Reviews by wotanmjolnir

It's a perfectly good album, but it didn't set me on fire. There are some great songs, particularly The Whores Hustle And The Hustlers Whore and You Said Something, but it's not one of my favourite albums. I'm borderline on whether it's a 3 or a 4 - it's really on the cusp for me.

Eeeehhhh - it's not bad, but it's not exciting. I can see how it might have been mind-blowing in 1957, but we've had Ziggy Stardust and 'So What' by Anti-Nowhere League since then. Maybe I'm a little jaded.

This is pretty good - dirty swamp rock (even if it is more than a bit inauthentic, but so are a lot of classic rock bands) that infects you with something other than malaria. Graveyard Train hangs around a bit too long, but Born On The Bayou (really, John?) And Penthouse Pauper are great.

What a fantastic album. I knew of the Super Furries but had never listened to an album before. Error.

I'm not much of a hip-hop fan, but of all the hip-hop that I'm not really a fan of, I'm most a fan of this sort of hip-hop. It's OK.

It's a Muse album, so you know what you are going to get - I like Muse, though, so I don't mind that their albums all sound the same. Knights of Cydonia is an absolute cracker.

I have never been a reggae fan, although that is mainly based on shitty white-boy cod-reggae like UB40 or The Fucking Police. I knew the Bob Marley standards and always found them to be OK if nothing more, so was looking forward to actually listening to one of the great reggae albums.

Meh.

Way better than I expected - nice, straightforward poppy melodies with some pretty interesting production choices and sounds. Enjoyed this.

Great album - some of the lyrical themes seem a little dated, maybe, and Young's voice is, clearly, an unusual instrument, but this is packed with quality start to finish.

Possibly the most 3-star album I've ever heard. It's rock music, it's fine, it's nothing spectacular. I quite like Foo Fighters - they are nice and easy to listen to, entertaining enough, but unlikely to make me sit up and go 'holy shit!'

This may be an absolutely flawless album, start to finish. Start to finish this is absolutely spellbinding stuff - even the 'weakest' track (in my opinion), 'Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts', is still a brilliant story-telling song. I keep forgetting how good this album is, and then I'll rediscover it again and be transported.

Now, THIS is heavy metal. Sludgy, doom-laden, brutal riffing ... proper primordial stuff. Tony Iommi has probably the heaviest guitar sound ever recorded, and Bill Ward is such a powerhouse drummer. Really, really good. I could live without Changes and FX, though - they don't fuck the album enough for me to drop a star, though.

I didn't really know what to expect, but this was rather enjoyable. It really does seem that 60s psychedelic rock is entirely my jam.

Another rap album, let me just go over my list:

Over long - check.
Skits I just don't get - check.
A bit of a grind to listen to - che... wait, no, this is OK actually. Rap is never going to be my thing but I can recognise really good rap, and for me this is it. I'm not going to seek it out, but it passed the (still overly long) time.

I really don't know what to think of this album. It would be very easy for it to be the most pretentious wank-fest of a muso album, but it honestly doesn't feel like it - it feels like they couldn't give a shit if anyone listened to how fucking clever they are being, they are just super happy to have done it. I don't think I'll ever seek the album out as one to actively listen to, but I can absolutely see myself just passively zoning out in the woods with this on headphones.

Jazz is shit.

I like Tom Petty, with or without the Heartbreakers, I really do. I was lucky enough to see them live on one of the relatively few (I believe) UK tours they did (the Into The Great Wide Open tour I think it was called), and the music has some real high points. Having said that, there is also a lot of very humdrum, standard Southern rock / boogie rock / by-the-numbers rock on this album. Its nowhere near bad, but it's not amazing.

My heart sank when I saw this today, but it is way better than the reviews suggest. It in no way deserves to be on the list, but it's perfectly fine in a twee sixties pseudo folksy way. This album is better than anything by Steely Dan (except Dirty Work because that is a cracker), and loads of (American) people think they are great.

Nothing to dislike, but nothing too mind-blowing. The opener is a classic, obviously, but the rest is unmemorable pleasant.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

4 stars.