Reviews by owen

On the whole I found this a little bland, although I did like "La Del Ruso".

Not my thing at all, but I have to say considerably more bearable than many others in the genre, I think largely because Belladonna's not doing the growling thing and actually sings.

Some of this I liked quite a lot; I especially liked "Kick In The Eye." Other bits felt like a slightly less good Joy Division. A pretty solid three.

I didn't mind the repetitiveness, even on Frankie Teardrop, but I admit the screaming got old fairly quickly.

I didn't mind the seventeen-minute final track, but side one was pretty terrible; some laughably bad bits - like Lou Reed coming in loudly on the final words like a demented Beastie Boy. The production on this is not great; you can barely hear the drums.

The title track is great, and the subsequent tracks are very good, but not quite at the same level. I didn't like this quite as much as "What's Going On."

I like pretty much all the Strokes albums, even the ones that were less well-received than this, but this is fairly undeniably the best of them all.

There were bits of this i liked, and other bits I wasn't that keen on. Richman doesn't have an outstanding voice. A low three.

A one-two of the King and Queen of Soul, if anything, Aretha tops yesterday's (excellent) Otis Redding offering. The definitive version of "You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman."

Redding sounds amazing here, and the material here is excellent, even if a couple of the covers were done even better by others (Redding's Respect is great, but Aretha's is even better). Still, a definite five.

Maybe it's sacrilege, but I'm going to give this four rather than five. I really like it, but for some reason my listening didn't push me into five territory. I gave Darklands five, and I'm not sure I could objectively say this is worse. Strongly suspect there are days when the scores would be swapped.

I liked this a little more than the last Barry Adamson album we had. A pretty solid three; like the last, I suspect it could go higher with repeated listens.

Much like the other The The album we had, the weak point here is Johnson's vocals, which don't work for me somehow. I do like the instrumentals though, especially in "Uncertain Smile," which had an extended instrumental section.

Ok, I have to admit this is actually really good (despite me having called Pink Floyd "overrated" in the past). Deserves its five stars. Now I just need a two-star Pink Floyd album to round out the straight.

I came pretty late to this, maybe ten years ago, but when I did, it grabbed me immediately. An absolute classic .

Reminds me of college days (even though this came out several years prior). Is it just me, or do Jello Biafra and Fred Schneider sound similar?

The most enjoyable of all the Nick Cave-related albums I've encountered on the list so far. I still don't totally love his voice, and it was a little longer than it needed to be, but on the whole this is is very good.

I groaned when I saw yet another SF sixties psych rock album, but this actually wasn't too bad, though I liked side A more than side B. Certainly better than Skip Spence's solo album, which I remember disliking. A low three.

Given my general aversion to late sixties psych rock, I was surprised by how listenable I found this. It's not bad at all. A reasonably solid three.

Ok, perhaps I was a little unfair on Wire when I said that I liked Elastica's homages/rip-offs "miles more." Because this album is pretty fucking great. I still stand by liking Connection more than Three Girl Rhumba though.