The Album Review Club - Week #191 (page 1286) - Harlequin Dream - Boy & Bear

Boring boring boring..Mr Belfry summed it up. 4

That's in fairness nowhere near as bad as the nomination hitting the rock bottom that is Page 3!

Boy have I shat the bed with this one. Ah well, room for improvement next time.
 
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I've had a listen. Quite liked the church sounding choir at the start of the first track. Then some idiot hitting every surface repeatedly kicked in.

Austeritz is about the only track I thought...hmmm...

The rest just washed over me.

Will do a headphone listen later.
 
I've had a listen. Quite liked the church sounding choir at the start of the first track. Then some idiot hitting every surface repeatedly kicked in.

Austeritz is about the only track I thought...hmmm...

The rest just washed over me.

Will do a headphone listen later.
You're the second person who has hinted at or mentioned Austeritz as being the best track, or whatever. the opposite for me, a bit of a mood killer which I'll explain further in what will probably be a bit of a tortured analogy of a review.
 
Three and a bit listens, the bit being that I just skipped most of the album in order to get to the tracks that held some interest for me.
"Austerlitz" being something slightly different and interesting that then morphed into "Deep Wide Ocean" which was along with "Catch Me" the only other tracks that made me pay any attention to this weeks pick.
I did for a minute think that perhaps the drummer was trying to do a bit of a Stephen Morris impression of just going as manic as he could.
I can see why @Coatigan only bought the one album.
Even with a little bit of interest in 3 tracks it wouldn't be a something that would make me want to look for anything else.
Perhaps its a bias I didn't realise I had, in that I am simply not into (wailing) female singers. English Grammar at least having something in the music that held my attention (until the wailing started).
Sadly only a 5 from the Derry jury
 
I feel a bit bad for Coaty, he being the nominator of the criminally-underrated (by this thread IMO) Everclear, but this one was a tough go.

After a few listens I suppose Hayley Mary (this can’t be her real name, can it?) grew on me some — too Kate Bushy to like, not Kate Bushy enough to hate — but the real problem here is the guitar. The Edge is responsible for many bad sonic developments in the most important instrument in rock and roll, but normally, even if they want to channel him, I expect guitarists to use all six strings. Samuel Lockwood attempts to emulate The Edge, yes, but apparently uses only one string on his guitar, and the chord changes appear to consist of him mashing his entire palm from one fret to another, and clumsily at that. I don’t expect all guitarists to be good — plenty of bands I love have shit (read amateur) ones — but I do expect them to be better than I am, since I can’t play a note. No wonder this band has to drench every last song in atmospherics or martial drums to cover up this embarrassing cacophony. When Hayley Mary said about The Jezabels’ evolution that “the process has pretty much been one of reconciling musical differences”, I thought she meant stylistic differences or influences, not “I can sing and some of the band can play, but the biggest difference is our guitarist is fucking shite.”

It’s probably not a great sign that by the time I got to “Catch Me”, I (this is true I swear) had to check Spotify to make sure I hadn’t accidentally hit the shuffle button and the record had recycled back to a song I’d already heard. To be fair, there are moments that ring out — “Endless Summer” was apparently the single, and I hear why, and “Rosebud” perked me up. And the occasional My Bloody Valentine nods periodically offset the overwhelming number of U2 nods (if they’re Australian, why do they sound so Irish?). And Coaty is right that repeat listens found me more engaged than the first one, which was most unpleasant. But most every song suffers from an overabundance of echo — I can imagine this whole thing was recorded at St. Paul’s in that spot where you can hear one person whispering whilst on the other side of the roof, then remixed in the catacombs.

Then we get to the lyrics. “How high can you siphon my typhoon?” “Love is a gun I cannot fight?” “Rubbing them titties on the edges of cities and worlds?” Errrrr. Listen, Hayley Mary, I read you described your music as “Bronte-esque gothic.” Bitch, in college I wrote an hono(u)rs thesis on the student-teacher relationship in Jane Eyre and The Professor. Suffice to say that Charlotte (and Anne and especially Emily) would not have been fans of your, ummm, poetry. Proto-feminist avatarism is one thing; an inability to craft meaningful metaphors or make much sense at all is another.

Anyhow, this suffers from delusions of grandeur disease, ready made for a big old arena, if not the hangar where they built the space shuttle, even though I read the band started as a folk duo (which I find hard to believe actually). There are a lot of reasons to dock this points, and the Trump thing is one of them. But I’m about to head to the Caribbean for a few days and am in a generous mood, so a sunny 5/10 for the occasional moments when the keyboards save the rest of the band from itself.
 
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You're the second person who has hinted at or mentioned Austeritz as being the best track, or whatever. the opposite for me, a bit of a mood killer which I'll explain further in what will probably be a bit of a tortured analogy of a review.
I didn’t realiz(s)e this had been a bone of contention but put me in your camp in that Austerlitz kills the mood. On the plus side, it doesn’t have any lyrics.
 
I feel a bit bad for Coaty, he being the nominator of the criminally-underrated (by this thread IMO) Everclear, but this one was a tough go.

After a few listens I suppose Hayley Mary (this can’t be her real name, can it?) grew on me some — too Kate Bushy to like, not Kate Bushy enough to hate — but the real problem here is the guitar. The Edge is responsible for many bad sonic developments in the most important instrument in rock and roll, but normally, even if they want to channel him, I expect guitarists to use all six strings. Samuel Lockwood attempts to emulate The Edge, yes, but apparently uses only one string on his guitar, and the chord changes appear to consist of him mashing his entire palm from one fret to another, and clumsily at that. I don’t expect all guitarists to be good — plenty of bands I love have shit (read amateur) ones — but I do expect them to be better than I am, since I can’t play a note. No wonder this band has to drench every last song in atmospherics or martial drums to cover up this embarrassing cacophony. When Hayley Mary said about The Jezabels’ evolution that “the process has pretty much been one of reconciling musical differences”, I thought she meant stylistic differences or influences, not “I can sing and some of the band can play, but the biggest difference is our guitarist is fucking shite.”

It’s probably not a great sign that by the time I got to “Catch Me”, I (this is true I swear) had to check Spotify to make sure I hadn’t accidentally hit the shuffle button and the record had recycled back to a song I’d already heard. To be fair, there are moments that ring out — “Endless Summer” was apparently the single, and I hear why, and “Rosebud” perked me up. And the occasional My Bloody Valentine nods periodically offset the overwhelming number of U2 nods (if they’re Australian, why do they sound so Irish?). And Coaty is right that repeat listens found me more engaged than the first one, which was most unpleasant. But most every song suffers from an overabundance of echo — I can imagine this whole thing was recorded at St. Paul’s in that spot where you can hear one person whispering whilst on the other side of the roof, then remixed in the catacombs.

Then we get to the lyrics. “How high can you siphon my typhoon?” “Love is a gun I cannot fight?” “Rubbing them titties on the edges of cities and worlds?” Errrrr. Listen, Hayley Mary, I read you described your music as “Bronte-esque gothic.” Bitch, in college I wrote an hono(u)rs thesis on the student-teacher relationship in Jane Eyre and The Professor. Suffice to say that Charlotte (and Anne and especially Emily) would not have been fans of your, ummm, poetry. Proto-feminist avatarism is one thing; an inability to craft meaningful metaphors or make much sense at all is another.

Anyhow, this suffers from delusions of grandeur disease, ready made for a big old arena, if not the hangar where they built the space shuttle, even though I read the band started as a folk duo (which I find hard to believe actually). There are a lot of reasons to dock this points, and the Trump thing is one of them. But I’m about to head to the Caribbean for a few days and am in a generous mood, so a sunny 5/10 for the occasional moments when the keyboards save the rest of the band from itself.
Ah, you've hit on two key points that were going to be part of my review.

1) Is The Edge somehow moonlighting as the guitarist in this band?
2) How much echo can you get on one record?

Enjoy your trip to the Caribbean.
 
I feel a bit bad for Coaty, he being the nominator of the criminally-underrated (by this thread IMO) Everclear, but this one was a tough go.

After a few listens I suppose Hayley Mary (this can’t be her real name, can it?) grew on me some — too Kate Bushy to like, not Kate Bushy enough to hate — but the real problem here is the guitar. The Edge is responsible for many bad sonic developments in the most important instrument in rock and roll, but normally, even if they want to channel him, I expect guitarists to use all six strings. Samuel Lockwood attempts to emulate The Edge, yes, but apparently uses only one string on his guitar, and the chord changes appear to consist of him mashing his entire palm from one fret to another, and clumsily at that. I don’t expect all guitarists to be good — plenty of bands I love have shit (read amateur) ones — but I do expect them to be better than I am, since I can’t play a note. No wonder this band has to drench every last song in atmospherics or martial drums to cover up this embarrassing cacophony. When Hayley Mary said about The Jezabels’ evolution that “the process has pretty much been one of reconciling musical differences”, I thought she meant stylistic differences or influences, not “I can sing and some of the band can play, but the biggest difference is our guitarist is fucking shite.”

It’s probably not a great sign that by the time I got to “Catch Me”, I (this is true I swear) had to check Spotify to make sure I hadn’t accidentally hit the shuffle button and the record had recycled back to a song I’d already heard. To be fair, there are moments that ring out — “Endless Summer” was apparently the single, and I hear why, and “Rosebud” perked me up. And the occasional My Bloody Valentine nods periodically offset the overwhelming number of U2 nods (if they’re Australian, why do they sound so Irish?). And Coaty is right that repeat listens found me more engaged than the first one, which was most unpleasant. But most every song suffers from an overabundance of echo — I can imagine this whole thing was recorded at St. Paul’s in that spot where you can hear one person whispering whilst on the other side of the roof, then remixed in the catacombs.

Then we get to the lyrics. “How high can you siphon my typhoon?” “Love is a gun I cannot fight?” “Rubbing them titties on the edges of cities and worlds?” Errrrr. Listen, Hayley Mary, I read you described your music as “Bronte-esque gothic.” Bitch, in college I wrote an hono(u)rs thesis on the student-teacher relationship in Jane Eyre and The Professor. Suffice to say that Charlotte (and Anne and especially Emily) would not have been fans of your, ummm, poetry. Proto-feminist avatarism is one thing; an inability to craft meaningful metaphors or make much sense at all is another.

Anyhow, this suffers from delusions of grandeur disease, ready made for a big old arena, if not the hangar where they built the space shuttle, even though I read the band started as a folk duo (which I find hard to believe actually). There are a lot of reasons to dock this points, and the Trump thing is one of them. But I’m about to head to the Caribbean for a few days and am in a generous mood, so a sunny 5/10 for the occasional moments when the keyboards save the rest of the band from itself.

I mean, with a review like that, I'd like to see you try argue it didn't engage you' ;)
 
Prisoner – The Jezabels

Listening to Prisoner in the car yesterday, I came to the same two conclusions offered up by @FogBlueInSanFran in his review. Firstly, that The Edge had somehow snuck into sessions incognito and applied his trademark one guitar piece to most of the minutes of every track. Secondly the echo, even more pronounced than on my first two listens (desk speakers and headphones), was such that whilst I was generally OK with the vocals, the echo pushed it into the zone of “a-bit-too-much”.

It's a shame because I did enjoy my first listen, in the detached way that you do whilst you are sussing something out. It sounded suitably dramatic and there wasn’t anything that specifically annoyed me. The title track that opens the album is wonderfully atmospheric with a great organ start and an interesting switch part-way through. “Endless Summer” is a pleasant-enough pop single and the opening of “Nobody Nowhere”, with its great big bell and epic drums, really grabs the attention. This is how drums should sound.

Sadly, the more I played the album, the more the imperfections bothered me. That proper drum sound, where you hit a drum with a stick and it sounds like a drum being hit with a stick, is washed away in a tide of, ahh, “treatment” by the producer. I have no idea whether the guitarist is as bad as Foggy makes out or whether he’s just a victim of the producer’s meddling, but I suspect the latter. It’s like whoever played the guitar on The Farm’s “All Together Now” – just the same diddly-diddly over and over again. There’s no “diddly-diddly” here, but it’s the same effect.

Don’t get me wrong, this is not a terrible album, it does have some good ideas, and I’d be more than happy to listen to it again, but the odd moment aside, it doesn’t grab me like that first listen did, and I’d just be hearing the production misfires. Also, credit to @Coatigan for going for something leftfield that none of us had ever heard of. Worth 6/10 at least.
 
I did for a minute think that perhaps the drummer was trying to do a bit of a Stephen Morris impression of just going as manic as he could.
Nothing manic about Stephen Morris mate !

Miltiadou spends his time creating these reverb heavy, lots of tom tom, big fills that are, I think, intended to create cinematic swells. Morris, especially under Hannett, drummed with much more space in the production, closely mic'd and then very tightly controlled reverb, more minimalist and metronomic. The Jezebel's drummer fits in with their more washy approach whereas Morris (most of the time) is about rhythmic definition and propulsion and I'll always take a bit of that given the choice.
 
Prisoner - The Jezabels

There are times when you hear the opening song of a band you've never heard of that you know an album is going to be special, and when it is the title track, those odds increase all the more. This was one of those times, indeed.

That organ opening and the initial progression of the song is unmistakable. And then the wall of sound hits, the wailing guitar, the excellent percussion leading in the vocals, where at 2:15, it takes a Muse-like left turn into the song that I didn't see coming, then leans into guitarist Sam Lockwood's great riffs. A few feel as though the Edge invaded the studio for this, but Lockwood more than holds his own in my view, and its the music heard here that really stands out. As one who saw both Muse and U2 together live in concert around the time this album was released, I have but two words: "more please"!

The vocals by Hayley Mary (yes, her real name) are distinctive, unique and fine too. She's hitting notes at the end of this title track I haven't heard a vocalist hit since Pat Benatar in her best moments. I had similar Kate Bush vibes with her varied and haunting vocal delivery. In the second track "Endless Summer", it is another winner all around with the vocals really a standout there.

In fact, this album had me engaged both musically and vocally until it reached "Austerlitz", a weak point pause. After repeated listens I know why I was enjoying the music so much - it was drummer and percussionist Nik Kaloper who delivered track after track. In "Try Colour" in the successive engaging songs to open the album, he really drives the song to its frenetic pace at the end while Lockwood again delivers in the best part of the song 3 minutes in. It was the best part musically of the album for me and left quite an impression. On "Nobody Nowhere", Kaloper's drumming is very prominent as well. Yes, there's a lot of sound behind that, but I would have loved to see them live given how full this album sounds. The various percussion sound and approach in "Long Highway" and "Rosebud" were other winners.

The one aspect that I agree with Foggy from his review was the lyrics were probably the weakest part of their game, as I too didn't miss that line from "City Girl" initially. Towards the end of the album, there were a few tracks that were a bit more atmospheric and left me a bit wanting the prior songs. On the final track opening vocals, "Hurt Me", I could swear Mary was channeling Kim Carnes from "Bette Davis Eyes", but that's one small nit when the music more than delivered on that and the preceding track "Catch Me", another one that got the album back on track from the prior songs that mostly had worked. The bonus track "Easy To Love" is their most listened to track on Spotify as well, which I didn't anticipate, though it was enjoyable too.

I realize this alt/indie/pop/rock band is right up my alley in what I typically enjoy and listen to. As I will say to @Coatigan tomorrow/on Wednesday, hold my beer. My wife didn't blink once or question why I was listening to this band or album in the car, and that has happened a bit prior on a few other selections. I've often said and realize that the scores on these nominations don't matter, and I have that clearly in mind as this week comes around. It's about reaching another who might get something/anything out of an album you enjoyed. And in that regard, mission accomplished here as this was an enjoyable 8/10 for me.
 
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