Reviews by thelastbaron

This album is a mashup of '60s contemporary influences - The Beatlesesque harmonies, The Doors-y keyboards, and the riff-heavy songs structures of Cream. Unfortunately, the whole is less than the sum of its parts. The various elements of each song seem to clash rather than cohere, making the listening experience unintentionally uncomfortable. For example, the track "Termination" begins with an interesting groove but somehow ends up with almost medieval melodies sparring with child-like keyboard noodling before fading away inexplicably, leaving the listener thoroughly unsatisfied. Finally, the title track is wholly unworthy of being 17 minutes long given that it consists of a single riff and some out of place solos. The album does earn an extra star for a nice bass tone.

This album is far removed from the band's blackened-thrash beginnings that yielded such brilliant records as "Beneath the Remains." They've exchanged their heavy metal credentials for (early) Nu Metal trappings, and, as far as Nu Metal goes, it's not bad. The liberal sprinkling of traditional instrumentation is nice and provides variation for the band’s primary songwriting method – A simple, heavy, repetitive riff. Nevertheless, the aforementioned repetition can get tiresome, especially over the hardly justified 72 minute runtime. As a piece of heavy metal history this is an influential and controversial album that is worth listening to, but it lacks the songwriting chops, actual heaviness, or variation to reach the 5 star level.

The music isn't bad, which is about as much of a complement as I can give this record. The songs feel unedited (constant repetition) and incomplete (the repetition leads nowhere). Additionally, The production is rough, lending to that feeling of incompleteness (a remarkable feat for an album well over an hour long). If FM had cut 7 or 8 songs, and edited or re-produced the rest, this album has great potential. As it stands, however, this is a bit of a mess.

Super creative progressive pop full of unexpected moments that fit the music perfectly. Probably Supertramp's best album - which is saying a lot for band that pretty much only made good music.

My only regret with this album is that my headphones only play music so loud.

This sounds like it was recorded in a closet full of straw, but it is entertaining, and you can even hear the clear influence the band had on future hard rock bands with tracks like "Have Love Will Travel", "Walkin' the Dog", and "Strychnine." These (and other) forays away from 50s rock'n'roll staples are also the strong points on the album. With a little more originality this could be five stars, but ends up at 3.5 for me.

A little whiny tbh

Unfortunately, The Man was still trying to make music at this point, which essentially boils down to inane, out of breath mumbling, with no (or very poor) vocal melodies, and basic musical arrangements. Additionally, the celebrated covers on this album are decidedly worse than the originals.

Very predictable songwriting, but at least he knows not to overstay his welcome for the most part. Still, I was wishing the album would end by the third-to-last song, so two stars.

Some good music can be found here, but my goodness. Not every song has to end with Rod repeating the same line for 3 minutes and/or an out of place hymn.

Really well done album with some great performances.

Actually interesting, creative, progressive music.

The title track is one of the worst songs ever written, wallowing in insipid melodies and whiny intonations. Several other songs re-tread the heavily trodden (and never interesting) ground of basic-chord country/folk. Lowest common denominator music.

Some interesting songs and great melodies, but entirely too long to the point of being obnoxious.

Good music, but unfortunately boring.

The hooks/choruses are pretty basic, but the rest is interesting and sometimes surprising.

I honestly don't know if I've ever heard a more annoying and whiny album. The music is utterly predictable, throwing every well-worn post-punk trick at the wall. The guitars, bass, and drums do exactly what you expect (slow-builds, 2-note riffs, etc.) and never surprise or create interesting melodies. On top of this, the vocals are horrendous. The vocalist spends the whole album accidentally drifting out of key, which would seem to be almost impossible given that the vocal melodies are also incredibly unimaginative. Every note is the most predictable (and whiny) note available to choose – and he still struggles to belt it out correctly. Definitely an album to skip.

Should've been The Banned. Like many artists of this ilk, the country/folk aspects are repetitive and boring, and the bluesy/funky parts are good. Unfortunately, the majority of the tracks lean hard into country/folk.

Not a great live album - I know they recorded in a prison but at least try to get the production into a listenable state.

If you ignore the incredibly moronic lyrics and forced country accent (both par for the course), the instrumentation isn't bad.