I really did and squinted at it like maybe I was missing some deeper meaning. But nope: The only word that fits is pretentious. Yes, it’s well produced. And yes, it’s probably technically “well executed.” But none of that helps when the whole thing sounds like someone tried to make soul music, albeit with less soul.

And then there’s the phallic Free Form Guitar - a track so aggressively annoying, it physically hurts to listen to. if you’re releasing a debut album that clocks in at around 80 minutes, you should definitely have a lot to say. These guys didn’t. Unless “we’re horny, we own pedals and we brought a brass section” counts as a message.

You kind of have to admire their confidence though.

A set of folky blues-rock tunes with a laid-back charm. The album is anchored by the classic Bad Moon Rising, which is the undeniable - and, to be honest: sole - standout. While nothing else quite reaches that level, the rest of the album has its moments - some tasteful bluesy guitar work and a warm, rootsy vibe throughout. If you grew up in the US during the late ’60s or ’70s, this probably feels like a piece of your cultural fabric. For listeners born elsewhere, it’s an interesting snapshot of its time - maybe not essential, but worth a listen.

Only By the Night starts off kinda OK – Closer is a decent opener (yes, I know… haha). But what follows is… the rest of the album. One mediocre tune follows another until it’s finally over. The production seems to be aiming for the sweeping, echo-drenched grandeur of U2, while the whole musical/lyrical approach is apparently meant to be elusive, maybe even seductive. But especially with lyrics this clumsy (frankly, bad), the result sounds equivalent to browsing for lingerie in the clearance bin at Walmart.

There are beautiful songs beneath the gleaming sunlight. This is a masterpiece of textural art - layer upon layer. Much has already been said about these ghoulish guitars; the drumming is equally intense. Brilliant with every fibre of its being.

Damon Albarn knows how to write a song - and then to embellish it. This time, though, it’s a rather understated affair, with a close look into the rear-view mirror and a nostalgic touch. You would be forgiven for not realising that it’s Tony Allen behind the kit (but then again there are songs like Nature Springs and Three Changes. These ornate, folky dub-pop marvels take their fair share of time to blossom. There is much to disassemble while listening: for example, in Kingdom of Doom, a soaring guitar cuts through the feeling of yonder times. Or the amazing drum work. Everything sounds analogue, warm, and a bit dusty - in the most positive sense (my favorite of said sounding bunch would be Green Fields).

Give your bathroom mirror a good smack; go on, do it now. That damn little liar trying to tell you that something is off with your face will get what he deserves. Because, Bam, everything is fine the way it is. Wait, no, it's not. Anyways. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam…

Leonard Cohen emerged as a fully formed songwriter. And that's really all there is to say. I would feel so dumb even trying to write something profound about his magnetic, fully enchanting lyricism. Do the instrumentals hold up? Ehm, yup.

Sometimes, it can be impossible to come up with a convincing explanation for your love of a record. London Calling is sprawling, the very opposite of concise. It's all over the place, it's incoherent, it has some filler material. And still, I wouldn't want to miss a single second of it. A perfect 5/5!