Reviews by londonhawkredux

"Oooooh. Dinosaur Jr" I thought. I know they're cool, but haven't really ever listened to them.

Meh.

Hole were only ever very vaguely on my radar (most likely because of the Kurt Cobain link) without ever really listening to anything except Celebrity Skin. But this is perfect grunge era spiky, fuzzy, glorious guitarness.

So. Very. Conflicted............... Radiohead now feel like the band that "superior" music people challenge you with. If you don't like Kid A / OK Computer then you're either stupid or not trying hard enough. So when this popped up, I was fully prepared to go all out snark and dish out 1 or 2 stars.

But. BUT. My word this was a fabulous album. "High and Dry", "Just", "Sulk" all glorious soundtracks to my teenage angst and misery before the ultimate finale to the "staring into a bottle of Bells / Southern Comfort wondering why girls won't talk to me" era with "Street Spirit" and it's howling into the void "fade out again".

4 stars, should probably be 5, whilst hating myself for not rating it a 2. Which is probably exactly how it should be.

`Am sure there will be more Talking Heads / David Byrne to come. Funky, spiky with Byrne's unique delivery - you know what you're going to get here. If it's their second album, then I'm not sure it's truly revolutionary, sounded a lot like the first album to me.

Not as good as the Thundercats. "Sword of Omens, give me sight, beyond sight". In fact, on reflection, would rather listen to the Thundercats theme on loop for 52mins than this again.

Another band that I was aware of without really listening to. And now I know why - had high hopes when this appeared, but man is this album dull.

Didn't understand the love at the time, don't understand it now.

Some schmaltzy-pap along with the glorious "I Believe" and the absolute FILTH of Superstition. Almost gets 5 for Superstition alone.

9 very solid rock and roll tracks before the unleashing of American Girl shows what a career this is going to go on and be.

All the cool kids listened to this. If you went to a party at someone's house in 95/96 this would be playing. I didn't listen to it, because I was insufferable, and convinced that if there weren't guitars, bass etc, then it wasn't PROPER music.

Naturally I was wrong. Whilst this also led to a load of bang-average UK electronica around the same time, this undoubtedly changed the music scene. And John Lydon snarling his way through "Open Up" as well.

Interesting. Definitely some Hole-esque riot-grl vibes combined with some "white guys play R&B in the late 60s" vibes.

Not entirely sure my boat was floated enough to make this one I'll return to, but enjoyed the discovery none-the-less

I must have been a total asshat to be around in the late-90s. Having had the IMMENSE Ágætis byrjun earlier in the week (9 out of 5 stars), I was delighted to see this pop-up in the feed. Adored Mercury Rev, and, whilst not quite in the same class as the Icelandic chaps, the vocals & lyrics of Jonathan Donahue absolutely take you off into another world.

Loved it (but only 5 stars)

Gravelly, like pouring whisky directly into my ears. Would say I appreciated it, rather than loved it.

Album almost completely passed me by without realising. Jangly opening not what I was expecting and then suddenly Spotify has queued up something else. Probably not a good thing

My heart soared when this one dropped into the feed. As a teen from smalltown suburban UK, this album absolutely exploded my brain when I first heard it. I tried to remember how I was introduced to it, and was pretty certain it was from Q magazine - research shows the review was thus :

sigur rós' second album proper features this astonishing opener [svefn-g-englar] and 10 others which, while surprisingly diverse, each reflects their penchant desire for apocalyptic serenity, overdriven guitars and teenage singer jónsi birgisson's unique hopelandish language

Adored it then, adore it now

Groovier than I'll ever be that's for sure.

Another one for the "was very much aware of, but hadn't really listened to, and that's why this site is great list". Another band that feels like they were absolutely the right place, right time for me to discover, but not all that surprised I didn't on reflection. Some of the "shoe-gaze" era is tremendously joyful, this is warbling background noise. Tempted to remove a star because Andy Bell went on to form Hurricane #1, one of the worst bands I ever saw live, but that would be overly harsh.

Part of me thinks the reason I don't like Coldplay, a band that instinctively I should love, is because they were enormously popular before I'd really ever heard of them.

The other part of me thinks it's just because they're fucking dull.

Hmmm. Snoop is fun right. And some of the rhymes and beats are catchy. But also a lot of misogynistic penis chat

Like an explosion in a Babybel factory circa 1982, and another reason this project is ace. It's not going on my "goodness gracious, this is the finest thing to ever enter my ears" list, but wasn't at all familiar with the artist or album and now I'm educated. This was a tasty slice of overblown 80s funk / soul and I am here for it.