Reviews by ryzgee

This is one of those strange albums which doesn't really leave much of a lasting impression at all, but whilst on it's thoroughly enjoyable and a wonderfully relaxing listen. I have to remind myself that it exists and is saved in my library whenever shuffle brings me to it, but this brand of warm, enveloping dream pop with melancholic undertones is absolutely my thing.

The production on this is fantastic, offering a crystalline atmosphere and a kind of cinematic, hypnotic grandeur whilst the vocals are reverberating and pushed to the front. On the flip side, the album never really breaks out of a languid mid-tempo pace, which does allow it to forge a cohesive mood that is perfect for losing yourself in. However, the lines between tracks are prone to becoming blurred if you aren't actively engaged with the layered instrumentation.

All told, I'd scoop this up at the right price.

This started out very promisingly with some fat, dirty, fuzzy riffage which got my head bopping, as well as some interesting angular instrumentation, but by around the album's halfway point I'd just had enough of the vocals and the fairly samey sounding tones throughout. I hung on hoping I'd manage to get back into it, but come the end it felt every bit of its 42 minutes.

Not as keen on this one as I am the self-titled, mainly due to the vocals and harmonies which feel much more grating to my ear. After a fairly poor opener in that regard I felt the dust beginning to settle, but then tracks such as "Pearl's Cafe" reaffirmed my early concerns. Instrumentally it's well-assembled and clearly a high quality ska album though, even if ska isn't much my thing.

This is nowhere near as shit as I thought it would be, or even what I thought it would be. It's a diffuse, sprawling psych-rock album heading into some wildly experimental territories and with some thrilling Hammond organ playing to be witnessed. This is way ahead of its time in more ways than one.

It's got a thick murky low-end and swirling atmosphere which demands to be heard either on a good pair of headphones or speaker system. The guitar work on here is great, with a real bluesy bite to it that weaves spectacularly well with the aforementioned Hammond organ. There are also hints of the developments which would follow in ambient music and space rock in the engulfing seven minute "Section 43", which shares that same drone-heavy experimentation of later acts.

This is a genuinely fascinating and fearlessly ambitious album.

Found this inoffensive but incredibly boring, unaffecting and monotonous. It occupies more or less the same mood and sonic structures throughout its running time.

Classic late 70s British punk. You really can sense the band dipping their toes into bigger things on this record after the initial punk explosion began to splinter – there's hints of the post punk, gothic rock, darker atmospheric depths and even the 80s wave of psychedelia which would soon follow, and they're executed with aplomb, but this still retains the working class fury, existential dread and frustration of their early work and of their peers. This is fantastic with regards its variety for a punk record.

Captain Sensible stepping up to perform lead duties on this really did give The Damned a whole new dimension. He brought chaos but also a highly melodic sense of genius to proceedings, which combines perfectly with the frenetic drumming, punishing basslines and eerie synth textures. You then of course have Dave Vanian's unhinged theatrical crooning which allows him to stand out as a key figurehead of the genre.

There's not a weak moment to be had here in my view, but the two-part closer "Smash It Up" in tribute to Mark Bolan is quite simply phenomenal. Five stars.

A well-constructed album but one which sounds completely overblown to my ears. Everything is pristine and maximised to within an inch of breaching my sanity, whilst the breathy high register vocals began to grate very quickly. Nope, next.

I often struggle to write about jazz albums, particularly ones as complex as this, as they are by and large above my station. For a brief summary I'll just say that I thought this was excellent and I'll absolutely be coming back for more.

This is far more than your typical jazz album, and something which consistently demands your attention through its fusion of multiple flavourings from across the musical hemisphere, alongside its dynamic pacing, thorough unpredictability and immersive, wide-ranging production. Despite all of that, though, it still manages to feel like one piece cycling through several movements. Absolutely one I'd purchase.

Wow, wow, wow. This has been a revelation. It shares that exact same primal energy as early Killing Joke, and I can hear the influence of this strongly in Fire Dances in particular. It's got those huge, pounding, anxiety inducing, Latin/Eastern influenced tribal rhythms, left-of-centre guitar tunings and that jaunty, twangy, overdriven riffage, whilst consistently retaining a sense of fun. It's got a palpable post punk grit and attitude to it blended with the absurdity of theatre, and the two contrasting moods mesh scarily well into a unique experience.

Adam Ant is the cherry on the cake here with his chanting, yodelling vocal deliveries adding to the constant sense of drama and unease whilst commanding a playful and anthemic presence.

Nope. Did not like this one bit. It's probably well assembled for what it is, but what it is puts me in a perpetual state of fight or flight until it's switched off.

Much preferred the other S&TFS album in the book, Stand!. This started out very strongly with a real swagger to it and some dirty basslines, but it dipped too much into meandering lift music territory after that.

It's certainly less optimistic in scope than Stand!, and therefore a far less inviting listen, with much more of a drug-addled paranoia hanging over this one and a grimier urban production job where some of the instrumentation kind of merges into an indecipherable ball of sludge.

Whenever I've tried this album in the past, two issues have always been at the forefront of my experience. The first is Mike Patton's vocal style, which markedly changed for the better on later Faith No More albums and in his numerous side projects, but on The Real Thing it frequently occupies that high, nasally register which becomes cumbersome and irritating very quickly for me. The second is the overwhelming length and pacing of the album – by the end of it, I feel like I've had more than enough in my ears despite the constant barrage of cool riffage and generally unhinged nature to the songwriting.

Are both of those issues still present for me after this listen? Yes, but I think I might have had a eureka moment where I don't mind it anywhere near as much as I used to, even if it still isn't a favourite of mine. I can appreciate it now for how it blurred the lines between stylings and did things which few, if any bands at the time were doing. Sabbath-esque riffs and rubbery basslines colliding with cinematic synthesisers, plus occasional hints of reggae influences makes for an interesting backdrop for Patton to do his thing.

Fairly average singer-songwriting with an irritating voice delivering it. No thanks.

Very pleasantly surprised by this. I was expecting some fairly standard, mildly irritating jangly indie pop; but what I got was an album packed with pristine melodies, subtle jazz-esque complexities to the songwriting and some tearjerking lyricism focusing on themes of romance and nostalgia.

The album undoubtedly has a glossy sheen to it, but that doesn't come at the sacrifice of character or ingenuity in the songwriting. The production manages to make the listening experience feel sweeping and cinematic, yet warm and intimate at the same time. It's also very cleverly crafted in a lyrical sense through its intriguing wordplay, but it remains emotionally resonant. It perhaps lacks huge, instantly beltable refrains, but more or less everything here was pleasurable to my ears, aside from a bit of a downturn with the last few tracks.

This was too cheesy for me really, and you get the point before too long. Many of the songs revolve around similar subjects, structures and sounds, and over an hour of that is a bit overkill. There are some decent riffs and sing-along choruses here to be found here and there, but there's precious little which blew me away. The big singles are good for drunken karaoke nights but that's the extent of it for me.

An album I've always liked rather than loved, but one where the highs truly make me appreciate Metallica for the institution that they are.

It peaks early for me and doesn't really recapture that same fury of the first two tracks often enough. I like full throttle Metallica, not self-serious mid tempo Metallica at all, and I can take or leave their more groove-laden showpieces, but I do own and infrequently revisit Master of Puppets for that opening assault and where the pace picks up therein.

Generally I'm much more likely to reach for Kill 'Em All or Ride the Lightning for something a bit more primal and less rehearsed if I want Metallica, and I prefer the fluidity of Megadeth and savagery of Slayer if I'm looking at the Big 4 picture.

I can understand the importance and merit of this, but I was a bit disappointed with it after recently becoming aware of "Somebody to Love" and several other tracks on here.

The highs are undoubtedly great and carry the entire thing, but this is an uneven ride where much of the surrounding material is that slow dirging style of sugary psych-folk which sets my teeth on edge. The pacing is very "off" and it felt like the album never sustained any momentum at any juncture.

Well, I don't. This was dreary as fuck. Very little to propel the songs here – it's just endless melancholy to the point of monotony and exhaustion. I'm in an online music club where one of my mates in there likened a Nick Cave album/track to FA Cup Final loser's party music whilst we were exploring his discography for a month. I'm going to steal his descriptor, as that's precisely what this is.

I've been up most of the night with a strained shoulder, in agony but also keenly anticipating what today's album might be. You can imagine the look on my face when this came up. One of sheer resignation and despondency. And it turns out it was every bit as bad as I was expecting.

A breezy, decent enough 22 minutes of live rockabilly, but the reviews highlight how the guy is a bit of a nonce, a racist, a plagiarist and an incestuous prick. Only two songs on this are actually credited to Lewis so it's more of a live covers album than anything else, and therefore, it's a waste of space in the book.