Reviews by ryzgee

Old Sky TV Guide menu music again, but whilst Everything But The Girl at least had some lovely vocals providing an extra layer of depth, this fully drifted into peripheral listening and never really threatened to truly grab my attention. Not bad by any means, but wholly unremarkable.

Nope.

The Flaming Lips are a band I've waxed lyrical about for a number of years, with this album finally earning the band the major breakthrough in which they had been hinting at pulling off, and had richly deserved on the strength of their prior discography.

One may expect this album to be a sonically uplifting affair owing to the exuberant, colourful artwork and almost cartoonish title, however there couldn't be any greater discrepancy between what you see versus what you get.

Drenched in the neo-psychedelic soundscapes which were progressively being harnessed to growing effect throughout the band's earlier catalogue, this album owes itself to melancholic sentiments whilst posing existentialist theories on mortality and the tangible impact that we, as individuals, have on the wider world, loosely serving as a concept album of sorts centring on the album’s primary protagonist Yoshimi (inspired by Yoshimi P-We of Boredoms, who also performs on the album). Showcasing an impressive breadth of diversity between sombre, less assuming passages, into cathartic releases of anguish, this album resonates just as strongly with me now as when I first heard.

Thought this was pretty decent - it sounds very **Elton John**, **Carpenters**, **Pink Floyd** and mid-to-latter day **Anathema**-esque in its piano-driven melancholy across large spells, and I've few complaints with that.

Analogue synthesisers, swelling string arrangements and delicate flute playing gives the album a 70s feel, although updated with a modern production sheen. It's a constant, compelling fusion of pitch-black cynicism and raw trauma delivered in a witty, deadpan fashion under a warm, opulent veil, and although it does suffer from some slight pacing issues, fortunately it does have a knack of eventually switching things up when listening fatigue begins to set in.

This was all a bit too pristine and unaffecting for me. Very little I can recall about it following the one (and only) listen I'll be giving it.

Absolutely banging album - a career defining moment and probably Maiden's most iconic material. No shortage of highlights on this one - not least the title track, "Run to the Hills" and "Hallowed Be Thy Name". Deserves no less than five stars!

I get how this was seen as the blueprint for future developments in garage rock, but this is just not my bag at all. Sounds like absolute arse and all of the songs are variations on the same theme.

Pleased to say that I very much enjoyed this, overcoming some slight trepidation over whether the vocals and airy production would prove to be too much for me throughout an entire album. They both took a moment or two to get used to, but actually ended up complementing the music fantastically well.

Speaking of the music, much of it is absolutely monstrous; fusing heavy metal vigour, funk grooves, artsy psychedelia and tribal rhythms. The enterprising bass lines form a crucial component of Nothing's Shocking's makeup, whilst Dave Navarro's leads bridge the gap between classic arena rock and the dark, textured, effects-heavy atmospheres of post-punk. The drumming also very much takes my fancy, in terms of its jazz-like fluidity translating superbly into a swinging heavy rock performance.

"Summertime Rolls" is a minor, somewhat dirging blot on the experience, but it is fortunately immediately followed by an uptick back towards earlier successes. Everything else on here is more or less all killer, so full marks and onto the purchase list this goes!

Quite simply a phenomenal record, and one that I first explored on the recommendation of a fellow pub-goer. I hadn't ever heard anything quite like it at the time, and even now it kind of feels like it occupies its own space entirely.

It's a hypnotic medley of Afro-Cuban rhythms, blistering blues rock and jazz fusion fluidity, all of which are integrated seamlessly and spectacularly. The soundscapes conjured up on here are explorative, but always simultaneously feel grounded in an earthy sense of urban grit.

The interplay between Michael Shrieve’s jazz-nuanced drumming, Jose Areas' timbales and Michael Carabello’s congas creates a dense, polyrhythmic heartbeat that really does propel the entire thing, whilst you then, of course, have Carlos Santana's instantly recognisable, endearingly warm tone and style of playing.

Full marks from me!

Painfully middle of the road. Little wrong with it, but little of any excitement occurring here.

I wasn't depressed enough to truly appreciate this today, but in the right circumstances I think it could flourish for me. It's quite uniform and unvaried in terms of pacing, though I get that's entirely the point, and none of what I heard was unenjoyable.

I really enjoyed the other Stevie Wonder album I've had so far in Innervisions, but for whatever reason I found this one much harder to stomach. Whether that's because I'm just not in the right mood for it at the moment, or whether the songs are just drawling and overdramatic in comparison, I'm not really in any rush to decipher where the truth lies.

A much noisier, and probably much more immediately challenging listen than the debut, but I love it all the more for it!

It sounds like a riot unfolding in a cellar with the doors bolted shut, and the speaker volume knobs turned up to the max and snapped off. Largely gone are the "pop" aesthetics of the debut, instead being replaced by an avant-garde, proto-punk assault, owing to its heavy utilisation of distortion as layers of atonal cacophony and a show of rejection.

The title track nestles with a nauseating, pounding rhythmic sprint, whilst the bookend "Sister Ray" is the album's centerpiece, and a masterclass in controlled chaos, as a 17 minute improvised jam. The organ and guitars are constantly duking it out with one another to be the dominant force whilst a hypnotic drum beat underlines all of it. Easy to see how it would have inspired forms of noise rock and even industrial music.

Never have I wished more that an album from this challenge was purely instrumental. Some of the dirty, nihilistic dance beats are genuinely excellent, and it's an incredibly sonically dense affair which should, in theory, appeal massively to me. But I just cannot abide by the vocals.

A band that I have dabbled with in the past, and one that I was too quick to write off as the sort of noisy, pretentious "too cool to care" rock that wasn't much for me.

I don't know precisely what's changed in the intervening period of a couple of years (I have gained a much greater fondness of slacker rock/slowcore, the former of which this very much leans into), but this landed really well for me today - so much so that I'd very much consider making a purchase.

It's an entirely unstable affair in that you never know whether it's going to swell into gargantuan, anthemic alt-rock territory, or collapse in on itself under the weight of its own distortion and fuzz pedals. It's a clever and tonally detached experience, whilst there is also a frantic foundation bubbling underneath to simultaneously reel the songs back towards the emotional fore. J Mascis is very much an anti-hero figurehead of the band, where his laconic vocal approach couldn't be any more at odds, at times, with some of the volcanic riffage he conjures up. It makes for an enjoyable contrast.

Started off OK with a pleasant rock and roll swing to it, but the vocals and strange production choices quickly began to grate. My Mum's a fan of a couple of Sam Cooke's hits, so there were a few tracks which rang a bell for me, although if I ever wanted to hear them again I'd seek out the studio versions.

Can I really afford to be buying more vinyl at the moment? No.
Have I just ordered this anyway? You bet I have...

Whatever the bloody hell this is, I'm still not entirely sure, but what I am sure of is that I love it!

A hilarious, brilliant, ironic, witty, disorientating and utterly fearless listen from the moment you hit play, it's sensory overload by just about every conceivable metric, but hell, give me something like this any day of the week over the 200th variation on the same country/folk album that supposedly warrants listening to before I drop dead. It plays out as a huge middle finger towards the perceived performative rebellion and cynicism of successful acts of the time, and a brutal dismantling of the ethos of the 1960s counterculture.

Despite the ongoing "noise"; frequent disruptions of telephone conversations, whispering and random orchestral snippets underline the whole thing - the musicianship remains watertight throughout. The album is an elaborate piss-take, but a seamlessly executed one. The odd time signatures and complex arrangements provide ample evidence of the band outclassing most of the industry, whilst actively mocking it - winning the game of music composition, surely?

I managed three songs. Three too many.

This has received a bit of a kicking on the generator site; in typical fashion, it's somewhat avant-garde and something that I rather like.

Jazz-inflected acoustic psych-folk with a real intricacy and technical prowess to the arrangements, whilst managing remain evocative. Plus, any album that incorporates a sitar is bound to perform well for me. Several tracks, not least "Light Flight" are a fascinating exercise in alternating between odd-metered time signatures, whilst the vocals throughout the album have a ghastly, outsider-like charm to them; instilling feelings of anxiety as they soar over the earthy instrumentation. The heartbeat of the warm, woody bass guitar really does provide for a wonderful contrast.

I thoroughly enjoyed all of this and would absolutely buy it. I'm really not saying that to be contrarian.