Month: November 2015
THE BLACK DOG – Spanners (1995)
Review by: Charly Saenz
Album assigned by: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
THE TIGER LILLIES – Ad Nauseam (1995)
Review by: Franco Micale
Album assigned by: Alex Alex
FATES WARNING – Awaken the Guardian (1986)
Review by: Tristan Peterson
Album assigned by: Eden Hunter
FAVORITE TRACK: Fata Morgana
LEAST FAVORITE TRACKS: Prelude To Ruin, Guardian
MILEY CYRUS – Miley Cyrus and Her Dead Petz (2015)
Review by: Alex Alex
Album assigned by: Syd Spence
PHILIP GLASS – Einstein on the Beach (1975)
Review by: Jaime Vargas Sánchez
Album assigned by: Tristan Peterson
GORKY’S ZYGOTIC MYNCI – Barafundle (1997)
Review by: Ali Ghoneim
Album assigned by: Eric Pember
Another genre label I’ve seen thrown at the album from all over the internet (read: Wikipedia), is neo-progressive rock, which does make sense. GZM’s aesthetic might not bear all the characteristics of prog rock, but purely in terms of songwriting, you notice how the band tries to constantly throw in left turns and add complexity to what are essentially pretty acoustic folk tunes.
It does get a bit samey after a while, though. After the tenth song where Mr. Leadsinger sings a really pretty melody with his kind of pretty voice over an orgy of ornate instrumentation, I did get a little fatigued. I’m not positive whether “Diamond Dew” is my favorite song on the album because it really is the best, or whether it’s just because it’s the first song I heard.
And the thing about deliberate complexity, which is a problem in general for prog, is that sometimes you don’t want or need a song to take a left turn. The band can seem a little paranoid, as if they don’t trust the core songs to interest you, so they often won’t let any one section go on for too long before switching it up. Or maybe they fell for the myth that Smart Bands can’t write Simple Songs, because that would be Amateurish, Insignificant and Stupid? Like, I mean, a pretty acoustic song sometimes, like, just needs to be a pretty acoustic song, y’get my feel bro?
Never mind, I just listened to it again and it’s pretty great. I’m an idiot.
SCOTT WALKER – Tilt (1995)
Review by: Jonathan Birch
Album assigned by: Franco Micale
THE UNDERTONES – Hypnotised (1980)
Review by: Ahmed Khālid
Album assigned by: Charly Saenz
Unfortunately I lack the proper musical background to appreciate 70s pop punk (I don’t get Ramones haha), so here goes my absolutely unapologetic ignorant opinion, based on 3 listens:
I didn’t like it. The music is bright, but the production is too old, the sound is always in the ambience, not gripping you front and center (kinda like Soundgarden’s Badmotorfinger as opposed to Superunknown, the way things should always sound)
Everything is knowing and ironic, but done in a too-obvious way, maybe irony didn’t exist back in the 70s so they had to spell it out for us. Not impressed.
Howevs, it’s servicable enough for a ⅖