Music Emissions Alternative Music Reviews

Rick Wakeman - Six Wives Of Henry Viii (1973)

For someone with such undoubted talent, I shall never know why Rick Wakeman had to waste himself on crap like this. OK, he left Yes after Tales from Topographic Oceans because he found Jon "Alvin" Anderson taking a turn into hitherto unrealised degree of pretentious art-house wankery. OK, he had just initiated his solo career with this album, released to some critical acclaim, but what the hell is this, really?

As an aside, I don't know if it is true, but it is said that, during the first live performance of Tales from Tediographic Oceans during one of the long keyboard-free passages, you know the ones, where Steve Howe spent his time plucking single notes from an acoustic guitar as if it was some quasi-spiritual communion instead of being a load of art-house wankery, Wakeman got so bored he ordered, and ate, a lamb bhuna while waiting for his next moment on the ivories. No wonder he left!

So, what do we actually have here then? Progressive rock. (Yawn). Historical theme. (Hmm, may be interesting). No lyrics. (Mmmmmkay). Yes keyboard player. (Yawn). The sleeve notes go on about being personal musical interpretation of the characters. (Oh My God. Here we go. Bloody prog rockers indulging in their pretentious self-indulgent virtuosity again). I seriously cannot see how any of the music relates to the characters. For instance, Catherine of Aragon's obsessive Spanish piety does not come out at all; Anne Boelyn's shrewish wit and coquettishness is lost; Catherine Howard's girly naivety and stupidity is not what you think of when you hear this album.

Yes folks, you guessed it, the prog rockers returned with a vengeance with this one. Coming soon to a town near you, the perfect cure for insomnia. Listen and marvel as Rick Wakeman takes you on a musical journey with six women whose fate, according to the mnemonic, is 'divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived'. Well, there's a new mnemonic now - 'depressed, bored, sighed, depressed, bored, scratched the f*****g record with the bloody needle 'cos I couldn't stand it any more.'

What I want to know is does anyone actually listen to this crap any more. In the days when Yes were big, the style police looked down their noses at anyone who didn't like Yes as being crude knuckle-dragging headbangers. How many times did I hear from these people a variation on the following - "if you don't like... then you know nothing about music.

"Oh ja, one simply cannot stand Led Zeppelin or Blarck Sabbarth. Just far too crude for one's ears. One much prefers the melodic and sweet harmonies of Yes and the angelic voice of Jon Anderson, don't you agree, Crispin."

"Absolutely, Quentin, one finds it most alarming that one has to share a school with those Neanderthals."

So the style police went on their way and derided those of us who liked a bit of meat and two veg in our music. Come on guys, own up. All you Quentins and Crispins out there, you didn't really like this shit, did you? You just pretended to because it made you seem more intellectual, more grown up, more sophisticated. Be honest, no one really ever liked this stuff, did they?

The sad thing is, I own this album. Now that is embarrassing.

(A&M 1973)
Reviewed on 2012-01-30 04:39:19 by Charles Martel

Kraftwerk - The Man Machine (1978)

If you ask me this is the epitome of both all that is good - and bad - in German techno pop. Kraftwerk have been around for a long time and have been hugely influential for many bands as a result. The hit "The Model" is often cited as the best of German techno-pop (though I would say "Forever Young" by Alphaville was a better song, admittedly from the subsequent decade). In any event, "The Model" was Kraftwerk's biggest hit in the UK, and that is no small achievement. German music was never very popular in the UK.

The trouble is that this style of music can get boring and clinical if listened to for too long. And that is the bad side of German techno music. Kraftwerk are often cited as being driven by, inspired by the machine, wishing to emulate the clinical perfection of it. In fact they are the opposite. Their very name suggests that humanity is the key, not mechanisation and technology. In using the machine to make music it is as if they are emphasising their own humanity. The trouble is this message is put over so subtly that you often lose sight of it and assume they are praising, instead of minimising, the influence of the machine. The stark images, using bold primary colours on their albums; the quest for the ultimate in anonymous clone-like appearances of the band members; and the crystal clear, almost anti-septic production all contributed to the image.

This is, when all is said and done, probably Kraftwerk's best album. The album was not without controversy when it was released, particularly the choice of shirt colour the band wore. But if you ask me the red shirts were less about Communism and more about a lack of style (I owned a red shirt too but did not have the guts to wear it as often as I might).

The tracks themselves are rather what you have come to expect from Kraftwerk, and it is in this regard that I experience my own particular difficulty with the band. Some of the tracks ("Man Machine", "Neon Lights") are overlong. Indeed, that last track is the worst on the album as it lacks the harmonies the band excelled at and had a rhythm which made it hard to follow. Then there is "Metropolis" which some highlight as one of the band's best works. I find little to get worked up about. There are no lyrics and the constant repetition of the same musical them becomes rather boring after a while. It is at this point that I am reminded of one of the very first concerts I ever went to - Tangerine Dream. Long droning passages of synthesiser sounds made by a bunch of long-haired hippies were what greeted me. Kraftwerk may be far from the hippie image of Tangerine Dream but as "Metropolis" proves, they too can produce long boring passages of synthesiser sounds.

Indeed, "The Model" is the definite highlight of the entire album and quite possibly of Kraftwerk's entire career. It managed to get itself linked with that section of nthe new wave which turned to synthesisers like Ultravox, but Kraftwerk deliberately eschewed any of the warmth and humanity of Ultravox in favour of the sterility of the machine. They do their sterile, robotic persona very well, but I am not sure if I have the patience to last through too much of it. Nonetheless, the album as a whole is a reasonably solid work, although admittedly with some flaws, and their influence is something which cannot seriously be doubted. Kraftwerk are not really my style, but this is worth having for the few highlights it contains.

(Capitol 1978)
Reviewed on 2012-01-29 18:05:15 by Charles Martel

Groundhogs - Split (1971)

Let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time, late afternoon mid-October 1971 in Plymouth, a naval port in the south west of England, a young boy on his way home from school, took a detour into the centre of town with a friend. This boy had been given some money for his twelfth birthday a few days earlier, and wanted to buy an LP. (You remember LP's - they were what people used to listen to music on in ancient times). This was not going to be just any LP, no, this was quite different. This was going to be this young boy's very first LP. What he chose would, perhaps, determine the course of his musical taste from then on in.

Of course, he was not going in to this completely blind (or deaf if you prefer). What he wanted was Split by the Groundhogs. Although he had never heard it, he was assured by one of his friends, not the one who was travelling with him, that Groundhogs were a good band and Split was a fine album, their newest - it had only come out earlier that year. So, this young boy and his friend got off the bus on Royal Parade and walked to the W.H. Smith shop on New George Street to purchase an LP.

Now, although this boy planned to buy Split he had of course never actually heard it. So, just to make sure, he asked the sales assistant if it be could put on the in store speakers. When the music started, the young boy recoiled somewhat in shock and dismay. This was not what he had been suspecting. The music was very different from anything he had previously heard and that first track seemed to him to carry a dark message of insanity. At that moment, the young boy made a momentous decision. He was not going to buy Split.

For the next half an hour, he and his friend wandered through the small number of racks in the store looking for something to buy. The young boy was determined to buy an LP but now really did not know which one to get. Knowing that the sales assistants were really uptight about customers wanting to hear records before they bought them, he felt he wasn't going to get the chance to listen before he bought. But what should he buy? Luckily his friend was there to advise. The young boy eventually came out clutching a copy of Led Zeppelin II. He hadn't heard it, but he knew that this was a very important purchase.

When he got home, he put it on the old mono phonograph in his parents' living room. His mother didn't like it. His sister asked him to turn it off. But the young boy liked it. He went on to buy all Led Zeppelin's music and that LP set the tone of his musical choice from then on. And he did, indeed, live happily ever after.

I often wonder what direction my musical taste would have taken if, on that fateful day in October 1971, I had walked out of W.H. Smiths with a copy of Split instead. So, when a few months back I was scouring the shelves of my local indie record shop for albums to buy, I came across Split. I downloaded a few tracks off Limewire and decided that it warranted a further listen so I downloaded the whole album, not being able, at the time, to purchase a copy of the CD which seems to be either out of stock or deleted. However, I recently acquired the extended and remastered version with the addition of four live bonus tracks.

Indeed, the first side, with four parts to the title track, is about insanity. The side is an exploration of the mind of someone suffering from schizophrenia. The second side consists of four tracks, of which the best is "Cherry Red", but pretty much in the same vein musically. Groundhogs' music is, in some ways similar to that of Led Zeppelin, blues influenced rock. Groundhogs have a perhaps heavier style and the denser sound is at first impenetrable, but it does take time to get used to it. Musically, and lyrically, it is not on a par. This is good, solid rock, but it is hardly going to set the house alight.

And so I still wonder; would my musical taste have been significantly different had I bought Split instead of Led Zeppelin II? To be honest, I doubt it. But you never know. I suspect Split would have been the only Groundhogs album I ever bought, and would almost certainly have found Led Zeppelin sooner or later.

Interestingly enough, I still have the LP of Led Zeppelin II l bought in that long-gone shop in Plymouth over 40 years ago.

(Liberty 1971)
Reviewed on 2012-01-29 18:00:11 by Charles Martel

Elastica - Elastica (1995)

Britpop, in its heyday, threw up a number of bands who went on to achieve considerable fame and acclaim - Oasis, Blur and Suede to name but three. Yet one band has since almost completely disappeared from the radar. Yet at the time, Elastica, fronted by Damon Albarn's then girlfriend, Justine Frischmann, were among those who were tipped to succeed. Their eponymous debut album charted at number one in the album charts and got nominated for a Mercury Prize. So what happened? Where did it all go wrong?

In truth, there was not a lot of originality in Elastica and there was never going to be enough to sustain a career here. Frischmann's bubbly personality and enthusiastic delivery is not supported by her voice which is generally flat and monotone. As anyone who has sat through a self-important idiot at a karaoke session will tell you, sheer enthusiasm is no substitute for talent. In terms of the music, there is again a lack of originality. The band did not seem to have a full command of their instruments and though they could play their way through the songs on this album, you get the distinct impression that anything more taxing would be beyond the members of the band to achieve.

Indeed it could be argued that the band itself was not one for which originality was all that important. The debut album contained sixteen tracks but if you get the CD now there are only fifteen. That is because the band were sued for plagiarism by both the Stranglers and Wire and one of those bands demanded the song be removed from the CD. Having your debut album the subject of such charges does not help and it is no wonder that it took the band five years to release a follow up by which time the drugs had taken hold of Frischmann and the whole Elastica show spluttered out in forgettable ignominy.

The songs themselves are short, snappy and immediate. This is an album for the moment which is just as well as by the time you have taken the CD out of the player, put it back in its case and put it back on the shelf you have forgotten what it was all about. This was probably intentional, to be fair. The real feature of the album is the snotty attitude which comes through as much in Frischmann's snarling vocals as in the snappy, sharp sound of the guitars. This is what punk rock would have sounded like had it grown up, instead of fading out and morphing into something else. "Vaseline", "Connection" and "Car Song" are all raw sounding sharp and snappy punk tracks which are founded in an almost staccato guitar style which is as brash as it is uneven. This gives the band a certain style, one which I am not sure is appropriate for the nineties. Then again, the band let themselves down with the utterly dreadful "Indian Song". "Blue" is not much better and seems to be the band's realisation that they needed some filler or the album if they were going to insist on releasing an album where the majority of songs clock in around the two minute mark.

In retrospect, it was not hard to see the direction and eventual fate of Elastica. When you combine a lack of originality and a limited degree of ability, it is not surprising that what you are going to get is a punk album and little else. Yet punk was dead. It had died over a decade previously and Elastica's attempt to revive it was never really going to set the world alight.

(Deceptive 1995)
Reviewed on 2012-01-29 17:40:24 by Charles Martel

Vanessa Carlton - Be Not Nobody (2002)

As I was beginning to emerge from my self-imposed musical hiatus I began to look around for music to appreciate. This was before I began to search websites for ideas and my ability and horizons as regards new music were pretty restricted. In fact, it was pretty much confined to the radio. That kind of shaped my emergence from this self-imposed exile in quite peculiar ways.

Now for those who are not familiar with UK radio, it gives the term "mainstream" an entirely different name. Basically, the major local and national radio stations have static playlists of about 30 tracks and they put these on rotation all week long. Imagine, if you listen to one station for a day, you will hear the same track played four or five times. Now, because what goes on playlists is determined by the record companies (pretty much) each of those stations will have virtually the same thirty or so songs or their playlists. Frequency hopping won't help you. You hear the same stuff time and time again, whatever station you are listening to. Imagine a world where all you hear on mainstream music radio are Twitney, Mariah Carey and Girls Aloud and you have pretty much the aural equivalent of "Nightmare on Elm Street" - only this time you are awake.

Not surprising then, that my horizons on my return were limited. I found out about the then new U2 album, "All That You Can't Leave Behind" as well as a couple of tracks by Coldplay. Most of the rest of it was, as it had been before I switched off, sheer unadulterated crap. However, one single was getting a fair amount of airplay though it took me a while to find out who it was who sang it. Once I found out, I decided to go out and get it.

As a consequence I was drawn to this album by the single "A Thousand Miles", pretty much as I suspect was the case with most people who bought the album. Happily, there is much more to the album than this, though I am not sure about her cover of "Paint It Black". The rest of the album has a number of well-written and well performed songs. They may seem at first listen to be a tad uninspired, but the more you listen to it the more depth you find and appreciate in the music. I accept that it is not going to rock your world, but at a time when commercial music is notable only for the speed with which I can reach for the off switch on the radio, this is something worth listening to.

The real strength of this album is Vanessa Carlton's voice. While it may be a bit nasally at time, she nevertheless shows that a female vocalist of mellow songs can do a lot without the excessive vocalising of Mariah Carey or Whitney Houston. Above all, unlike those two aforementioned over-rated automatons, one syllable does not have to be strung out across half a dozen notes. Another plus is the fact that the piano work is great without being dominating and overpowering. It complements and fits in with the overall feel of the music. Here is a singer songwriter who actually plays an instrument. Now that in itself is something rare among female vocalists.

No doubt a load of the self-appointed gurus of musical style will deride this, probably without even listening to it. They will assume because if got airplay and is sung by a young woman, it is crap and therefore to be avoided. Well no, crap is Britney Spears. She could not prepare anything one tenth as good as this if her life depended on it.

(A&M 2002)
Reviewed on 2012-01-29 17:27:52 by Charles Martel

Van Halen - Van Halen (1978)

In spite of the undeniable fact that Dave Lee Roth was a posing wanker, this album has a lot going for it. It is one of the best rock debut albums of all time - Boston's first effort was better though in my view - and did set a revitalisation of rock music at a time when punk and the new wave were making inroads into its predominantly male, teenage powerbase. Shorter tracks, punchier guitars and less of the florid, rambling lyrics, this was taking rock back towards its roots and away from the pseudo-prog which a lot of it had started to become.

However, in retrospect, any boost given to rock music was short-lived, as the genre began a mutation into something rather different from the rock classics of earlier in the decade. The problem was that the innate flaw in hard rock was even more present with Van Halen than with other bands at the same time, the overly macho, preening, posing against a backdrop of at times incredibly vapid lyrics. And you can lay the blame for that fairly and squarely at the feet of Roth. Yet even there, Van Halen, and Roth in particular, could be said to have led the way with hair metal. I sometimes wonder if I would have a higher opinion of this album were it not for the fact that Roth were the frontman. Surely, there cannot be a band that has ever been more ill-served by its vocalist than have Van Halen.

The key to the success of the band was the driving guitar sound. The guitars underpinned the band's ability to reach out, grab you by the balls and swing you round. If you didn't sit up with a start when the opening chords of "You Really Got Me" launched outwards then there was something seriously wrong with you. They were at their best with this style - "Ain't Talking 'Bout Love" and "Running With the Devil" were two more of the album tracks which exemplified this. Conversely they were not so good, hence the lower rating, when they tried to slow it down, or deliver a more bluesy approach, such as on "Ice Cream Man".

The credit for this lies with guitarist Eddie Van Halen who possessed an immense talent as a guitarist and, frankly, deserved better than Roth as a co-conspirator. Yet there can be no doubt that Van Halen put something back into rock which had been sadly lacking for some considerable time - fun. The almost pop format of the tracks, the straightforward lyrics (even if they were a load of macho nonsense) and the ability to fuse this with power and style were what made Van Halen such a success and such a huge influence on the style of rock music that came after them.

So where is the weak point? That's obvious. Dave Lee Roth. After Robert Plant, all rock front men tried to be like him - cascading blond hair, preening, posing and power. Trouble was, this was all natural to Plant. When others tried it, they looked like failed pretty boys. David Coverdale and Dave Lee Roth were the first to try - and fail. The worst example was Jon Bon Jovi. Tight trousers and big hair was never going to be a substitute for talent, and Dave Lee Roth's inability to recognise that was the band's biggest drawback. Van Halen marked the point when hair metal was launched upon us. For this, the band's debut album, it was a novelty. It pretty quickly ceased to be. Nevertheless, we should not overlook this album because of that for it still represents a brief moment when rock almost managed to reclaim the spotlight.

(Warner Bros. 1978)
Reviewed on 2012-01-29 17:19:02 by Charles Martel

Rush - Roll The Bones (1991)

Early on, it would appear the 1990's would offer a bit of a fresh platform for Rush, along with a fresh set of ideas perhaps resulting in a return to form. Depending on who you ask, Geddy, Alex and Neil were either still happening or yesterday's news. But if numbers mean anything, then Roll The Bones and it's #3 US charting position, along with it's now-platinum status and cooresponding singles, certainly seemed to support the claim that Rush were still vital heading into their 3rd decade of existence. Much like Presto before it, a quiet and subdued production job seems to gloss over what is otherwise a rougher, more rock-based Rush.

"Dreamline" has maintained it's popularity throughout the years, one of the best tracks the band had penned in quite some time and a fan favorite live. Neil's ability to wrap his head around a story and tell it via song lyrics is a big reason why the band continued to stay afloat and, despite the ideas of many a critic and naysayer, prosper along the way. His percussion work never needs mention after the obligatory "this guy is damn good, maybe the best rock has to offer", and there isn't an album in their catalog where this isn't somehow brought to your attention. The other singles on the album don't hold up quite as well today, but "Bravado" is easily relatable, heartfelt and patient, an attribute obtained through practice and experience. "Ghost of A Chance" maintains distinction for being perhaps the only definable "love song" Rush ever concocted. They've noted in interviews their avoidance of such trappings of songwriting, but here they manage to bring the romance in a tasteful and elegant fashion. Last of the singles was the title track and it is a most excellent track, up until the unfortunate decision to include an extended session of...rapping. It still surprises me to think it today, but the band decided to (thankfully) briefly tread the waters of the growing popularity of hip-hop. And as cringe-worthy as it is, it still fits in the context of the song where a guitar solo also would have been fine, and easier to digest. Elsewhere on the record, "Where's My Thing?" brings back the instrumental side of Rush and earned the band a grammy nod in the process. A few other decent songs feel like filler around more noteworthy material, and "You Bet Your Life" starts off a little awkward before ending in climatic fashion.

Roll The Bones may not have brought many fans back from where Moving Pictures left them hanging, but it certainly galvanized the new direction Rush were heading in. The synths would always have a place in their sound, but now it was quite evident the band would exist in the framework of guitars, drums and vocals first and foremost. This was another big step towards a couple of outstanding and criminally overlooked records yet to come...

(Anthem/Atlantic 1991)
Reviewed on 2012-01-29 16:48:58 by Kevin Sellers

Buck Satan And The 666 Shooters - Bikers Welcome Ladies Drink Free (AFM)

A project many years in the making, brought about by an epiphany brought about by (another) near-death experience, Ministry and Revolting Cocks mastermind Al Jourgensen brings us Buck Satan And The 666 Shooters, a psycho-country bunch of booze-swilling, geetar-wranglin' badasses. A labor of love as much as anything, Bikers Welcome Ladies Drink Free is a tribute to some of Al's favorite music, the sort of swaggering, posturing cowboy country we've not heard much of lately but lives on historically from the likes of Gram Parsons, Johnny Cash and many others in between. Bikers Welcome is a tribute and a damn good time.

With a band rounded out by members or ex-members of Ministry, Cheap Trick and Static X, Buck Satan and his shooters kick things off in an alcoholic haze on "Quicker Than Liquor". Many guest musicians make their presense felt from track to track, filling in that old-school country sound with the appropriate instruments and atmosphere. The tracks vary from the overly ambitious and energenic (What's Wrong With Me, Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man) to the more straightforward and equally powerful (Medication Nation, Cheap Wine, Cheap Ramen). Songs like "The Only Time I'm Sober Is When You're Gone" and "I Hate Every Bone In Your Body (Except Mine)" are a nostalgic nod to some of the older "Take my wife...please!" style of country blues. "Sleepless Nights and Bar Room Fights" is a big meaty punch to the face, full of piss and tempo. "Friend of the Devil" is incredibly infectious and "Ten Long Years In Texas" has a bit more of a modernized feel to it. Closer "Take Me Away" seems like the most serious the album dares to get, a somber yet ill-fitting farewell in context to the upbeat shenanigans of the first 11 tracks. However, it seems to work wonderfully in Al's plan to combine elements of a genre's entire history into an album's worth of Jourgensen'ed C&W.

What little there is to complain about is simply nit-picking, but the need to constantly announce each guitar solo by name "Go get 'em Mikey, Mr. Mike Scaccia on guitar, etc" does stick out a bit as a slight annoyance. I do understand this is a part of how records used to sound, however, and can appreciate it being a more fleshed-out piece of Americana nostalgia because of it. Beyond that, you'll get nothing but 50 minutes of full-out, fornication and fucking around on Bikers Welcome Ladies Drink Free, a refreshing moment of something we just don't hear much of anymore. However off-kilter and blatantly off-the-rails Al Jourgensen may be, the carefully constructed nature of this record belies a dedication and respect for a sound that may be long dead but lives on in many a fan.

(2012 AFM)
Reviewed on 2012-01-29 15:43:08 by Kevin Sellers

Gravenhurst - Fires In Distant Buildings (2005)

It really pisses me off when scores of blogs and dozens of reviews, all gushing in their praise, are written about a mediocre release by an average band whose super-inflated ego has far outstripped their mediocre talent and long-gone originality. It pisses me off even more when genuinely original, quality music is overlooked or paid some scant attention because some hipster(s) with influence with the sheep-like masses have either decided it is not meeting their definition of cool or have not paid any attention to it.

In short, I hate it when people overlook Gravenhurst and get all orgasmic about Radiohead.

I guess Gravenhurst isn't mainstream enough for some people, hence the comparative neglect. Not that, as I can understand, Gravenhurst is for everybody. And if your first introduction to this band is Fires in Distant Buildings then you could be forgiven for turning away. Nick Talbot, the multi-talented instrumentalist (Thom Yorke take note) behind Gravenhurst is not an artist who is going to shy away from the controversial. I would not say that Fires in Distant Buildings is a concept album by any means, but there is a distinct theme running through it, and that theme is a morbid fascination with macabre, violent, often watery death.

On first listen you may feel that Talbot has found a song which is aimed straight at the radio. "The Velvet Cell" is a solid guitar-driven track with a catchy hook, but first impressions can be wrong. Listen closely and you will hear that it is about violence and murder. And just as you were getting comfortable with it, it stops, and ends in a completely different musical structure. And just in case you missed it, there is a reprise two songs later which strips the first of its lyrics and refrain and, although it is longer than the first outing of the original melody, does nothing to convince me that including reprises on albums is lazy and somehow deceitful. The album's low point.

The album opens with "Down River". The sound may be reminiscent of English folk ballads but what is actually down river, floating down river in fact, is a body. This imagery continues, after "The Velvet Cell" with "Animals" when Talbot not only sees his body in the river after a walk, but wonders who his killer is and what he is doing right now. After three songs about dead bodies in a row, you might be ready for a bit of lighter subject matter. "Nicole", however, does not really provide it, for this song deals with what is clearly a dysfunctional, maybe even dispassionate relationship.

Skipping quickly over the reprise, Gravenhurst returns to the theme of watery graves, this time of a whole city. "Cities Beneath the Sea" combines a stereo-typically English folk guitar with an intense, droning organ as if to emphasise the fact that the city has been drowned out by the sea, while the lyrics lament the passing:

"In deserted towns and burial mounds / There is beauty that no-one will see."

The album ends with two of its strongest songs. Clocking in at twenty minutes between them, they offer a combination of emotional depth and musical creativity. Sprawling and at times seemingly uncontrollable dark, psychedelic folk music breaks out into distorted electric feedback instrumental sections which bridge the gap between shoegaze and post-rock. And you have to wait until the end for the best, a reworking of the Kinks' "See My Friends" which demonstrates what can happen when a jangly sixties pop song is given a contemporary transformation by a band with some real talent instead of multitude of fanboys who wouldn't know talent if it jumped out of their computer screen and bit them. Fires in Distant Buildings may not be to everyone's taste. Some may find it too depressing. But if you are one of those who think that music begins and ends with Radiohead, you may want to check this out. It might change your entire perspective for the better.

(Warp 2005)
Reviewed on 2012-01-28 03:33:30 by Charles Martel

Thin Lizzy - Live And Dangerous (1978)

I always believed that Thin Lizzy represented a depressingly commercial line of hard rock in the early- to mid- seventies. After all, these guys regularly appeared on Top of the Pops and that was the ultimate in the mainstream. Having said that, if you have to have one album by the band, this was it. Better live than in the studio (with one obvious exception, more of which later), this album catches the rapport which Lynott developed with his audiences and which gave the band's live performances a particular edge. The two guitars drive the tracks forward and, in spite of the fact that Lynott was so wrecked by heroin at the time he had to inject in between his toes to find a vein, he can still, by some unknown power, hold a performance.

At the time this came out it was hailed as one of the greatest of all live albums, and certainly of the seventies. That is an accolade it has held ever since and is reflected by its high position in various all-time best album lists. In truth, I do not find it to live up to that billing. It was, in truth, just another live rock album which came out a time when rock was being swamped and rendered outdated by punk. It offered nothing new and never moved forward the concept of what a live album really ought to be about. Furthermore, it was always something of a bastard child even within itself and what it purported to be.

The sleeve notes suggest that the album was recorded in Toronto, something that is simply not true. Most of the tracks were recorded in London at the tail end of an earlier tour. Some of the tracks were laid down in North America, in Philadelphia to be precise, but not Toronto. The reason why Toronto gets such prominence is that was the location where this was remixed and where the overdubs were done. In truth, this was a live recording so much modified in the studio afterwards that it can hardly count as a live album at all.

As a result of all these circumstances, I cannot find it in me to give this album the same sort of accolades which it has received over the years from so many others. The post-recording studio enhancements were one thing (probably a consequence of Lynott's condition, at least in part), but this really did not give much of an insight in what Thin Lizzy were truly about. Some of the songs were not that much different from the studio versions, and I never thought Thin Lizzy in the studio were as good as some of their contemporaries, in spite of the passionate following they evoked among some of my contemporaries. Oddly, even though "Emerald" is one of my favourite tracks of theirs, I find the version on Live and Dangerous to be inferior to their studio version, while "Dancing in the Moonlight" (another favourite) is immeasurably better where the music and the lyrics actually meld well, enhanced by a good sax solo to boot.

These days Thin Lizzy sound notoriously sexist. This is truly music whose time has passed. Lynott's pathetic joke to the crowd asking if any of the girls want any more Irish in them was lame then and is bad now. References to demeaning treatment of women abound in the lyrics and just seem so out of place now, however borderline acceptable they may have been then. Just goes to show, this is an album which has dated and certainly not for the better.

(Vertigo 1978)
Reviewed on 2012-01-27 13:12:31 by Charles Martel

Lou Reed - Transformer (2004)

This is an album which, within a few years of its release, justifiably came to be regarded as a classic. Perhaps it is one of the apogees of the glam rock era of the early seventies, along with The Rise and fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. The combination of sounds put Lou Reed along with David Bowie and Iggy Pop as influences on a generation of musicians. It also marked a turning point in direction of pop music. I recall seeing, around the time this came out, an American magazine article which cited Reed, Bowie and Iggy as a triple threat to rock . What sort of threat they posed and to whom I never delved into, but suffice it to say I paid little attention beyond the title.

In "Walk on the Wild Side" Lou Reed found himself with a surprising singles hit on both sides of the Atlantic, though it has to be said that I doubt a whole load of the people who heard it ever truly understood what it was all about and certainly the reference to giving head was never picked up by the BBC or it would have been slapped with a ban. The mythology surrounding the album continued with the artwork and it was long rumoured that the two people featured on the back cover - a girl in a snazzy skirt and a man with an unfeasibly large bulge in his trousers - were both in fact Lou Reed in costume. They were not (and the unfeasibly large bulge was later admitted to be a banana).

The tracks on Transformer were certainly off-beat enough to make you sit up and listen. "Perfect Day", "Walk on the Wild Side" and "Satellite of Love" are the stand out tracks and probably the most famous as well. Most of the others bear closer listening to - almost. However, there are some real pieces of dross in here. I can't stand "New York Telephone Conversation" as an example. Skits really have no place on an album of music. Having said that, at the time that may have seemed a good idea.

This album was all about a place and a time, and the ultimate shallowness and transience of that situation. This was an album about and for New York in the early 1970's. The scenarios the songs describe and the characters that populate them are all drawn from Reed's knowledge of the New York alternative scene in the late sixties and early seventies, a scene with which he was supremely familiar. It was a world of hard drugs and cheap sex; of weirdos and misfits; of artists and piss-artists. I guess if you were part of that scene, even peripherally, this album may seem like an old friend.

Why then do I give this such a comparatively low rating? Perhaps it is because I was then and remain now far removed from the scene about which Reed sings. Well, in truth, the style and the era of the early 1970's as far as I was concerned was rock music. Glam and Camp, which this is in places, was too much associated with the charts and the mainstream - and let's face it, look at the British charts of the era and see the utter shite which populated them. As a consequence, listening to this album now dates it instantly as a product of its time. It does not translate well to the present era and seems to me to represent a phase music went through on the way to growing up. There are times when I enjoy it, but for most occasions I regard it as a curiosity of a bygone age.

(RCA 2004)
Reviewed on 2012-01-27 13:07:18 by Charles Martel

Psychedelic Furs - Forever Now (1982)

The Psychedelic Furs were one of those bands who seemed to be bedevilled with frequent line-up changes. As is so often the case, such line-up changes did nothing to enhance the band or its music. One could argue, indeed it is a view that I would share, that the Psychedelic Furs peaked with the release of Talk Talk Talk and were never able to achieve that degree of brilliance again. Line-up changes were undoubtedly a contributory factor. They were not the only one, but it is with line-up changes that I will start.

Guitarist Roger Morris and the distinctive saxophonist, Duncan Kilburn, left the band after Talk Talk Talk. That made a huge impact on the band and resulted in a reduction of the quality of the music and the sound. The Furs as a four piece were simply not the same band as the powerful and innovative sextet of earlier albums. It would not be a statement too far to say that this was one instance where the change of line-up had a discernable effect on the sound.

It may have been this which influenced the second factor which prevented Forever Now from becoming anything like its immediate predecessor, and that is the production. Whereas the first album had suffered from under-production, Forever Now suffered from exactly the opposite. Talk Talk Talk hit the balance just right between the dense Spector-esque wall of sound and the clarity which enabled the listener to pick out individual contributions. On Forever Now the sound was just too slick, especially where Butler's voice was concerned. Often criticised, Butler had a limited vocal ability to put it mildly. But his voice was distinctive, and lent a lot to the sound the band created. By tinkering with it in production to make it more, dare I say, tuneful, that distinctiveness started to ebb.

And in answering why the production would change so dramatically, one hits upon the third major factor. I had always seen the Furs as a post-punk band, which is how they started out. But when they crossed the pond following the chart success of "Pretty in Pink" in the States, they morphed into a pop band and were largely seen as such over there. The difference was important because the production values were entirely different. Add to this the fact that half the band moved to the States and half stayed in London, and the tensions in the band would begin to build.

And in this way, the three factors which caused such a dramatic change in the band between this album and its predecessor all merge together into one. In short, the Psychedelic Furs of Forever Now was not the same band as the Psychedelic Furs which had created Talk Talk Talk - in any sense of the word. It was something which would bedevil the band for years to come. After Talk Talk Talk I found it became increasingly difficult to identify with the Psychedelic Furs, or write a review of their albums. When this album, and its predecessors first came out, I loved them. I did not notice, until much much later, that the Furs were going increasingly poppy in their output. "Run and Run" is a great track, no doubt about it. However, the main single off the album, "President Gas", in many ways typifies this trend. It lacks musical quality of the first two albums in terms of the melody. It comes across as much more laden and plodding. This was sadly a feature of their work which was to resurface more and more on future albums. The more the Psychedelic Furs strove for US chart success, the more I went off them.

(CBS Sony 1982)
Reviewed on 2012-01-27 13:01:49 by Charles Martel

New Order - Brotherhood (1986)

I never listened to a New Order album after this. They were now careering out of control down the path to electronic dance techno-pop nightmare (or wherever). Dance music has never been substantial enough to base a career on - by its very definition it is ephemeral even more so than any other modern music - and New Order had succumbed to the false promise that it held out, promises of fame and wealth, neither of which really came their way to the extent they had hoped for. I suppose this was a sad end to a glittering opening few tracks of a promising career.

The album itself is flawed but is a forerunner of what eventually come to be identified as the New Order sound on Technique. The problem is with that style is that it does not suit any themes of any weight. "All Day Long", apparently about child abuse, makes you wince - not a good reaction. A much more common, even inevitable consequence if the style adopted is saccharine sweet, silly refrains and chants. This only adds to the feeling of transience you get when listening to this.

I guess that, like many in a similar position, this album marked the point at which I gave up on New Order. It was the point at which New Order dropped any pretence of maintaining a post-punk stance. To people like myself, for whom post-punk was the ambrosia of my early twenties, the approach taken by New Order was akin to putting them beyond the fold of my appreciation. I realise how intolerant that sounds, but if I wanted to listen to dance music there were a thousand other bands out there who did it, many of them far better at it than New Order. Why then would I continue with New Order out of anything other than nostalgia or a sorely misplaced sense of loyalty? Oddly, they did produce one more single, "True Faith" which did tip the lance, more out of respect than intent I suspect, to their post-punk roots. That was indeed the last thing by New Order I ever purchased.

Perhaps the other problem was that New Order, as individuals, were never that good as musicians, with the possible exception of Peter Hook. By the mid eighties they had begun to cover up the deficiencies in their musical ability by increasing reliance on machines. Machines, by their very nature, lend themselves to dance music owing to their infallibility at creating a steady beat, and their fallibility in failing to infuse the sound with any emotion. It was therefore inevitable that New Order's use of machines as a dominant force, rather than as a supplementary enhancement, would lead them down the sterile path of dance music.

Of course there are some good moments, and "Bizarre Love Triangle" is probably the most notable. But when the band inserts a few lines from "Love Will Tear Us Apart" at the end of "Way of Life" you begin to realise that the band lost more than their frontman when Ian Curtis died - they lost their soul and their direction. That act is, you suspect, a recognition of that fact. New Order had to distance themselves from Joy Division if they were to retain any shred of credibility. And in using those lines in this way, it seems as if they felt they were now truly able to bid farewell to the ghosts of Ian Curtis and Joy Division. I can't fault them for that, but even though it was around this time that I got to see New Order in concert for the first and only time, I would forever long for the days when they were a cutting edge post-punk outfit. The band they had become was not to my musical taste.

(Factory 1986)
Reviewed on 2012-01-27 12:55:05 by Charles Martel

Cyndi Lauper - She's So Unusual (1983)

This was a significant pop album, in all the more positive ways of the word. Cyndi Lauper emerged onto the music scene around the same time as Madonna. This was extremely unfortunate because that rather defined her career ever since. Of the two, she was everything her contemporary Madonna was not; she had talent, she had a distinctive style, she wrote a lot of her own music and she demanded from the start to be her own person. Madonna won in the long run, oddly by copying a lot of what Cyndi Lauper had initially stood for - independence, self-reliance and artistic control. If there were any justice in the world, it would have surely been the other way around.

Cyndi Lauper proved that you could sing catchy pop tunes, with underlying meanings, appealing to all levels of music lover, and yet still retain an individuality. Britney and the rest of shit out there today would do well to take note. Actually, they would do well to crawl off into a hole and die with embarrassment. Lauper had more talent and originality than all the wannabe and the made-it plastic creations put together by the record companies. Yet that is risky. Individuality in a pop artist is a dangerous thing. As a pop artist you are required to conform to the record company's template - songs, image, lifestyle. Failure to conform is likely to alienate you from them and that is harmful for your career. That is where Cyndi Lauper made her biggest mistake. She would have been regarded as a loose cannon by the record companies and her career never really took off after this album.

But enough of the bitching - back to the music. She's So Unusual contains some good snappy pop, but also a few howlers, and it is the presence of these which drags it down. Put aside Lauper's stunningly bad 80's hairstyle and appalling dress sense, this was non-commercial pop which became commercial because of the sheer joy of listening to it. The best track is the ballad "Time After Time" which, as it title might suggest, has stood the test of time. "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" and "She Bop" may sound dated, but hey, listen to them for the pure nostalgic effect. The album spawned four hit singles and there can be no doubt that each of them deserved to be hits. OK, some of them were covers (indeed, this album contains quite a few covers, including "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" itself, originally recorded by Robert Hazard. But there is no shame in taking someone else's song and making THE definitive version of it, as Soft Cell and Jimi Hendrix will testify).

Sadly, the heights are not sustained throughout the album, and that is what drags the rating down to the middle of the park level I have accorded it. The second half is the principal cause of this. "Witness" tries and fails to establish a chant refrain pattern and ends up just sounding repetitive. "He's So Unusual" is almost obligatory but fails miserably, though it is thankfully short. Finally, "Yeah Yeah" is just plain awful. Having said that, if you are going to put three duffers on an album, it is a good idea, as is the case here, to group them all together at the end. The rest of the album, the highs and the lows apart, has some moments of uniqueness but is really not a lot to write home about.

Many of the songs on this album received significant airplay and the album was a massive hit when it came out. Even today, some of the tracks still resonate with me. Now why can't all pop music be more like this? Why couldn't Cyndi Lauper have set the pace and rubbish like Madonna struggled to follow in its wake?

(CBS 1983)
Reviewed on 2012-01-27 12:48:56 by Charles Martel

Alcest - Les Voyage De L'ame (2012)

First and foremost, a big thanks to our own Nick Fry for giving me a heads-up on both Alcest and their new album. I was previously unaware of the band and, as such, any talk of the new album. Second, I was giving serious consideration to the idea of letting this review go in favor of another reviewer, CharlesMartel, who has done an excellent job in covering Alcest's previous LPs. But I have to share my thoughts, thoughts barely containable on this fantastic record, containing within a sound I am not sure how I had let escape me before.

Trying to pin down that sound is somewhat difficult, but it lies somewhere between ambient black metal, shoegaze and acoustic folk with an edge. To my ears they combine elements of some of my favorite acts, such as Wolves In The Throne Room (in their more fierce and hypnotic black metal passages), Agalloch (in their softer, acoustic/folk leanings) and a wide variety of others. In essence, Les Voyage De L'ame is a journey as much as a collection of songs, where each step (track) in the road reveals something either revolutionary or simply beautiful to behold. I can only imagine, having not heard the past two records, that this might meet with wholly different levels of acclaim (or disappointment), but as a newcomer I cannot help but be stunned by the ethereal beauty and effortless genre-bending. The vocals are, as needed, either soft and pensive or harsh and violent, though the latter is rarely used and in turn leaves a bigger impact because of the rarity. The guitarwork is brilliant, weaving tapestries of the epic, downtrodden, meloncholy and overjoyous varieties with softly spun acoustic or rapid-fire electric. The percussion is very light in the mix, taking a step back to great effect. It doesn't distract, causes you to search out the finer moments without forcing them on you. The songwriting proper is awe-inspiring, as each track seamlessly weaves from heavy to soft to all points in between without batting an eye. Nothing truly stands out except the totality of the 8 tracks taken in consecutively. This is a great album, not so much a great collection of great songs, if you get what I'm saying.

As stunned as I was with Les Voyage De L'ame, what I've read of their debut makes me even more excited. This is a voyage into the depths of music that few would dare to explore, where a myriad of influences are crafted together into something that transcends definition and sets a benchmark for anything bearing similarity. Alcest is something altogether refreshing and unique in a day where the massive amount of available product renders a large percentage of it moot and lacking originality.

(Prohpecy 2012)
Reviewed on 2012-01-26 12:08:54 by Kevin Sellers

Iron Savior - The Landing (2012)

Germany's Iron Savior has a fairly long and extremely rich history, having been co-founded by one Kai Hansen, a man whom some consider to be the most prominent voice in the subgenre of power metal. And although he's been gone for 10+ years, the band continues to set a high mark for itself with each consecutive release. The Landing is their latest and the results are quite satisfying to be sure. The problem one may run into with a release of this particular sound is that it can be easily categorized as "cheesy", "corny" and "behind the times" in it's lyrical nature and songwriting angles. But if that doesn't bother you like it doesn't bother me, then you've got a heavy dose of the good old stuff right here.

While intro "Descending" isn't really necessary, it is a foregone conclusion that most power metal albums have to have some sort of instrumental introduction. It's just one of those things you don't question. "The Savior" gets things going in fine fashion, with some excellently-done riffs, solid work from the rhyhtm section and competent and fitting vocals from frontman Piet Sielck. His voice is very much the spice that gives many of these songs life, able to make his voice soar in the mid-upper ranges without ever getting too operatic, overblown or reaching for lengths it cannot attain. The band seems to revel in the higher-tempo, speed-metal zone on tracks like "Starlight", "March of Doom" and "Moment In Time", all of which are early highlights. When the band slows things down and gets into ballad territory, the results are mixed but honestly done and commendable to an extent. This is truly where the "cheese" factor comes into play. A sample of lyrics from one such song, "Heavy Metal Never Dies":

"Raise your head up to the sky
and let the music take you high.
May your inner warrior
ride again in pride."

Yeah, I'm aware. But it somehow works, if only for the track history of the band and the experienced wisdom and cliched "warriors of metal" approach they've always taken up. Besides, if you're asking me, metal will always have room for those who take up the banner of it's causes, however obscure and undefinable those causes may infact be.

The Landing delivers on all counts, only slightly dogging itself down with a little bit of an overdose of the cheese. For those who can't get enough of that nostalgic history lesson of metal should already be aware of Iron Savior's ability to bring it in buckets. Otherwise, those wondering where to find their next fix should look no further.

(AFM 2012)
Reviewed on 2012-01-26 08:17:50 by Kevin Sellers

John Paul Jones - The Thunderthief (2002)

John Paul Jones was the last of the surviving Led Zeppelin line up to return to recording on a solo basis, finally doing so in the nineties, though he put in a number of appearances and contributions on other people's work in the intervening period and led a poorly received album in the eighties with a variety of other musicans. Indeed, he almost reverted to being the session musician he was before he joined Led Zeppelin. So much so that he disappeared off the rader and did not even get an invite to the induction of Led Zeppelin into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

In many ways, Jones was the odd one out amongst the Led Zeppelin quartet. For a start, he was the most intellectual and probably the most talented, something which may seem an odd thing to say. He was also the quietest and most introspective. Yet given that he almost left the band in 1971 to take up the position of permanent of lead organist at Winchester Cathedral, he seemed to have broader musical horizons than the rest. While Bonham was heavily into booze, Page and Plant into whatever women they could get their hands on, Jones was the one who went to bed early and largely stayed away from excesses of various substances. Out of all of them, and this is saying something for a band which rarely gave interviews anyway, he was also to most reclusive of the four. At times, you almost wonder what he actually thought of the antics of his bandmates at the time and wondered whether he was really in the right line of work.

In terms of comparisons with Led Zeppelin, his solo work showed the much greater deviation from the hard rock, blues based style of music that Led Zeppelin excelled at in comparison with either Page or Plant. His solo work shows a variety of influences, not all of them easily discernable. Inevitably, the question is going to be raised about his solo career, was it worth the wait? Well The Thunderthief was his second output and came some four years after the first. Did it really take him that long to find the inspiration for this? Again, another question: is this the best he could do?

On the strength of this album, one would have to say that the long wait for Jones to come up with an album was definitely not worth it. The album is a mish-mash of different themes and styles. There is no unity to it and consequently it does not hang together well. Some of the tracks are just plain stupid - "Hoediddle" is a case in point. Others, such as "Angry Angry" contain a set of really childish lyrics over an equally childish melody, a modern nursery rhyme perhaps, with some really formulaic music behind it. Others seem to have no purpose other than to provide an opportunity for some slow songs, and here I am talking "Ice Fishing at Night". Furthermore, one final criticism, I don't know if it is John Paul Jones himself who is doing the vocals here, but if it is, he should stop! The lyrics are at times awful, and the vocals do not fit. The only thing I can really think of saying in its favour is that this must be a very personal album for Jones: the album He wanted to make, and to hell with what anyone else thought of it.

I got this without having heard it, thinking it would be interesting to hear what John Paul Jones sounded like without the rest of Led Zeppelin and nearly forty years on from his last solo effort, a single he released in the early sixties. At least on that effort, Jones did not sing for both "Baja" and "A Foggy Day in Vietnam" were instrumentals. The whole album lacks sufficient bass, in spite of Jones' awesome reputation as a bassist - was he trying to distance himself from his famous former life perhaps? It is not a patch on Zooma, his earlier album and suffers from some really weak songs. Now I know that John Paul Jones demonstrates his amazing musical ability on this album, and for that the album gets the rating which marks it above the truly awful, but really he ought to leave the singing and the songwriting to someone else.

(DGM 2002)
Reviewed on 2012-01-26 04:27:53 by Charles Martel

Joy Division - Still (1981)

This is a mixed album of a live set, which is appallingly recorded, but nonetheless contains some of their greatest tracks, and a studio album including outtakes and material that had not been issued but which was intended to form the nucleus of a new album before Ian Curtis committed suicide. The album was issued a year after that suicide and was intended to provide a kind of wrapping up of all things Joy Division by releasing all that was unreleased. In retrospect, I am not sure that was a good idea. It was probably too soon to take such a step so quickly after the band's demise, but the reason behind it seems to have been principally one of cashing in while the memory is still strong. There needed to be a decent gap before a true retrospective was to be issued. As a consequence, the album has, in places, a kind of rushed feel about it.

The first disc contains the previously unreleased studio stuff. As is often the case with compilations, the fact that it touches on the band's output at various points along the career make it seem disjointed and lacking coherence. Maybe that is supposed to be the point in this case, I truly do not know. However, what stands out is the inclusion of "Dead Souls", named presumably after the Gogol story of the same name, a truly incredible song which matches screaming, cascading guitars with the spiritual desolation implicit in the title of the track. Without doubt, this is my favourite Joy Division track and the inclusion of it here alone makes this a worthwhile purchase.

The album does not really get going with the second disc, the live disc, either. The production is appalling, almost sub bootleg quality. The choice of songs is good, and in some cases inspired ("Ceremony" and "Isolation" are among the highlights, the former of which is not usually associated with Joy Division but is famous for the masterful reworking of it by New Order). But the live performance is often marred by poor musicianship - crappy drumming on "Disorder" and boring guitar work on "Passover" being just two of the more egregious examples. What is most noticeable about the live side, however, is how tired and dejected Ian Curtis's voice sounds on this, even when he is speaking. Here was truly a man at the end of the line.

It is a pity that the live set is so poor because otherwise this would have made a largely mediocre album into an excellent one. As it is, it is mediocre, there can be no doubt about that. It should serve as a warning to anyone who thinks that rushed issues intended to cash in are in any way a good idea. However, it will always be but saved from oblivion by some superb moments - "Dead Souls" is one of my favourite tracks of all time. If for no other track than that, this album is one that is worth having.

So, no more Joy Division and this stands as their last testament. It could have been, should have been so much better. Cue the ghouls who now start issuing anything and everything they could find with Ian Curtis on it: crappy live recordings through to farting around with a guitar in a studio. They should leave him, and Joy Division be, for us all to remember them as they truly should be remembered. I guess the need for money will always trump the memory of the dead in the end.

(Factory 1981)
Reviewed on 2012-01-25 17:47:26 by Charles Martel

Husker Du - Zen Arcade (1984)

Everybody is supposed to regard Hüsker Dü as one of, if not the greatest exponents of American hardcore punk. As such, we are all supposed to bow down to them and admire their "influence" on those who came after, right? They were the ones who, along with the Violent Femmes, encapsulated the very essence of what it means to be a teenager in the eighties. Indeed, if you try to bring some sort of order to the tracks, it appears you are listening to the somewhat sorry tale of a disaffected, disillusioned, alienated youth who drifts away from his familiar surroundings in search of a more rewarding, more fulfilling life. Sorry, I just do not buy into that. Maybe it is the perspective I have, but I get the impression that the exalted status of Hüsker Dü does not transcend the Atlantic Ocean very well.

What you have with Zen Arcade is a selection of songs, some good, some bad, some mediocre which combine the immediate appeal of the well-crafted pop tune with the angst and frustration of the punks. At a time when music was also producing the likes of the Chameleons, the Sound and the Cure, there was so much more to life and music than what is essentially proto-emo. And proto-emo is what this is, when all the hype is stripped away. This is teenage angst writ large and amplified. This is not a depiction of the wider issues outside the essentially narrow concerns of kids. I am not even sure if it actually should be either.

Let's be fair, this is not a bad album. It is quite good in places, but it is overly long and in places really tires the listener. For a start, these guys can play. They are not like the punks of 77 for whom the fourth chord was a finger-bending exercise too far, no they really can play their instruments - cue the fourteen minute instrument ego-fest of "Reoccurring Dreams." The problem is, that in search of that elusive space between being musically competent and not wanting to appear to be so, there is a wasteland where you realise that music has its limitations. This is the point where Hüsker Dü position themselves. It is something of a musical thermocline, a clearly marked gradation through which you pass, rather than hang around indefinitely and attempt to build a career upon. Hüsker Dü seem to have done the latter.

Having said that, having identified the wasteland of this particular musical thermocline, Hüsker Dü set themselves an impossible task with this album. To bring musical diversity. On "Never Talking to You Again" and "Pink Turns to Blue" they succeed. Elsewhere they fail. Those two tracks may well be the album's diamonds, but you have to plough through an awful lot of grains of salt to get to them.

Perhaps it is me. Perhaps I am just too old for this. No, I don't believe that. I was contemporary to this and never really found it worthy of splashing out my always insufficient hard earned cash upon. Now, a little better off, I can, to ensure that I can reach for those diamonds when I want them. I just wish I didn't have so much salt with it. Processed food is too high in salt content to be good for you, irrespective of the quality of the underlying ingredients. This rather sums up how I feel about Zen Arcade.

(SST 1984)
Reviewed on 2012-01-25 17:40:32 by Charles Martel

Foo Fighters - There Is Nothing Left To Lose (1999)

My personal musical hiatus and longer-standing exile from musical innovation and creativity meant that grunge pretty much passed me by. It would not be a lie to say that I had never heard of Nirvana until the late nineties, by which time Kurt Cobain was long dead and grunge was fast becoming a relic of a bygone age itself. But then, just as we have post-punk, post-hardcore, post-rock, it is inevitable that we should have post-grunge. I have to admit though, I didn't catch onto that either at the time of its heyday and to this day I struggle to think what exactly is meant by post-grunge as a musical expression: it is almost as if it is grunge with the sharp edges rounded off. Perhaps all musical genres, however revolutionary, however anti-establishment, eventually all slip back towards the mainstream, both musically and in a wider cultural frame. In short, today's revolutionary in-your-face noise is tomorrow's MoR.

This has started to veer towards middle of the road soft rock. Now I know people mellow as they get older, but for Dave Grohl, middle age may have come early, judging by this. Don't get me wrong, it is not unpleasant, unlistenable, awful or anything like that. It is, however, disappointing. It just lacks the sort of punch which you would expect from a former Nirvana stalwart. Grunge this ain't. This is middle of the road American rock aimed straight at the MTV audience. This is the very antithesis of what anti-establishment Nirvana were about when they turned kids onto a sound and a style which rejected the ephemeral safeties of Reagan-era America, a time when the great bounties brought about by that administration had by-passed a whole generation across wide swathes of the country.

The album chugs along with hardly any highlights. It mingles ponderous, dreary slow-paced ballads with up-tempo rock numbers, fast enough to deserve the label, slow enough not to offend MTV. I have listened to this several times now and I still have not been able to identify that one track which will lead me into the heart of the album. I have therefore come to a conclusion. There isn't one. Without that track, I am left with nothing of any consequence. I have no starting point within it, and only starting points outside it with which to make a comparison. It could never have been another Nevermind, no. But it could have carried some sort of wallop as, say Fantastic Planet or Downward Is Heavenward. Instead, it is a flagrantly blatant attempt to play to the mainstream in an effort to sell as many copies as possible and therefore justify some sort of continued existence.

So where does that leave me? Disappointed - in a way yes. I expected more and got less. Dissatisfied - certainly. Frustrated - most definitely. This is an album which should have taken the Foo Fighters towards new ground. It should have built on the foundations of their first two albums and pushed the band towards a new style and new approach to music. Instead, they have taken the easy route and gone for what is likely to get play on MTV. Could it be that Dave Grohl had finally benefited as an individual from Reaganomics and could no longer see the social alienation which drove him towards music making in the first place? Could it be that he never really was that talented a musician in the first place? Or is it more likely that grunge, or post-grunge, or whatever, slipped back towards the Middle of the Road like all other musical forms do eventually.

(Reprise 1999)
Reviewed on 2012-01-25 17:34:47 by Charles Martel