Reviews by ryzgee

Not sure I fully understand the shade that's been thrown these guys' way. It's a perfectly polite and listenable electronica album - maybe a touch unremarkable and the sort of music you'd hear on the old Sky TV Guide menu screen, but hardly a poor offering.

The vocals are genuinely lovely, anchoring the instrumentation well. It's not a particularly upbeat electronica album which I guess does relegate it to a fairly narrow niche in terms of when I'd put it on again, and it is very attributable to its time production wise through the programmed drums and synth textures, but I don't much mind that.

Apparently this isn't the only album they have in the 1001 list, which seems a tad excessive.

I can't remember exactly how I first became aware of The Avalanches, but what I do remember is that I'd never heard anything quite like them at the time, and that I found their mishmashing of assorted vinyl samples invariably fascinating. It's an album that very much rewards dedicated headphone listening, and it's a gift that continues giving each time I revisit it.

Since I Left You takes on a narrative form across its running time, where each of the songs feel like immovable and irreplaceable pieces of the arc, whilst transitioning between one another subtly to give the illusion that they're still contained within the same scenery. It's not all atmosphere-driven, however, as there is no shortage of ingraining motifs to be found here, not least the wacky storytelling of "Frontier Psychiatrist" and the pulsating vigour of "Electricity".

By all accounts, this album should feel like a cold, academic experiment, but somehow it constitutes an incredibly fluid listening experience vested with emotion. There is a warmth to the arrangements here that completely belies any haphazardness you might expect from the collation of disparate samples, though it is a warmth that is caveated by a cloak of melancholic longing and spiritual emptiness enveloping the songs. It's kind of like a wave of depression hitting you mid-summer, and I'm not positively sure that any other album out there encroaches into such a mood in quite the same way and with the same degree of skill.

In short - I bloody love this album!

An iconic album, no doubt, but one that can err a touch on the structurally repetitive side, and it occasionally trudges along at a bit too much of a laborious pace for me.

The production is excellent - achieving a kind of high definition swampy sound that lends the album a gritty, back-alley feel. Musically, it's at its strongest when the simple, yet effective boogie stylings and riffage rule the roost, most pronounced on tracks such as "Get It On", which remains a banger, and the closer "Rip Off". "Cosmic Dancer" offers an early break of vulnerability, making less in the lyrical department count.

However, the album does feel a bit stagnant and sleepy as it reaches its mid-section and conclusion, with other upticks in energy largely indebted to a similar formula.

Great for a certain mood and there's undoubtedly a good handful of tracks here which would do a fine job of soundtracking a vintage party. I'll revisit for those.

Perfectly fine while it was on, not a poor album by any means but it gave off a very delible impression across most of its duration, aside from a couple of numbers such as the opener "Love the One You're With" and "Old Times Good Times".

A cool juxtaposition to the live music I'm about to hear all day at Incineration Fest. When the Bristol trip hop scene comes up in conversation, most people are likely to default to Tricky's alumni in Massive Attack, or Portishead as the most important purveyors of the sound, but I think this possesses equal merit and significance.

It's a densely populated, kind of claustrophobic masterclass which transcends time in providing an individualistic experience within the movement. This differs to the likes of "Dummy" or "Blue Lines" as the production exudes a murkier feel, amplifying aspects of the urban sprawl that can be observed in early trip hop into something more sinister and shadowy, whilst uniquely apportioning the dub and soul elements explored by their peers.

The vocal interplay is fantastic, with Martina Topley-Bird's ethereal, dreamy style contrasting with Tricky's raspy, anxious, frequently bordering on a whisper voice. It lends the album an arcane, kind of androgynous feel that works a real treat.

The first couple of tracks on here were decent, and I was able to appreciate the more expansive, fuzzed out production which made itself well-known on occasion. The album often feels like it's pulling in different directions, contributing to the disorientating psychedelic-meets-soul sound. However, a significant portion of the rest either grated or blurred into royalty-free YouTube background music, and I mean that disrespectfully. Ultimately it's not really my bag.

Very much enjoyed this, having only previously been familiar with Alex Turner's most recognised work as the frontman of Arctic Monkeys, and having never touched base with Miles Kane.

This doesn't entirely lose the urban, gritty aesthetic that marked Arctic Monkeys's earlier material, instead channelling aspects of it into something of a galloping spaghetti western meets grandiose 60s baroque pop sound, in the vein of early Scott Walker and Ennio Morricone. Whilst it does lean heavily into its influences, the orchestral arrangements here elevate the songs into sweeping, dramatic soundtracks, whilst retaining a degree of wit and British cynicism that prevents them from becoming too over earnest. The tight running time of 35 minutes is a huge positive as well, with the album concluding just as you feel that the well could have begun to run dry.

Possibly one I'd purchase.

Essentially a Broadway musical put to a hard rock template, and that's where the problems begin for me. It's maximalist, and "sounds" the part, but what initially feels ambitious and fantasy villain-esque on the surface ultimately comes off as a little too melodramatic, kitschy and indulgent for its own good.

The title track in particular doesn't really use its length to evolve musically, rather repeating the same "peaks" which could have easily amounted to around 4 minutes. By the time you've reached the album's mid-section, you've been inundated with screeching guitars and crashing piano to the point of fatigue and parody.

Not an unenjoyable listen at all, but an uneven one. It captures a raw, proto-garage rock type energy whilst combining it with the in-situ experimentation which was common for psychedelic albums of the time. The oscillating guitar swell of the opener "I Had Too Much To Dream" provides an instant highlight, and the production on here is genuinely excellent, channeling a fairly "dark" vibe through its heavy reverb, tremolo and distorted, fuzzy guitar sound. The vocals also often have a vitriolic quality to them, especially on "Get Me To The World On Time" which is another banger.

The momentum doesn't remain a constant throughout the album, however - the back end becomes a bit forgettable as the album drifts further into baroque territory, and it doesn't always feel entirely stylistically aligned from track to track.

Masterpiece.

An album (and band) that played a crucial role in getting me "properly" into music and laying the foundations for my current tastes. I first heard this when I was 9, in 2008, through my Dad having and playing the CD, and whilst he would often play his music at home (mostly electronic, prog, new wave and 90s rock), Black Holes and Revelations is one of the first albums I heard that truly made sense to me and demanded my attention.

This was more or less the first time that any music of his resembling prog "clicked" with me; courtesy of its bombastic soundscapes, ambitious structures and modernised, yet stylistically 70s-esque modular synth workouts, whilst prioritising huge refrains and ensuring catchy, accessible songwriting for my unprimed ears. It eventually completely contextualised the likes of Genesis, King Crimson, Gentle Giant, Yes et al. for me, leading me down a rabbit hole of "weird" prog whilst also spurring me onto anthemic stadium rock. Before long, I was a Muse megafan with several of their other albums illegally torrented onto my new MP3 player I asked for that Christmas, but this one has easily had the most airtime from me over the years.

No. Just no. Boring, samey songs and a voice like nails down a blackboard.

As we all know, Eric Clapton is a bit of a knob, but regardless this is undoubtedly purchase quality for me.

Fantastic bass-prominent, distorted psych rock meets blues, whilst packing a real bite; coming in at merely 33 minutes, this album contains a multitude of Cream's finest successes, not least the one-two hip-wiggling blast of "Strange Brew" and "Sunshine Of Your Love", before taking a more expansive approach on numbers such as "Dance The Night Away", "Blue Condition" and "We're Going Wrong".

Ginger Baker, Jack Bruce and Clapton exert a stunning degree of mutual understanding with one another, where multiple focused listens will reveal fascinating complexities to the arrangements here. It's a great showpiece, in particular, for Baker's effortlessly versatile drumming.

No notes. 5/5.

Yeah, this was pretty good. Morose as all hell to begin with, but it does pick up significantly towards its mid-section, so it's not uniform in terms of mood in the way I thought it might have been. The chemistry between Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel is abundantly clear throughout, and the way that their vocals entwine with one another really does lend the album a hypnotic quality and a level of sophistication that I wasn't expecting.

I would need to be in a specific headspace to reach for it again, but not an unenjoyable way of spending 28 minutes as I got ready this morning.

Woop, 300 albums down! And I've got a good one to mark the occasion.

This is precisely my brand of punk - minimalist, yet playful instrumentation, slightly erratic, bass-centric, sneery without veering into theatrical levels of anger, and, of course, it has that relatable working class British DIY attitude to it. The production is crystal clear for the time without dulling any of the album's charm, and each crevice of Crossing The Red Sea is packed with catchy refrains and a dependable vigour.

This very much sounds like punk for the "thinking person", without wanting to come across as too pretentious, and the lyrics occupy more of an observational, self-deprecating and claustrophobic canvas. "Gary Gilmore's Eyes" in particular is a real highlight in how it taps into unconventional writing territory - it's not every day that you listen to a song exploring the perspective of a patient receiving a double eye transplant from an executed murderer.

This is pretty much all killer for me.

No thank you!

Despite the absolute fiasco that is trying to deduce which version of this album is the correct version, the fact that I listened to the wrong version, that this shouldn't even be eligible for the list because it's a compilation album, the fact that it's an LTJ Bukem album only by name as he owns the record label featuring the actual artists who contribute to nine of the ten tracks on the wrong version, and sixteen of the twenty tracks on the correct version, and chose to release the compilation under his own moniker, and that I was almost duped into listening to the wrong version of the album thrice over because of the two continuous mixes at the end on Spotify, what did I actually think of the wrong version of Logical Progression?

... it's a pretty solid drum & bass / jungle album, and something I genuinely would revisit. As a neurodivergent, I often default to this sort of music when I'm experiencing sensory overload or burnout as it does good things to my brain. This did good things to my brain. It also measures up quite well production-wise in comparison to several other similar albums I've had so far, and there was plenty enough variety from track to track for it to remain interesting; often an issue with these sorts of albums, especially when they typically err on the lengthy side.

I'm going to assume that the correct version of the album provides a similar experience to what I listened to this morning, so I'm rating it four stars.

Yet another album to add to the "whole lot of nothing brigade" which is gaining new members at an unenviable rate! One of those albums which, you can tell, thinks it's smarter than its peers, but ultimately lacks any kind of sauce. Painfully middle of the road at best, a bit crap at its worst, I gave up halfway through as that provided more than enough of a sample size.

Pointless writing much about this one as I don't really have any unique insights to give. It's all been said before. There's a reason why it's considered a classic - because it's bloody good!