Reviews by owen

I gave the last SFA album a high three stars. I'd say I like this a bit more; I think it's in four star territory for me.

Yes, it is possible for a 29 minute album to feel too long. Was going to give this two stars, but side B knocked me down to one.

Ronnie Lane is a perfectly adequate singer, but the juxtaposition with the songs where Rod Stewart leads shows what a compelling frontman Rod is. Three stars for the Lane stuff, four for the Rod stuff. Going to give a four as there is more of the latter.

For some reason I had it in my head that Avalanches were an indie guitar band. Not so. This is great, really enjoyed my first listen and looking forward to listening again and becoming more familiar with this.

The Indian songs on here were far better than the sitar versions of rock/pop numbers,.which were frankly terrible, especially the Light My Fire cover. Would be a stronger score if they'd skipped these. Going to average a four for Sagar and similar with a one/two for the western music to get three

Tracy Thorn's voice is great, and I think suits this material better than their earlier folky stuff. I like this, though I appreciate it's a little backgroundy. Going to generously give this a low four, because I was in the right mood for it today.

This is pretty bland stuff. I also think Boy George doesn't have a very strong voice.

This is probably Sonic Youth's best album. Effortlessly cool; Kim Gordon's detached voice really suits the material.

There are a bunch of great songs on here. "To The End" is maybe my favorite, or "End Of A Century," or "This Is A Low", though obviously the big hits (Girls & Boys, Parklife) are fantastic too. I really like Coxon's guitar so in "London Loves." Lots of reviews here saying, in effect, "I guess you had to be there." Well, I was, and this is a five.

I liked this well enough at the beginning but as it progressed I had less patience for it. I liked the slower songs least. She also has a few vocal idiosyncrasies I'm not super fond of.

I gave the last Ice Cube album on this list a two, but I really enjoyed this one. The beats were jazz inflected and the rhymes made me laugh on more than one occasion. Maybe I should go back and listen to AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted to see if I stand by that two - this is a strong four, almost a five.

Liz Fraser's voice is wonderful. This album is great - a five star, even though Heaven or Las Vegas is even better.

I generally liked this; Golden Skans and It's Not Over Yet were standouts. A strong three

I like the immediate sound of this more than the overall end result. In other words, if you took a random two second snippet, I'd say it would sound like it would come from a song I'd like, but in this case, it doesn't. I like the fuzzy guitar tone, but the songs are too unstructured.

Hey, it's Ringo's song! Other than that little surprise at the end, this wasn't for me. I'm going to be generous and say it's a low two, not a one, but maybe that's just because I had Napalm Death recently.

Proof that the sixties didn't start in 1960. This isn't _bad_ and I didn't hate it, but it's decidedly not my kind of thing.

I enjoyed "Want Two" when it came up a while back, and this is very much along the same lines. I like this about the same amount; a solid four stars.

As with Sepultura and the like, I just can't get past the vocals here. Side one had some minor redeeming musical qualities, but side two was much worse. You can't really tell where one song stops and another starts.

The trumpets helped some of these tracks (eg "Maybe the People ..."), and this is better than Da Capo, but still isn't really to my taste.

It took me a couple of songs to get into this - Thomas's voice is not a particularly easy listen. But I adjusted to it and by the end of the album I felt like I'd thoroughly enjoyed myself. Would listen again.