[Facebook] Feeder – Echo Park

I’ve heard so much hype for Echo Park over the years, I was expecting this review to be a defining moment in my life, but frankly…meh. I mean, it’s definitely a good album, and has some excellent tracks on it, but it’s just not the magnum opus I had been led to believe. It makes a particularly bad first impression, with Standing On The Edge showing us everything that was bad about 90’s indie rock, and overlaying it with overworked, frankly irritating guitars, but is saved by undoubtedly the album’s most famous song, and possibly its best – Buck Rogers. You’ve heard it. And it’s not just because it was an anthem of my childhood, either – listening back to it with a critical ear, it is actually a really good song, with incredibly catchy choruses and a good studio sound without being too overwrought. The rest of the album is a bit disappointing after this, with most tracks being Feeder applying the same formula to a different tune, and producing an album it’s very easy to forget you’re listening to until it’s over. Piece by Piece stands out as the best of the more downtempo tracks on the album, with synth and acoustic guitars backed up by an almost hip-hop beat, and competent vocals holding it all together. The tracks such as Choke and Bug, where the band actually decide to get out of their 90’s shoegazing rut and have some fun, are more actively likeable, with pleasingly punky guitar and vocals, but these tend to drag a bit as Feeder try and stretch what should be a shorter, punchier song into one of their normal three-and-a-half minute timeslots. All in all, it’s a competent album with some really good singles, but not the band’s best, and with far too much filler to be a satisfying listening experience on its own.

Tomorrow’s album (I’m now officially doing one of these a day (And this is where it all goes wrong)– if I don’t get too many new CDs, I can finish before I go to Russia(And I won’t)) is Bird Sek (http://tinyurl.com/yeuh2pr – I know the last.fm page fails) – pending reassessment of the list, 311 to go.
(Bird Sek has since been removed from the list due to basically being a best of, so the first proper review done for this blog will be a surprise for all of us)

[Facebook] Iain Ballamy – MirrorMask

This was always going to be a hard one to write – MirrorMask as a film is difficult to describe, and the music is so bizarre and ecelctic that it has a very niche appeal, so what follows is, as ever, completely subjective. The album starts as it means to go on, with the Flyover and Circus Overture, along with the next two tracks, playing as bizarre jazz circus music, immediately followed and contrasted by the more mundane, gloomy muzak of Running For The Bus. It’s good muzak, though, as composer and sax player Iain Ballamy proves he can make even the most banal style into eminently listenable incidental music. Next is one of the standout tracks of the album, Abandoned Hall, whcih mixes classical incidental music with jazz overtones and keyboards, before entering into a fantastically odd slap-pop bass and sax-driven section. The album continues with less notable incidental music, as with all soundtracks composed for films, though Arresting Helena is possibly the best musical depiction ever of being chased down the street by a samba band, the luscious choral interlude of The White Queen Sleeps provides a totally different yet totally appropriate followup to it, and Rabbit Band has all the energy of any other song, compressed into forty seconds of frenetic jazz. The next track that exceeds the two-minute mark is also the next one really worth mentioning, as Giants Orbiting echoes French film noir soundtracks, but with the usual jazz stylings and fantastical overtones, before suddenly giving way to genuinely creepy, almost Kraftwerk-like electronic chase music. Mrs. Bagwell’s Rhumba is just incredibly odd, as an unexpected break into generic rhumba music with eerie operatic ranting over the top, followed by Meeting The Sphinx And The Dark Queen, one of the album’s weaker tracks, as the minimalistic approach of much of the darker incidental music is overdone, creating a very flat audio landscape. Monkeybirds brings the quality back up, with a circus march giving way to an almost techno chase theme, but is then again followed by several unremarkable incidental pieces. Betrayed! is notable for reusing the minimalist aesthetic of Meeting…, but pulling it off spectacularly, creating an unsettling atmosphere using slow, creeping strings and eerie vocals. Following this is one of the most individual, and certainly the most unsettling, track on the album: a cover of the Carpenters’ Close To You, sung in an eerily bland voice, overlaid with the dound of clockwork gradually running down. It’s better than it sounds, and a major reason to see the film. The album then proceeds to its closing stages, with A New Life and A Rather Tense Dinner Party reprising the real-world and dreamworld themes respectively, and both subtly changing and slowly breaking down, leading into the final track of the soundtrack proper, the ten-minute Discoveries/Fight or Flight?/Goodbye Evil Helena suite. This is a dramatic neo-classical piece that manages to be very noticeably film soundtrack music, but still good to listen to in its own right, with an orchestral score mixed with the ever-present jazz influences, and some very well-handled synth. The album then finishes on two tracks that are effectively bonus tracks, with My Waltz For Newk, an extended reprise of the Fish Street waltz theme, which brings us down from the drama of the end of the Discoveries suite and returns to the circus music of the start of the album. The album ends on If I Apologised, notable for being the only conventional song as such on the album – a melancholy, breathy shoegazer of a track, but surprisingly good, with clean vocals over a single guitar and drums creating a much more stripped-down feel than the orchestrated music of the rest of the album.

Wow, that was a long one. If anyone has any comments or suggestions about these reviews (too long, too short, too pretentious, too reliant on progressing through an album chronologically, get the hell off my news feed, etc.), please get them to me, and I’ll do my best to please everyone. Maybe. Also, poll of the day – should this list really include soundtracks/best ofs, and why (not)?

Next album’s Feeder’s Echo Park (http://tinyurl.com/ycnlcjs) – meant to be a good album, but can’t say as I’ve really ever listened to it. Next question – have I hit the character limit yet? Apparently not.

[Facebook] R.E.M. – Reveal

Albums like this are why I started doing this insane project in the first place. Reveal is a refreshingly good R.E.M. album, with few of the inconsistencies or ill-advised creative directions of many of their other efforts. The album opens on four excellent tracks – She Just Wants To Be is a particular gem – which display a cleaner, more stripped-down sound than their earlier albums, trading the often gratuitous melancholy and electronic effects of Up for a more acoustic, upbeat feel, while sacrificing none of the quality of the songs. The middle of the album is more turgid, with Disappear and Saturn Return returning to the aforementioned Up-style introspection and gloominess, combined with dubious instrumentation and – in the case of Saturn Return in particular – deeply subpar lyrics, and Michael Stipe seems to be trying to affect a 90’s emo whine even more than usual. Beat A Drum pulls the album back from its reverie just in time, bringing in an uplifting, anthemic chorus backed by good use of the oft-misapplied synth, although Stipe’s vocals still leave something to be desired. It also forms a brilliant leadin to the undisputed high point of the album – Imitation of Life. This defiant anthem features a purely acoustic backing, with just guitar, drums, and a string section, and really pulls the band back to their most successful setup with a song designed to be shouted from the rooftops of the world. Summer Turns To High should, by rights, be lambasted here for its massive reliance on synth effects, but is entirely redeemed by its position on the album, with its syrupy electronic opening giving the listener a smooth comedown from the relatively abrupt ending of the previous track. The two following tracks continue this slant towards more downtempo music, though perhaps too far, with I’ll Take the Rain being frankly excessively emo, but both are still eminently listenable. Beachball, however, brings the album back for an excellent ending, as a more upbeat song with a cleaner sound than those preceding it, and an almost European feeling to it – this is the palate-cleansing mint after the weight of the preceding courses. (NB – Food analogies: too pretentious?)

Anyway, I’ll wrap this up before it doesn’t fit in a status any more – Reveal is a great album, and heartily recommended both to fans of the band and as a good jumping-on point for those who don’t know them, although some tracks could use work. Next up is the soundtrack from MirrorMask (http://tinyurl.com/yhfgjtj), where you can see these reviews get even longer and more self-important. Oh, and the numbers were still wrong – further culling of albums that don’t fit the rules of the list leave me with 313 to go.

[Facebook] ELO – The Best Of

(Yes, I know this shouldn’t be on here under my own rules, but those were written after the Facebook era, so this is just here for completeness.)
And another one down. After the roaring success of the previous two albums, this one was a bit of a letdown. While it could be expected that it would not work as well as a cohesive album, being a Best Of compilation, it suffered from a lack of focus and unity, even beyond the point to which you would expect. This is es…pecially evident at the end, when Do Ya, the energetic, catchy and lively track that seems to me an obvious point to close a collection on, is followed by the gloomy and irritatingly infectious Shangri-La, which doesn’t really belong on a Best Of at all. Also, I didn’t have time to listen to the whole album in one sitting, enhancing the naturally fragmentary nature of a compilation, but I can’t really blame that on the CD – from now on, I will only start listening to albums for these reviews when I have time to give them attention. High points, however, include opening the CD on Mr. Blue Sky (can’t go wrong), and Mission (A World Record) is much better than i remember it, although it should probably be nearer the middle of the album, as the more downtempo tracks are clumped at the end, making the end of the album rather gloomy and Do Ya even more incongruous. Anyway, on to the next: R.E.M.’s Reveal (http://tinyurl.com/y94vjh3). I haven’t ever given this much time, and there are several tracks on it I’ve never heard, so this should be interesting. 320 to go.

[Facebook] Kyle Gabler – The World of Goo Soundtrack

WoG is a brilliant soundtrack, as ever, with what I think may be some of the best game music ever made. The album moves through styles and ambiences so gradually that the transition between Danny Elfman caper music and the haunting strings of Screamer or Years of Work is almost imperceptible. The album builds to a brilliant climax with Best of Times and Red Carpet, although the sudden intrusion of the credits music (and, earlier on, the Virtual World of Goo Corporation theme) makes you joltingly aware that you’re listening to video game music, rather than standalone ambient pieces. However, it’s still a fine album, though I would like to get the opinion of someone who hasn’t played the game. Seriously, it’s free – I’ll send you a link if you’re interested, or people in college can get it off my iTunes library. Next up is The Best of ELO (http://tinyurl.com/yjo9ts6). Another good album, although I do wish this would stop giving me albums I listen to so much. Although I said that about Weekend, and look what happened there. 321 to go, next review won’t be quite so hot on the heels of this one, as I have to go have a life.

[Facebook] Bloc Party – A Weekend in the City

Emma Laslett is one album in to this ridiculous scheme, and already noticing the difference between listening to songs off albums and the albums themselves. Weekend is actually far more brilliant and depressing than I had thought, and definitely a better album than Silent Alarm, although this could well change when I listen to that again.(Waits for the arguments to roll in) Anyway, next up it’s a perennial, if kind of sad, favourite, the soundtrack off World of Goo. (http://tinyurl.com/ygn6o3b) 325 to go. (Oh my God, these were so short to start with)

[Facebook] The old intro

(Ed: Sorry about the font, copypasting from Facebook appears to have killed the world(Edit edit: Fixed!))
Emma Laslett evidently doesn’t have enough to do atm, and so has concocted a plan that she feels the inexplicable need to tell you all about on Facebook. I have 327 albums, as opposed to compilations or single tracks, in my iTunes library, (No, I don’t know where so many went) and over the next few weeks/months, I will listen to each of them, thus hopefully re-evaluating whether I actually want/need all of the terrible music on my comp (seriously, I deleted about five albums while making this list), and making me listen to all the music people have given me over the years and I never got around to actually appreciating. And i’ll be taking you lot with me every step of the way with witty/banal/annoying statuses and commentary. Not sure why, but there you are. And the first name my hastily thrown together Excel album generator has thrown out is… A Weekend in the City, by Bloc Party.(http://tinyurl.com/yljdzgs) Nice to start on one I already know. Btw, if anyone out there’s particularly/at all interested, I can put a note up with the list of albums. Again, don’t know why you would, but there it is. Longest status ever? (No.)