Reviews by mitten

Do you like Ozomatli? Their early work was a little too party-boy for my tastes, but when Street Signs came out in '04, I think they really came into their own, commercially and artistically. The whole album has a clear, crisp sound, and a new sheen of consummate maturity that really gives the songs a big boost. They've been compared to Santana, but I think Ozomatli have a far more playful, lively sense of musicianship. In '11, Ozomatli released this, Happy Feet Two: The Video Game, the original soundtrack; their most accomplished album. I think their undisputed masterpiece is "Moose on the Loose," a song so catchy, most people probably don't listen to the lyrics. But they should, because it's not just about the unpredictability of dangerous situations, and the hazards of letting your guard down, it's also a personal statement about the value, towards overcoming obstacles, of persistence itself.

A pretty solid block of upbeat psych rock, sounds nice overall

If Taylor Swift announced that she were "going back to her roots," I think this is the album that would happen

Delicious sparkly pop rock that doesn't spare any space to get bored, consider me a sucker

I probably shouldn't get my hopes up for an indie singer-songwriter album whose primary positive trait is "powerful, emotionally honest lyrics!" but I've heard of it, at least, so it counts for something

It's kind of bland to listen through musically and whatever impact the lyrics had is lost on my 2020s mind, but it's not bad, the album's not so much one-note as simply a little desaturated and low-contrast

Fun and wild, not particularly what I expected from them, though while the album has some variety and goes places, the individual songs can be a little more stationary

Still likeable, though

Enjoyable, peaks with the last few, as lyrical as one would expect

Fun, follows what the title suggests (much more towards the "southern rock" than the "rock opera" portion) sounds nice in portions but gets a tad one-note through the whole thing

Comfortably soothing '90s indie with less highs and more runtime than their other album from the future on this list, but it's still a promising start

It's got some moments where it does something unique, but for a listen it's a little all-over-the-place, playing the fields of both "cool" and "not great"

Bland, never really feels exciting to listen to. Spend the album's duration waiting for that one special song that really does something different and justifies its inclusion a little more. It never comes, be disappointed

But it's not bad, it's just uniformly *decent*. A little fresh, a little unique. It just doesn't carry that spark of "Kravitz sound" into an album with actually good songs

Sort of forgettable and dated for its time, don't see what makes it particularly special but it's decent

An album sounds like the harsh, grimy, unforgiving city just the way it's meant to, it's got a strong ambiance to it, the tracks feel diverse yet together, overall it's easy to immerse into

The conversation snippets get old, though, I don't think there'll ever be an album where that stuff doesn't get kind of old. For relisten value, if nothing else

But that's neither here nor there

A renaissance fair folk epic, it's poetic and a journey, and not hard to get lost in

Some fun enjoyable rock music, and I always make space on my calendar for grunge day

A pretty rich and full listen for its time, and perfect to be queued up for the poetry meet

5/5 free space

It's not very subtle about itself, which is good for getting the point across to an idiot who can't pick up on anything (one such could be typing right now) but if that were a concern, then the music does a fine job of setting tones and carrying the emotions through

There's a good range of moods and even some opportunity for a few individual songs to stand out on this album-length downer saga, even though they can't quite shine the way the hits do on Transformer

It's a nice album, all things considered

It makes the best it can out of a limited genre, and it generally sounds nice doing it, although the title track is still a notable standout

It's Deep Purple meets Deep South in this hard-rock-with-a-cowboy-hat spectacle, it's got some good and memorable songs, the tracks with Spotify stream counts in the hundreds of millions are mostly clearly tiers above the rest, but that's okay because those tracks make up like 2/3 of the album's length

It's a good time