The Album Review Club - Week #194 (page 1303) - Ants From Up There - Black Country, New Road

Citizen of Legoland said:
Perhaps it was the same for everyone back in the seventies I don't know, but I choose to avoid confrontation now, in fact it makes me physically ill, so much so that I often have to sleep in order to replenish my energy.
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Thanks for sharing. As I get older, I'm continually surprised by how the baggage we carry affects us from day-to-day. I had a great upbringing and still live a great life, but there are times when I think back to things that have happened in the past, whether that be the 70s, 80s, 90s or last year or even last month, and wonder how it's affecting the way I'm feeling now.

I've yet to listen to this artist, so we'll see how I feel later on, but if there's a lot of shouting, I can understand why you'd want to avoid it.
 
RobMCFC said:
Thanks for sharing. As I get older, I'm continually surprised by how the baggage we carry affects us from day-to-day. I had a great upbringing and still live a great life, but there are times when I think back to things that have happened in the past, whether that be the 70s, 80s, 90s or last year or even last month, and wonder how it's affecting the way I'm feeling now.

I've yet to listen to this artist, so we'll see how I feel later on, but if there's a lot of shouting, I can understand why you'd want to avoid it.
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It's fascinating really. I personally think every generation faces different challenges and so it's often impossible to look back and think it could be any other way - you fix one thing and something else appears. It's just experience that's all and what shapes us and makes us interesting. In my case it was just too many people living in too small a house, nobody got physically hurt, but music was a great way for me to escape at that time of my life.
 
Onholiday(somemightsay) said:
You think?

Barring distorted guitars I don't see too many similarities myself.

That saying, I am quite open to being one of the world's great hypocrites.......... :-)
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Both shouty and angry, although Rage have more of a rock rather than heavy metal sound. but definitely some similarity

Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello Picks Favorite Pantera Song | Revolver (revolvermag.com)

Tom Morello Reveals Sad Wish About Dimebag Darrell Of Pantera - Metalhead Zone
 
Just listened to the first few tracks in the car during a thankfully incident free trip to Argos and Halfords. This music definitely won’t help me maintain the state of zen like calm I like to pretend I have in the face of minor irritations on the road.

Given some of the comments about Pantera I’m glad I joined this thread after the compulsory listening to them. This feels like hard work up to now, like the bowel discomfort on starting on particularly potent antibiotics but I’m determined to complete the course.

The somewhat preachy manner of the lyrics bring to mind the Manics who I’m not particularly a fan of and to be fair these are cleverer even if it does feel like the aural version of some of the in your face posts on the politics threads. They don’t seem as clever as the Dead Kennedys though who also had a lot to say behind the noise.
 
Still don't think this album gets better than the last 2 minutes of 'Bullet in the Head'.

Just an outrageous riff that comes from nowhere and the half-time groove makes me hip thrust whenever I'm in earshot.
 
My overall impression of this is that it’s very shouty. Some of the music sounds good, but I have a sneaky suspicion that Tom Morello is playing the same riff every time. Still, The Edge has made a good career out of that. He does a good version of Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” on “Wake Up” though.

Despite the good that’s on offer here – some of the guitar work and the bass – there are two main problems I have with this album that, unfortunately, means that it goes on the “instant dismissal” pile. (Sorry @Onholiday(somemightsay)).

The first is the aforementioned shoutiness. I just don’t like this style of “singing” (and I use that term in the very loosest sense). I don’t like crooners like Frank Sinatra or singers like Whitney Houston who stretch every note until you are looking at your watch and wondering how long it is until teatime. But I like singers who shout all the time even less.

But the bigger crime for me is all the fucking profanity. I mean, I swear when I stub my toe, and I swear when my computer doesn’t do what it should (and that has happened a LOT this week). But this type of music is about communication, and if they are trying to get their point across, they ain’t selling it to me by singing “Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me” and then repeating it about 47 times.

Swearing has its place, but when you are an artist and you are laying it down on record where it may be played for years or decades or centuries to come, then you should think about how you use your profanity. I don’t think these boys have necessarily thought that far, but they probably don’t care because the critics seemed to love this. All I can think is that they haven’t heard a decent protest band.

Funnily enough, when this album finished on Spotify, it ran straight into The Presidents of the United States of America with “Lump”, which was an absolute joy after what had come before.

I’ll give it 5/10 because on the grand scale of our musical measurements, the music is much better than Madonna, Sigur Ros and Pantera. But those lyrics and that delivery, ugh.
 
RobMCFC said:
My overall impression of this is that it’s very shouty. Some of the music sounds good, but I have a sneaky suspicion that Tom Morello is playing the same riff every time. Still, The Edge has made a good career out of that. He does a good version of Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” on “Wake Up” though.

Despite the good that’s on offer here – some of the guitar work and the bass – there are two main problems I have with this album that, unfortunately, means that it goes on the “instant dismissal” pile. (Sorry @Onholiday(somemightsay)).

The first is the aforementioned shoutiness. I just don’t like this style of “singing” (and I use that term in the very loosest sense). I don’t like crooners like Frank Sinatra or singers like Whitney Houston who stretch every note until you are looking at your watch and wondering how long it is until teatime. But I like singers who shout all the time even less.

But the bigger crime for me is all the fucking profanity. I mean, I swear when I stub my toe, and I swear when my computer doesn’t do what it should (and that has happened a LOT this week). But this type of music is about communication, and if they are trying to get their point across, they ain’t selling it to me by singing “Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me” and then repeating it about 47 times.

Swearing has its place, but when you are an artist and you are laying it down on record where it may be played for years or decades or centuries to come, then you should think about how you use your profanity. I don’t think these boys have necessarily thought that far, but they probably don’t care because the critics seemed to love this. All I can think is that they haven’t heard a decent protest band.

Funnily enough, when this album finished on Spotify, it ran straight into The Presidents of the United States of America with “Lump”, which was an absolute joy after what had come before.

I’ll give it 5/10 because on the grand scale of our musical measurements, the music is much better than Madonna, Sigur Ros and Pantera. But those lyrics and that delivery, ugh.
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That is a more than fair critique Rob.........
 
RobMCFC said:
My overall impression of this is that it’s very shouty. Some of the music sounds good, but I have a sneaky suspicion that Tom Morello is playing the same riff every time. Still, The Edge has made a good career out of that. He does a good version of Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” on “Wake Up” though.

Despite the good that’s on offer here – some of the guitar work and the bass – there are two main problems I have with this album that, unfortunately, means that it goes on the “instant dismissal” pile. (Sorry @Onholiday(somemightsay)).

The first is the aforementioned shoutiness. I just don’t like this style of “singing” (and I use that term in the very loosest sense). I don’t like crooners like Frank Sinatra or singers like Whitney Houston who stretch every note until you are looking at your watch and wondering how long it is until teatime. But I like singers who shout all the time even less.

But the bigger crime for me is all the fucking profanity. I mean, I swear when I stub my toe, and I swear when my computer doesn’t do what it should (and that has happened a LOT this week). But this type of music is about communication, and if they are trying to get their point across, they ain’t selling it to me by singing “Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me” and then repeating it about 47 times.

Swearing has its place, but when you are an artist and you are laying it down on record where it may be played for years or decades or centuries to come, then you should think about how you use your profanity. I don’t think these boys have necessarily thought that far, but they probably don’t care because the critics seemed to love this. All I can think is that they haven’t heard a decent protest band.

Funnily enough, when this album finished on Spotify, it ran straight into The Presidents of the United States of America with “Lump”, which was an absolute joy after what had come before.

I’ll give it 5/10 because on the grand scale of our musical measurements, the music is much better than Madonna, Sigur Ros and Pantera. But those lyrics and that delivery, ugh.
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The swearing must be a generational thing. We all do it but when it's done to excess it gets annoying. In the TV thread earlier someone posted a clip from Curb Your Enthusiasm, which is brilliant, but if there's one character that annoys me it's Leon because it's f-this, f-that every other word, it's not even being used in conjunction with another word for effect, it just seems to replace what would be normal spaces between spoken words. And yet people seem to love it but it detracts from what he's saying to me. And it's the same in music. That said I notice my kids and their mates are always dropping the f-word in randomly, they don't even realise.
 
BlueHammer85 said:
this is an unexpected pick when you look at the review and bashing @Onholiday(somemightsay) gave to Pantera
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Ooooooooo, I may take some umbrage at this comparison but I will save it for my review.

Edit: No I won't. The backbeat here is FUNK and RAP, not fucking sludge. HUGE difference.
 
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BlueHammer85 said:
not saying it's anywhere near as good as this... but I reckon I would be hard pressed to find many Rage fans give Pantera a 2/10
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IMO They aren't remotely close to the same kind of music. And this is key: only one band has something important to say. I edited this because I didn't want to sound dogmatic but I see massive differences here in how each sounds, the content and the musical approach and I think even a cursory listen demonstrates that.
 
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