BECK - Guero (2005)

Review by: B.B Fultz
Album assigned by: E.D.

My first acquaintance with Beck was Loser, back when it first came out and it got a lot of radio play. I'd never heard anything quite like it. It really clicked with me. So I went out and bought the Mellow Gold CD, and played the hell out of it back in the mid-90s. I really liked it from beginning to end. I was still young and relatively unjaded, still able to be impressed by weird visionaries putting new spins on old dogs. After awhile I stopped playing Mellow Gold as much and fell back on more familiar music, but I never forgot the initial effect it had on me. Of all the new artists I explored in the 90s, there was nobody and nothing quite like Beck. I never bothered buying his other albums, maybe because they didn't get much airplay (that I know of), thus there was never a "Wow!" moment like that first time I heard Loser on the car radio. So when I was assigned a Beck album from 2005, I wasn't sure what to expect, except I knew I probably wouldn't be bored.

What I didn't expect was that I'd really like this album. Because I really like this album. It's Beck doing what he does best -- Making Music Interesting. There's a magic at work here. It's not the same magic you'll find in Mellow Gold, but it's still magic because it's still greater than the sum of its parts. Every song makes that magic in its own way, some more than others, but they all work. I couldn't find a complete version of this album online, so I looked up the tracklist on Wiki and just searched out the individual songs and played them in order, muting the occasional commercials.

E-Pro rocks, sort of. It has drive, it has direction. A lot of early Beck seemed to meander, as if it was looking for itself. This is more "point A to point B." I'm not quite sure what point A and B are supposed to be, but it's an interesting ride.

Que Onda Guero was more along the line of early Beck. A catchy backbeat, random horns, surreal rapping, and lots of call-and-response in Spanish with comical little asides about popsicles and ceramic classes. More familiar territory with Mellow Gold, which is probably why I like it.  

Girl was a departure. It sounded less like Beck and more like ... I dunno, Dandy Warhols? Maybe someone else, I don't know that many pop bands from the last couple decades to make accurate comparisons. Girl begins with a simplistic techno-riff, "beep-boop-beep" stuff. It's less weird and more accessible than the other songs. It's hooky enough to be a half-decent pop song, but it's not what I look for when I put on a Beck album (but then maybe that was the idea?). 

Missing is this weird flamenco piece, sort of like if The Girl From Ipanema decided to drop acid. There's a weird stuttering feeling to the song, as if it's trying to move forward but the wheels are spinning in sand. It's got a catchy hook all the same -- "Something always missing, always someone" really sticks in your head (assuming your head is my head).

Black Tambourine is a little like E-Pro -- it has a good groove and forward momentum. It's probably a little catchier also. It also has reverb-laden guitar breaks reminiscent of Where It's At. It's a funky and catchy little break among the trippier stuff.

Earthquake Weather goes right back to trippy, starting with the title itself. It reminds me of his old song Sweet Sunshine, at least in the beginning. But it's tricky. It changes mood and direction less than a minute in. Sunshine mostly plods along without changing, but Weather has these strange jazzy-sounding choruses ("I push, I pull") to break the monotony and keep things interesting.

Hell Yes is a weird little rap, set to a timing I can't even begin to figure out. Is it 9/7? Or 11/7? Or Pi/square root of Pi? No idea, but it's fascinating stuff. The lyrical approach is rappy, but the structure is reminiscent of some of Frank Zappa's more experimental work with time signatures. To make an understatement, that's a hell of an interesting combination.

Broken Drum is a mellow groove, with guitar elements and a great "never forget you" hook. It's got this draggy, sleepy, almost hopeless feeling that reminds me of the best parts of Mellow Gold. I'm not sure if melancholy was what Beck was going for, but melancholy is how it made me feel (and not many songs can make me feel that way these days, so that's saying something).

Scarecrow is a little less interesting and kind of fillerish. A solid backbeat, funk-pop riff, classic Beck vocal overlays. You can tune into it halfway through where there's no singing and still probably figure out that it's Beck just by the arrangement itself. It's mostly Beck retreading old ground, so it's a little formulaic (for him I mean), and it seems to peter out rather than come to a conclusion. Almost as if he got bored with it. Still, it's not half-bad.

Go It Alone is another one that sounds a little fillerish. A simple bass/percussion riff, some adequate vocal layering in the chorus ("na na, na na na na") ... not bad I guess. Just Beck doing a little shuffle to pass the time. But that's fine by me, because Beck has a neat way of shuffling.

Farewell Ride makes it interesting again. A "badass" blues pattern that reminds me a little of the Breaking Bad intro, propped up with some great bluesy harmonica phrases, stretched over a jangly handclap backbeat like bleached bones hung over a barricade at the edge of the map where everything beyond is blank white space. "Some may say this might be your last farewell ride" ... and it sounds like what it says. It's like the prelude to the final shootout of some surreal Western where you probably won't understand the ending but it's destined to become one of your favorite movies. Beck meets Sergio Leone? I wanna be there for that. Maybe the most haunting Beck song I've heard since Hotel City 1997, and that's saying something. I could listen to this stuff for hours.

Rental Car is so grungey that it sounds like a Soundgarden riff dropped in the middle of a Nirvana song. In fact Beck's vocals on this really, REALLY remind me of Nevermind-era Cobain -- not just the way he sings it, but the voice itself ... "Hey now girl, what's the matter with me" sounds like it was sampled from On A Plain, and those "yeah yeah yeahs" are more Kurt than Kurt. Then those helium high "la la la la la las" come in from out of nowhere, and you realize it can only be Beck.

Emergency Exit closes things on a mellow note, almost like the album is just winding down and running out of whatever weird fuel that Beck albums run on. It's reminiscent of Loser -- the same comical guitar phrases and the same playful rap of random images that hooked me on Beck in the first place. I'm thinking the emergency exit in question is about death and whatever lies beyond, if anything. It speaks of God and angels and faith, but in a way that's not really religious. As if Beck's saying he doesn't know either, but he's betting kindness will find you on your deathbed and children will wander until the end. And all the while that draggy twangy guitar from Loser rolls on and on, like the tongue-in-cheek blues track of the Universe. 

And that's all I can really say about all this. Hopefully I've touched on enough interesting points to convince you this is an album worth listening to. It's not every day you hear an album like this. I'm not sure what the future of music holds, but it's good to know that Beck will be a part of it, at least for awhile. It gives the rest of us Losers some hope :)

CAPTAIN BEEFHEART AND THE MAGIC BAND - Doc at the Radar Station (1980)

Review by: Alex Alex
Album assigned by: B.B. Fultz

Captain Beefheart (hereafter Cb) is a maker of capitalistic things: music (1), paintings (2) and poetry (3). In the Year of Water Dog, having realized (1) and (3) require an industrialized workflow which could not, at that time, be sufficiently provided by an individual, Cb retired (1) and (3) from production, concentrating solely on (2).

The object of the review is the #11 in the (1) + (3) output, consisting of 0xC entities in two groups of 6 (see Fig. 1).

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C

Fig 1. The layout of the entities.

The lengths of the entities vary from the minimum of 60000000000 to over 38039985927014 ns.

7 human beings are credited: Cb (DVV), JMT, EDF, RAW (not to confuse with JPEG), BLF, JF(D), GL.

(*) Cb plays: the reed wind instrument, a transposing instrument on which a written C sounds like B♭, a woodwind instrument with a high F# key and a range from A♭3 to E6, 鑼 and several others.

The lyrical contents of the album is, due to its analogue nature and as usual with any poetry, difficult to almost impossible to translate. For those interested, I can only give you a fragment of how it sounds to the author of this review, personally: “Беги краска беги! Беги краска беги! Беги краска беги! Беги краска беги! Беги краска беги! Беги краска беги! Беги краска беги! Беги краска беги! Беги краска беги!” which, hopefully, is instructive enough for any further attempts at the studies.

Fig. 2 presents one of the possible layouts of the human beings involved in the production of the entities.

Cb(DVV) JMT EDF RAW BLF, JF GL, JPEG

Fig 2. A possible layout of the human beings

As an addendum and following the long-established reviewing tradition we present eight random words from a single product review in the ascending order of their lengths

a to the over Vliet singer vampire because

Fig. 3 Eight random words from a single product review in the ascending order of their lengths

Fig. 4 presents the possible ratings of the product on a hypothetical 5-stars scale. Further studies seem to suggest that the same algorithm can be applied to any of the separate entities, as well.

☺ ☺☺ ☺☺☺ ☺☺☺☺ ☺☺☺☺☺

Fig. 4. The possible ratings of the product on a hypothetical 5-stars scale.

Exercises:

(1) Design a thumbs scale

(2) How does “Беги краска беги! Беги краска беги!” sound to you and your friends? Discuss in groups.

(3*) Estimate art compression boundaries if JPEG is used instead of RAW

WITCHCRAFT - Legend (2012)

Review by: B.B. Fultz
Album assigned by: Syd Spence

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NOTE : The only versions of this album that I could find had some gaps between the songs, so I'm assuming a few of the songs were missing. It's possible the missing songs are better than the ones I commented on, so take my lukewarm review of the album with a grain of salt.

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An album by a band called Witchcraft, billed as "doom metal" by reviewers, and released in the year 2012 doesn't sound promising. One can already hear the overproduced mess of power chords, the unintelligible lyrics, the phlegm-throated shrieking, all the elements of something an angsty 13 year old boy might headbang to (when he wasn't listening to Korn). 

Good News ... This album isn't like that. Surprisingly, it's a callback to classic heavy metal. The most obvious and most prevalent influence is early Black Sabbath. From the very first song, the vocal style reminds me of Ozzy. Not the voice so much as how the lyrics are sung. Specifically mid-period Sabbath (Vol-4/SBS/Sabotage) where Ozzy was expanding his emotive range rather than simply repeating the guitar phrases with his voice. The vocalist is good enough in his way. He's no great shakes but he has a decent enough range to pull off these songs. For heavy metal, there's surprisingly not much screaming or growling on this album. This singer favors melodicity over brute force. The upside to this is, he doesn't sound like a total choad. The downside is that he doesn't make a very strong impression. He's no Ian Gillan, just a run-of-the-mill rock singer with an okay set of pipes. 

The songs tend to grind along at mid-tempo. They're heavy, but not too heavy. There's lots of sludge here, but there's also a momentum of sorts. These guys aren't just playing that sludgy metal sound because it "sounds cool" (although it does), they're actually trying to go somewhere with it. There is a lot of melodic string-plucking between the heavy riffs, and passages that sound like they're trying to be acoustic even though they're electric guitar ... you know, that quasi-medieval sound, when heavy metal is trying a little too hard to sound emotional and cathartic (Blackmore's Rainbow must have been another influence). The riffs themselves are not all that memorable. Likewise, the playing is competent, but not much beyond that. Most of these songs probably won't stick in your head if you're not a heavy metal fan, and maybe even if you are one. 

The solos are the most interesting part of the album, because they're such a deliberate callback to classic rock bands (of various schools, not just heavy metal). They often resemble 70s hard rock solos (slow and heavy -- think David Gilmour in "Pigs") combined with certain melodic tendencies from 80s metal solos. They are not very fast or flashy, which probably works to their advantage. 70s solos were pieces of information, each note a specific word or phrase or gesture, which is what separated them from generic 80s noodling. A given solo might sound like Sabbath, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, Thin Lizzy, even Lynyrd Skynyrd. The more interesting solos sound like a few different bands over a short span of time. While there are 80s (and later) elements at work here, the heart of the solos is rooted in 70s hard rock. 

Nothing on this album jumps out as amazing or innovative, but that's probably not what they were going for. It's more of a tribute to classic rock by some guys with a little skill and an obvious love for the older bands. Whatever hooks there are on this album, if any, are not especially sharp, but at least it's a reasonably coherent tribute to old school heavy metal. And in 2012, that's maybe not such a bad thing.

THE JIM CARROLL BAND - Catholic Boy (1980)

Review by: Charly Saenz
Album assigned by: B.B. Fultz

 

 

Well, somebody said once: "music, like life itself, is cyclic". So, that means we regularly need a reboot. Humans need to get back (to somewhere they feel like) home, and Music needs to go back to.. well, rock'n roll. Even the good ol' Beatles had in their short but meaningful career a return to roots ("Get back, Jojo!").

And Punk was the best reboot that Rock and Roll could think of, at the time at least, with all those Elton John wigs and Styx shining suits. But .. Do you remember that weird band from the late 80s, "Pop Will Eat Itself"? (You don't? Lucky you, but the name was great). Well, as any major movement, or government or world leader (Hey Romans, I'm looking at you!), no matter how big you get.. You're scheduled to fall down.

And "Punk ate itself". Or well the system ate it.. "streamlined it". But those who survived, those who reconfigured themselves, did great stuff at least for a longer while (Clash, Jam, Cure, etc). The Sex Pistols would apparently reject any "dinosaur rock" reference, but they ended up acknowledging people like Lennon or The Doors.

Thus, Best Punk learned to reconnect with the raw emotion of rock and roll, that was the key, more than any  plastic hairdo - enter Jim Carroll.

Jim was a writer, primarily. I bet that's how he established some bond with Patti Smith, with whom he got to play about 1978. "Catholic boy" is his band's first album. And let me tell you, as a quick spoiler, that it rocks (and pops!) really fine.

Jim's music in this album is good ol' rock and roll, with great poppy hooks and professional playing. It will turn up as a slow rocking tune in "Day And Night" (female vocals and all), like the early and best Bruce Springsteen. Or feverish and punkish in the opening classic, "Wicked Gravity" and also in  "Three Sisters". "People Who Died" is another fast rocker, featured on a LOT of movies out there. And the lyrics of course, cut to the bone, and the punk/joyful tone only adds to the wow factor: "Those are people who died, died/They were all my friends, and they died"..

"Crow" reminds me of The Stones' "Shattered" and it makes sense, being that the Stones' New Wavish album.

Highlights however are the more adventurous and moody songs like "City Drops Into The Night". Or The winding "It's Too Late" and its magnificent guitar work. "Catholic Boy" is a hell of a closer with that punctuating bass riff.

A hell of rock and roll album made with the heart by a Rocker, and of course a Writer. Read those lyrics, the guy will thank you from somewhere above or below where he's staying with the (other) People Who Died.

Keep on rockin'!

EARTH AND FIRE - Song of the Marching Children (1971)

Review by: B.B. Fultz
Album assigned by: Roland Bruynesteyn

This is an album by a prog(gish) Netherlands band called Earth and Fire. I say proggish because they are unusual for a prog band. Their sound, at least on this album, is more folkish and antiquated than the common definition of prog rock. They're more like Jethro Tull than anything, and Tull was always sort of a white crow among the British and American prog bands of the time. Earth and Fire with its female vocalist (rare for any prog band) is maybe even more of a white crow.

The opening song is called “Carnival of the Animals.” It is about animals in the forest doing various animal things. My first impression was Jefferson Airplane. Lilting female vocals and a vaguely martial drumbeat. Both the words and the music set the theme for the rest of the album. Storybook lyrics, crisp drum rhythms, and prominent synthesizers dominate the songs. It is very much an album of its time. The synthesizers especially have that early 70s synth sound that was to change in a few years as synths became more advanced. The overall mood, to me, seems more 60s than 70s. There's a sense of lost innocence and a yearning for a simpler and more natural world.

"Ebbtide" is an idyllic song about tides and gulls. It's an interesting combination of watery synths, flute solos, random guitar licks, and an almost jazz-like rhythm background. It reminds me of another song, or a few other songs, that I can't name at the moment. 

"Storm and Thunder" is reminiscent of early ELP, but with more baroque elements. The keyboards are more dominant here than on the other songs.

"In The Mountains" ventures into Pink Floyd territory. The lead guitar is slow and lilting, very much in the Gilmour style. The keyboard as well is more the art-rock of Rick Wright than anything by Emerson or Wakeman.

The closing multi-part suite "Song of the Marching Children" is an interesting piece. I'm not sure I get it, lyrically, but it seems to be about the endless legacy of war, which the human race seems like it will never entirely escape. It sounds like a lament for all the future generations that will have to send their youth off to fight. The very end confirms this idea ... all the other instruments fade and there is only the relentless martial drumbeat, the endless march.

Overall impression -- a mostly soothing and pleasant album, pretty on the ear, and with interesting moments here and there, but rarely rising above the level of basic prog-folk. Then again, maybe a little basic prog-folk is just what you're in need of. Worth a listen or two, at any rate. 

The version I located on YouTube had bonus tracks. "Invitation" is the first of them, notable because it rocks a lot more than the original album tracks, so it's an abrupt change of pace after the solemnity of the album. It's different, and it's quite good.  "Lost Forever" is another rocker among the bonus tracks, and it's also quite good -- slow and heavy and brutal, unlike the album. There's some surprising guitarwork in it too, striking little arpeggio-moments that wouldn't be out of place in an Iron Maiden song (!) although Iron Butterfly comes closer to describing the song in general (either way it's a very metallic song). For me the highlights of this band are when they rock. They have a nice heavy sound when they rock, not unlike early Budgie, a band that I like a lot. There's another new track called "Memories," not quite as good as the other two, but worth a listen. There are also single versions of "Song For The Marching Children" (not "OF the Marching Children" for some reason) and "Storm and Thunder." If you seek this album out, I'd recommend finding the version with the bonus tracks. To me Earth and Fire is at their most interesting when they rock.

IVY GREEN - Ivy Green (1990)

Review by: B.B. Fultz
Album assigned by: Mark Maria Ahsmann

Note : I was one of the two or three people that asked for a good album to review, rather than a deliberately bad album, so this review will not be a “panning” per se. I thought maybe this was important to mention because nearly all of the other albums in this round were bad (at least in the opinion of the people who assigned them).

Ivy Green is a late 70s punk album by the band Ivy Green. It has most of the earmarks of early punk -- short song lengths, simple chord structures played at a fast tempo, and clipped, snotty-sounding vocals where you can't always make out the words but you know it's something being repeated over and over. It's very much a straightforward punk album from the days when punk was still new and exciting. The band does a competent job with it, as long as you don't mind them borrowing from other bands left and right. You've heard all these songs before, even if they were different songs by different bands when you heard them. 

The Ramones influence is obvious from the very first song. As soon as you hear the chainsaw buzz of "I'm Sure We're Gonna Make It" you know where these guys are coming from, and have a good idea where they're going. The more you listen, the more shades of 1978 you'll find. "Another Sub-Culture Going Bad" has the barked vocal style of Johnny Rotten over a simple guitar phrase that would be right at home on Bollocks, and "Sue" sounds like some obscure 60s surf rocker that would have been covered on the Great Rock & Roll Swindle. "Why Not Tonight" also sounds like a song from the early 60s updated for the punk age -- the rockabilly drive on that one reminds me of Johnny Cochran. I can't tell if Ivy Green listened to a lot of 60s music themselves, or if they subconsciously picked up that sound by imitating other punk bands who listened to a lot of 60s music. 

They settle into this basic punk/proto-punk groove and stick with it for 36 minutes. Once in awhile they deviate from the pattern (a little) -- "Every Day The Same" has some breaks in the monotonous guitar-buzz where they try for something a little different -- but for the most part the songs all sound similar, and rarely stray beyond the stereotypical punk sound of 1978. 

The album is very much a product of its time, with all the good qualities (drive, youthful aggression, cool guitar tones) and bad qualities (stripped down structures, monotonous sound) that go with it. If you like punk, you'll probably like this album. If you dislike punk, you'll probably hate it. Ivy Green doesn't try to be much more than just another punk band, but what they try they succeed at. Which is more than you can say for many other bands who tried for bigger things and failed. And even if Ivy Green’s debut was not exactly a milestone in the history of music, it's a pretty cool album all the same.

KISS - Dynasty (1979)

Review by: Victor Guimarães
Album assigned by: B.b. Fultz

KISS don’t need an introduction: they are just too famous. Either for their iconic face paintings or for the infamous claims of making a band just to get laid and making money. Another very famous feature of KISS's career is the amount of criticism of their music, for being too commercial, full of clichés (all types one can imagine) and with all songs seeming to be radio-formatted to be potential hits.

After a hard, but successful time in the 70s and a temporary split in which all band members recorded solo albums, came Dynasty. It’s a bit sad to say, but Dynasty is an album to which these critics from above could be easily applied. One might want to burn me at a stake, but the album is not all bad. It’s got its good points, such as the megahit “I Was Made For Loving You” and some other OK songs, and despite the musical generality and lack of creativity there are also some cool instrumentals and passages here and there. Criticizing it is far easier as the record isn’t as entertaining as it would seem (although not as bad as other KISS albums) and could even be labeled as boring. Songs - melodies, lyrics, choruses, etc - and production - yes, including the recording-added effects and such - are all too mainstream, too pop-oriented for my taste, as it looks like the album is trying to please the audience first, and then making true, quality rock music. 

After two paragraphs with almost nothing but criticism to the comic-heroes band, I gotta say that KISS do have their positive traits. And if you think I’m going crazy, just try to see them live. I did, and it was one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to, with nothing but great performances and production. And while it’s true that I find their discography quite lacking in general, they are, for me, the very definition of a you-love-to-hate band. Dynasty is not KISS's best album, or even a good album as it would score above-average at most, depending on the reviewer’s parameters for what is average, but it’s still a listenable 70s hard rock album.

SOUNDGARDEN - Superunknown (1994)

Review by: Nina A.
Album assigned by: B.b. Fultz

When you think of nostalgia, you probably think of 80s cartoons and such because these are the properties that have been aggressively revived for the past decade or so for um... your money, yes. But I think the 90s are properly in the nostalgia realm too already as the eventful conclusion to the already very eventful “short century”. Amid hip hop, boybands, collectible bubble gum stickers and regrettable fashion choices there’s always of course heavy metal’s ugly step-sibling: grunge. A genre that, so far as I can tell, nobody who hasn’t been between the ages of I guess 13 and 30 during its peak years cares about much anymore. Sure, Nirvana get played occasionally on the all-purpose throwback radio and so does “Black Hole Sun”, Soundgarden’s megahit from this record, which I imagine its regular listeners attribute to Nirvana too, but nobody seems to be giving grunge extended attention yet. However, I too, occasionally start to miss “the heavy sludge of ‘70s metal” and “the raw aesthetic of ‘80s punk”, and so I approached this record very enthusiastically.

Stretch the bones over my skin

Stretch the skin over my head

I'm going to the holy land

Stretch the marks over my eyes

Burn the candles deep inside

Yeah you know where I'm coming from

Oh... I had forgotten about this. Yeah, it’s gonna be one of those whiny "poetic masterpieces". People lashed out at emo at the height at its popularity but seriously, I think people back in the 90s could get even cornier, especially in metal. Okay, screw this, let’s look at the music. 

Well, Soundgarden do deliver on their promise of a heavy sound, a heavy psychedelic one at that, and there are some delightful nods to Zep in tracks like “The Day I Tried to Live” and “Fresh Tendrils”. But at some point these tracks seem to really start blending in with each other, and they are neither the most sophisticated examples of the genre nor truly visceral in their nature - frankly, they are kind of forgettable with the possible exception of the above mentioned “Black Hole Sun”, which I assume has earned its vh1 status purely on its anthemic qualities. So you know, all things considered, and although I'd hate to deliver a lazy pun, Superunknown may go on to become indeed um... superunknown.

RAGNARÖK - Ragnarök (1976)

Review by: B. B. Fultz
Album assigned by: A. A.

Ragnarök is a Swedish band from the seventies. A number of sources list them as "progressive folk" in the vein of Jethro Tull. For me, this distinction is clear for Tull because I'm familiar with the textures of medieval English folk music, but I have little idea how Swedish folk/traditional music sounds, so I'll have to take their word for it. From what I remember of Nordic mythology, Ragnarök roughly translates to "Twilight of the Gods" -- the final war that heralds the end of the old gods and the old world. The album cover does indeed depict a Twilight sky, but no apocalyptic battles ... just a shadowy figure on a bicycle riding down a winding country road toward an oncoming bus. I do not know who is riding the bike or who is driving the bus, and there is no clear indication whether the two will pass one another or collide head on, so the message is unclear. On the cover, the umlaut-dots in "Ragnarök" look like two more stars in the night sky. Who knows, maybe they are? In stark contrast to the name, the cover is very pastoral, almost idyllic. The looming black cloud seems to be the only hint that something ominous could be on the way.

The reason I've tried to decipher the album cover is because the music itself has no lyrics, so it doesn't explain what any of this has to do with the end of the world. Maybe they just thought it would be a cool name for a band?

The music itself is essentially an acoustic tapestry of different moods and textures. The "progressive folk" label is misleading because it has none of the trademark elements of Prog. No futuristic sound effects or Keith Emerson synth solos here. In fact I don't think there ARE any synthesizers on this album, and very little keyboards. About the only real connection to Prog is an occasional jazz influence on the guitar solos and some tricky drum syncopations. It's a lot closer to Pink Floyd and Jethro Tull than it is to ELP or Yes. The song titles are in Swedish, but I listened to the songs before I deciphered the titles, to absorb the various moods neutrally. The album mostly follows a folk pattern, yet there are a variety of subtle nuances here. 

Färval Köpenhamn (translated to "Father Choice in Dubai?" ... I split up Farval syllabically, so I'm not sure of the accuracy here) begins the album on a simple folk pattern of interwoven acoustic guitars in the style of David Gilmour (both the early and latter days of Pink Floyd) crossed with something else I can't recall. It's wistful sounding in that way a good Gilmour acoustic track is. This Pink Floydish quality recurs in several songs, including the very next song, called Promenader ("Walks") ... a longer and more complex song with an attractive guitar melody and spacey/dreamy solos laid atop a mellow jazzy background. Stoner rock of sorts, but of very high quality.

Nybakat bröd ("Freshly Baked Bread") shifts gears into a mid-tempo medieval ballad. As soon as I heard the opening notes, I thought Jethro Tull ... amusingly, a few seconds later a flute made its first appearance on the album, and I had to smile (did I call it, or what?). If you heard this without knowing all of Tull's back catalogue you could easily confuse it for one of Ian Anderson's Elizabethan forays. Purposeful and meticulous minstrel-strumming with a sense of forward motion. Yet ere you climb on your steed and make haste, it is over, and we're falling into the Dagarnas Skum ("Days of Foam") and another Pink Floydian fugue state. The longest song on the album, it begins almost too softly to be heard, climbing out of the gloom in a way reminiscent of "Echoes." It has some VERY Gilmour-sounding guitar playing, and all of these surreal little background chirps and chimes that make the whole thing sound somewhere halfway between dreaming and waking. When the flute comes in, it sounds so right it seems almost preordained. Soft sibilant percussion appears and intertwines with the rest, sometimes steadily, sometimes in convoluted little syncopations. The whole thing is amazing -- if I didn't know the band I would swear I was listening to early 70s Pink Floyd at the top of their game. I can only assume the Foam in the title is sea-foam ... it's a dreamy undersea world, like Echoes, where "everything is green and submarine." The finale of Side One, beautiful and sad and deep, a song where everything flows together just so, like some fable that gets better with each retelling. Simply a great piece of music. 

Side Two begins with a return to the land of Tull, and Ragnarök's answer to Bouree' ... a super-short (44 seconds) flute solo called Polska fran Kalmar ("Polish From Kalmar") and essentially the prelude Fabriksfunky ("Factory Funky?" Not sure on this one). Fabriksfunky is an interesting one, another smooth jazz-rocker reminiscent of Robin Trower. The rhythm section as well as the tone of the guitar solos all remind me of the Trower song "Somebody's Calling" -- one of his best, by the way. Then things slow down a little again with Tatanga mani ("Walking Buffalo" and the only non-Swedish title, apparently it's borrowed from Amerindian dialects). This is the one that most reminds me of a Yes song, at least in the beginning. The tumbling acoustic runs are reminiscent of Steve Howe's better moments. The first half of the song consists of these noodling little acoustic fingerings, almost like it's looking for direction. Partway through it turns into something quite different, a kind of Flamenco lounge number on the acoustic with nifty little bass runs. Somehow they bring the flute into it toward the end. And somehow it works. Don't ask me how though. It's really more like "aimlessly wandering buffalo" or maybe "schizophrenic buffalo looking for its medication" because it never sounds like the same song for long. It gets a little disorienting at times, but at least it's never dull.

The last few songs don't cover much new ground -- Fjottot (no idea what it means) brings us back to ELP. It has a bouncy circus-like sound with an almost hurdy-gurdy style background, like you caught Keith Emerson in a playful mood and then he realized you were there and abruptly stopped playing after a minute and a half of noodling around. It's a little too short, but it's fun while it lasts. Stiltje-uppbrott ("Lull Breakup") returns to a solemn introspective mood, at least at first, then breaks into a rousing medieval-esque acoustic barrage complete with a very emphatic flute (back to Tull again). I'm guessing it's about the lonely period after a romantic break-up (the "lull" between partners) where one is in a numb lethargy and then suddenly snaps out of it. The closing song Vattenpussar ("Water Kisses") starts very softly with wistful sounding little chiming keyboard notes weaving with a lonely and bluesy electric guitar, building into a strange kind of jazz-rock-blues thing that I can't exactly describe, with a horns section (at least they sound like horns) that verges on something from Frank Zappa's Hot Rats album, or almost ... then dwindles back to its soft beginnings ... then ends. It was a good song to end the album on because somehow it just SOUNDS like a coda. But don't ask me exactly how or why.

For an album where most of the songs follow a similar theme, I'm a little surprised this review turned out so long. These are all basically guitar-based folk songs, aside from the one flute solo (which was basically a prologue to a guitar song). But there's so much going on, so many different moods and textures and shadings of meaning, that it seems impossible to do it justice with a brief review. George might be able to pull that off, but I don't think I can. This music was nothing totally new or unique, not even back in 1976, and they seem to borrow from a lot of other, more famous bands. Yet they mix these elements in a novel way, making it all somehow greater than the sum of its parts. I have no idea what freshly-baked bread or sea foam or buffalos have to do with the end of the world, but even if I don't understand it, I still feel like I "get" it. This is not an album of certainties, it's an album of nuances. In fact it's so nuanced I think adding lyrics would just have been a distraction. It's an amazing rainbow of moods and emotions and whimseys, and an ideal example of what a few competent musicians are capable of when they stop trying to explain life and the world and everything, and simply concentrate on making good music. This is an album of contemporary folk rock and that's about it, so I suppose it's nothing special. But not being special is what makes it so special. Thumbs up, 4 or 5 stars, whatever ... just go listen to it. This is an album that should be heard, and heard often.

STEVE MILLER BAND - Fly Like An Eagle (1976)

Review by: Francelino Prazeres de Azevedo Filho
Album assigned by: B.B. Fultz

Steve Miller’s Fly Like an Eagle is supposed to be a “space blues” record from the 70s. While I don’t know exactly what “space blues” is meant to sound like, I’m pretty confident it’s not like this album. The only “space” element here is the trippy synth intro; nothing else feels spacey to me. And the “blues” part? Well, you know when a power pop album might have a single blues track to add some variety? This one has 4 or 5 of those, but they’re still blues as interpreted by a pop-rock artist, and not really pure blues or even blues-rock.

With failed expectations out of the way, this album sounds very much like it belongs in the 70s, which is good for a fan of that decade like me. While there’s an effort to give every song a nice melody, none are really stellar. The main problem here is the overall tameness of the rock and blues attempts.

Take “Mercury Blues”, for example: it manages to update an old blues song structure to the 70s quite nicely, but lacks any grit whatsoever. The two blues tracks in the end aren’t bad, but they seem like an afterthought, filler if there ever was any. “Rock’n Me” is actually embarrassing. It tries to emulate the blood-pumping guitar  style of Townshend and Hendrix, but it’s so mild, it’s like one of those “parkour fail” videos on the internet, where the person tries to jump from a rooftop onto another and falls in the middle. This is made worse when you consider Steve Miller was godfathered by no one other than Les Paul himself, and was supposed to be a great guitarist. Well, if he was, he certainly didn’t show it here. The guitars were unimpressive throughout the album.

That’s not to say there aren’t good songs here. The title track is very funky, with a catchy chorus. “Dance, Dance, Dance” is a country song that has the kind of energy this album could’ve used more of. The Sam Cooke cover “You Send Me” is the strongest point; it couldn’t have been otherwise given the differences in the songwriting capabilities of the two of them. It is sung in a way that makes it clear that the singer loves the song, and that makes it even more endearing to me. The best Steve-Miller-penned track here is “Take the Money and Run”, a piece of power-pop in the best Badfinger style and backing vocals stolen from “Sympathy for the Devil”. Fly Like an Eagle is much better when it does full pop than when it goes halfway blues.

In the context of all those great 70s albums, even when you just consider pop-rock ones, it won’t stand out too much. It should never appear on a best-of-the-decade list. But that is more of a testament to the amount of good stuff that appeared in that time, not that Fly Like an Eagle is bad or weak. I’m glad I’ve came across this album, a very pleasant listen.

THE TIGER LILLIES - Farmyard Filth (1997)

Review by: B.B. Fultz
Album assigned by: Alex Alex

This quaint and charming collection of folk songs is something I would highly recommend for anyone with ears. Yes, even deaf people. The songs are unassuming and inviting, and can be enjoyed in many ways. You can listen to them. You can dance to them — they're ideal for polkas, but a few could be waltzed to, at least until the timing abruptly shifts, as it often does in these songs. You can sing along to them, but you'll need to learn the words first. Or you could do some combination of these three things. It's up to you, really. I can't make all your decisions for you.

The music is generally upbeat and most of the songs tend toward a medium to fast tempo. The folkish style is somewhat the same throughout, yet occasionally takes an unexpected turn. For example, "Motor Car" begins as a Spanish-flavored guitar piece, then becomes a kind of smooth lounge number with thick jazzy bass lines, while still (somehow) retaining that Spanish sound. "Flies" begins as a solemn J. S. Bach-styled hymn, transforms into another folkish piece, and ends with a stretch of operatic beauty. The unpredictable changes in tempo and emphasis, often within the same song, keep the music from ever becoming too stale or predictable. There is a clear sense of timing, and a skillful use of pauses and continuations, giving the entire album a very organic quality, almost as if the music itself is breathing (sometimes panting) on its own. 

The voice is perhaps the most limited aspect of the album, because it's the sort of unchanging monotone that even Jon Anderson could mock, although to the best of my knowledge, Jon Anderson does not mock, so I only meant it hypothetically. Actually even the timbre of the voice is similar to Jon Anderson's lilting and ethereal style... although maybe a more accurate comparison would be Tiny Tim. There is a playfulness in the voice that enhances and underscores the music, even in the most solemn songs. The vocals and the melodies intertwine so perfectly with one another that it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to imagine this specific music without this specific voice. And vice-versa.

The subject matter covers a diverse range of emotions. There is affection (a number of different types, in fact). There are laments for failed relationships, or failed attempts at relationships. There is anxiety, and the fear of dying dirty and poor in wretched obscurity. Ultimately there is faith in a happy ending, where God explains everything to us and clears away all confusion and doubt. There is religion, there is football, there is sex. In short, this is a kaleidoscope of human feelings and urges, blended into a colorful crash-collage of jagged rainbow patterns, as deep and as beautiful as a shattered stained-glass window strewn across the floor of a vandalized cathedral. Yet the brick that shattered this window is inexplicably missing, making it a mystery for the ages. 

If the album has one flaw, it is the inaccuracy of the opening number "Hamsters". The procedure this song describes in such loving detail normally does NOT involve hamsters, as implied, but gerbils (or so I've heard). Hamsters would be more problematic because, unlike gerbils, they don't have long tails, making them more difficult to get ahold of if they should venture too far. But this small idiosyncrasy only adds to the quirky, rough-hewn charm of the remarkable work of art that is Farmyard Filth. I would like to extend my most profound thanks to Mr. A. Alex for introducing me to this iconic milestone in folk rock.

In short, a remarkable and cathartic musical odyssey that I would recommend for the entire family.* 

-----------------------------------

* other families, not mine 

TUXEDOMOON - Desire (1981)

Review by: B.b. Fultz
Album assigned by: Tom Hadrian Kovalevsky

I'm not sure how to best review this, because it's pretty experimental. I'm going to default to “safe mode” and write a general impression of each track, since there are only 7.  

"East/Jinx/…/Music #1" (I assume these are section-names?) opens the album on a brooding bass/synth track that reminds me of Bauhaus. A LOT. The beginning is right out of "Hollow Hills." After about a minute and a half, Manzarek-like keyboards spring up abruptly. Of course, Goth borrowed a lot from “baroque” 1960s music by the likes of the Doors, the Zombies, the Animals (et.al) so the two styles go well together. A sax comes in a minute later, making things suddenly jazzy, another layer on the continuing goth motif. After about 4 minutes total the goth transforms into a weirdly middle-eastern sounding (to me) synth/jazz thing. Vocals enter out of nowhere. The voice reminds me of Bowie circa the Berlin trilogy (eg. “Secret Life of Arabia.”) The voice is hoarser though, going almost Joe Strummer-ish at times. The whole thing is an odd amalgam, although after the initial goth/doors intro it loses something. But it gets interesting again around the 10 minute mark, where it goes dissonant and I guess ambiant -- my impression was “Secret Life of Arabia” going backward into “Moss Garden.” It has an Eno type of SOUND (electronic for the sake of being electronic) but it's far more dissonant and trippy than classic-era Eno. Best analogy I can come up with is someone trying to be Pink Floyd and Devo and some unknown third thing all at once. Not sure if they succeeded or not, but it’s interesting to see them try.

"Victims Of The Dance" is another Bauhaus-sounding track, but this time it sounds like one of Bauhaus’s more experimental songs (considering this was released in the same era of classic Bauhaus, I'm wondering how much the two bands influenced each other). The vocal style varies between Murphy (in the chorus) to Bowie (most of the rest). The vocals are probably the most interesting part of this one.

"Incubus" is ... another Bauhaus song?!? Did I upload a Bauhaus album by mistake?  No, the stuff going on in the background is probably too complex and jazzy. Bauhaus usually made their point in a simpler way. Incubus is like “Bauhaus mood” + “DEVO syncopation” x “punk-era Alice Cooper production values” … and this album came out right when Alice was smack in the middle of that era, BTW. Tuxedo Moon seem to have soaked up influences left and right, but I wouldn't call them rote copyers -- their twist on these "early-80s motifs" is pretty unique. 

"Desire" is a mid-tempo song that sounds a little like having a bad drug trip on a merry-go-round and being too disoriented to jump off. This song is an unsteadying experience. There's a deceptively fast synth percussion-track going on underneath it, leading to a sense of fast/not-fast that makes your stomach do a double-take. The more they embellish it with saxes, keyboards, etc, the more they increase that vertigo of being swept up and down and around on a runaway machine. Every instrument on this is like a different part of that machine moving at a different speed and in a different way. Including the vocals. There are many interesting vocal overlays as well, which perfectly suit this song, because everything seems like it’s riding on top of everything else. If this song is "Desire," it's the kind of desire that makes your head spin and your stomach turn. It’s pretty amazing they were able to effectively translate that lovesick feeling into music. 

"Again" might have been called Bowie Again -- the Bowie vocals are back. The background is different this time around, a spacy astral jazz that reminds me a lot of Pink Floyd's "A Saucerful of Secrets" (the song), except sort of collapsing at the end, rather than reaching a melodic resolution. Not a bad song but that collapsed ending is probably the most interesting part.

"In the Name of Talent" is a really interesting one. The intro is slow and jazzy and moody, a lot like something off Pink Floyd’s “More” album … then a guitar comes in and the song enters this weird 3/4 timing and speeds up to a gallop. Yet the vocals are slow and relaxed, drawn out even. There's all of these interesting little melodic “pings & pongs” during the middle instrumental break, like a solo played on some weird alien harp that it would hurt your brain to imagine. I like how this song doesn't sound much like Bowie or Bauhaus, or even the Doors ... it's a weird mix of early techno/dance with ambiant with something else I can quite define. It's more Tuxedo Moon than anyone else, I guess. Which is cool because all the Bowie/Bauhaus tributes were getting redundant. 

"Hollywood for Plywood" is -- oh wow! Cool ! The soundtrack from a high school science film! No, wait, it's some kind of bassy/brassy jazz with swooping strings. Wow, interesting segue there. Both themes have a slick and glossy and slightly cheesy feel to them, especially with all the pretty strings. But where the first theme just sounds like anything from a random 1950s educational film, the second theme sounds like the students got bored, ate large amounts of mind-altering drugs, and tried to reproduce the first part on their school band instruments ... transforming that impossibly optimistic and idealistic 1950s music into some deranged musical mindfuck for the 1960s/70s/80s/beyond. In a way I like this song the best, maybe because after all the unexpected twists and turns of the other songs, this last song still managed to surprise me.

OVERALL IMPRESSION: an album worth hearing. I might have shortened one or two of the songs just a little, because these fellows do tend to draw their grooves out, but usually there's enough change-ups and interesting little touches to keep things interesting. If you like original Goth circa the Bauhaus days, or the Bowie/Eno trilogy, or jazz fusion, or electronica, or even if you just like musicians with an ear for detail, I'd recommend these guys. They sound like other early 80s music I've already heard, yet at the same time, they're not quite like anything else I've ever heard. Pretty cool stuff. 

GRATEFUL DEAD - Terrapin Station (1977)

Review by: Christian Sußner
Album assigned by: B.b. Fultz

The Grateful Dead formed in California in 1965 and generally file under the label psychedelic rock. Their album “Terrapin Station” was released in 1977 and consists of 6 songs, the final centerpiece “Terrapin Station Medley” being the longest.

I think the first song “Estimated Prophet” is a pleasant opener for the album. With its nicely grooving bass, the wah-guitars and the vocals by Bob Weir and Donna Godchaux it creates an optimistic, almost summer-like atmosphere.

The following couple of songs in my opinion can't keep up with the quality of the first track. “Dancing In The Streets” is meant to be a cheerful, well, song for dancing but it's just too simplistic and straightforward to catch my attention. “Passenger” and “Samson and Delilah” are standard folk-rock songs which kind of remind me of CCR without having their power. And “Sunrise” finally which is sung by by Donna Godchaux alone back then may have been a reminiscence to Flower Power but nowadays just sounds pretentious and boring.

But in the end these first five songs seem like a prelude to the final 16-minute-track “Terrapin Station Medley”. In the tracklist of the LP the song is broken down into subsections but I had problems to retrace the intersections while listening as the different parts are quite homogeneous and the transitions flowing. Not like, let's say, “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”. However, the song is BIG with a relaxed intro including some nicely picked guitar, some soothing solos and finally a long but not lengthy orchestral crescendo including some good co-singing by Donna again, various mood changes, more solos and finally a whole choir chanting the title of the album. I like it!

I too like the production of the whole album (I got the “mastered for iTunes version”, if that makes a difference) because it doesn't sound outdated, au contraire, powerful with an eye for detail. I can't say very much about the lyrics. The bits I understand while listening to the record without paying much attention to the words make me think that they're not worth the effort of listening closer.

As a conclusion I'd say that, although it's not an absolute classic, I enjoyed listening to the album. A good start and an excellent ending with some filler in between but I'll definitely give it another listen after submitting this review. Last question: Which substances does one have to take to get to Terrapin Station and watch these cute turtles from the cover dance?

TRIUMVIRAT - Illusions on a Double Dimple (1973)

Review by: Alex Alex
Album assigned by: B.B. Fultz

In Russia, we used to have a minor hit, the lyrics went “There are three stars in the sky those stars are you and me”. Great lyrics. If you do not understand why those lyrics are great you might eventually will.

Bearing the above lyrics in mind is useful when encountering a group consisting of three members and called “Triumvirat”.

Electronic keyboards to a piano is what a hentai cartoon is to a Tinto Brass drama. In that sense Tangerine Dream are the masters of dramatic hentai.

The Sunflower mask and the flute are unique artifacts.

Lyrics in English, forged by German bands, are among the best lyrics in English ever.

The album states that in Germany there were schoolgirls, too. Schoolgirls are by themselves so eternal that no matter how many tons of synthesizers you would bring on stage,  they would effectively prevent any paradigm shift.

An unsuccessful carrier was, I gather from the album, a great fear for a young German. In the end of the song they ask “who’s going to work for you for the rest of your life”.

Fortunately, by now Angela Merkel has successfully resolved that problem.

COCOROSIE - The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn (2007)

Review by: B.B. Fultz
Album assigned by: Rodrigo Lopes

One of the first things I noticed was, there's a lot going on here. Genres as diverse as indie, rap, and ... opera? ... are thrown together in unusual combinations. I'm not sure how well it works (it would depend on your definition of "works") but the album is definitely experimental, and that's usually a plus. It's hard to describe the music specifically as this or that, so I'll give you my take on the vocals.

Two voices dominate this -- I'll call them the "odd" voice and the "normal" voice (this band is the brainchild of two sisters, so I'm assuming they're the two different voices). The odd voice is predominant on most tracks. It's very odd, and reminds me of Yoko Ono a little (not a criticism and not a compliment, just a neutral observation). It's not exactly "dissonant" but it's definitely an acquired taste. Sometimes it approaches something ethereal and reminds me of that singer from Belly (remember her?) as well as other vocalists I can't place. I was actually on the next-to-last song before I realized who this voice REALLY reminds me of is BJORK -- sorry, I don't know how to do the umlaut. It's weird that it took so long to make what seems, in hindsight, like an obvious connection. But then it's a pretty weird album (again, a neutral observation).

The "normal" voice is more melodic and more conventional, but I don't always prefer it. Sometimes it sounds overblown and melodramatic. The normal voice is easier to listen to than the odd voice, but the odd voice is often more compelling.

Some High Points --

"Bloody Twins" stands out. Between the music box sounds in the beginning, the increasingly strange voice, and the Pink Floyd-style wind effects, it evokes a peculiar mood, even moreso than most of the other songs.

"Sunshine" has an elegant simplicity that drew me in, while the strangeness of that voice simultaneously kept me at arm's length. A weird feeling of being pulled and pushed at the same time.

"Werewolf" reminded me of a Beck song in the beginning although I can't pinpoint why ... something about the words and how they're sung. It's interesting to hear this one develop, since it alternates between a "slow rap" done by the odd voice, and a more melodic / almost operatic style by the other voice. My first impression was, it sounds like it could've been a background song on Breaking Bad, probably for one of the more surreal or thought-provoking scenes.

"Animals" has an almost (but not quite) traditional *boom-boom-bap* backbeat, which is just different enough to be interesting. Especially when it fades out completely in the middle of the song, then eventually fades back in. It's almost like two different songs struggling to be heard. 

"Miracle" (the last song) is hard to describe but it probably has the most curious musical structure of all the songs. I'm not sure if the album ends on the "best" song, but it definitely ends on one of the most interesting songs.

Some Low Points --

"Black Poppies" gets (more than) a little grating, mainly when the odd voice gets very high-pitched and sounds like a small child singing. It's just too damn saccharine and this weakens the mood of the song. I don't mind eccentric approaches as a rule, but to me, this overtly childish voice was just annoying.

"Girl & the Geese" is no more than a very short story, set to rudimentary music. I don't always mind that -- "Seen And Not Seen" by the Talking Heads does something similar and I love that one. But SANS presents a fascinating idea about gradually changing your face by changing your thoughts, set to an involving background score that compliments the words. "Girl & the Geese" is just a snippet of magical realism about people turning into geese, and the music is much more ... sparse, I guess. At least it's very short.

CONCLUSION --

To be honest I felt a little out of my depth so I briefly looked up what other reviewers said, if only to find something to anchor my thoughts on. My view comes closest to what BuzzSugar said ... that the album is “well worth a listen despite its flaws.” Except I get the feeling BuzzSugar had SPECIFIC flaws in mind, whereas my general impression is much more vague. I know there are minuses to this album, just as I know there are plusses too. I just can't always tell which is which. I'll refrain from giving it an "X out of 10" rating because I'm probably not qualified to rate this music, if only because I'm not sure what "comparables" to scale it against. It seems to defy standard genres, at least as I know them.  

At any rate, the album was an interesting listen, and makes me curious about how the two sisters came up with this particular combination of styles.