The Album Review Club - End of Round #9 Break (page 1904)

Okay nothing special for me.The curse and Southern Pacifica good but the rest nothing special.Get the David Gray comparisons and i do not like him.
Bored long before the last track. 5/10
 
bennyboy said:
Okay nothing special for me.The curse and Southern Pacifica good but the rest nothing special.Get the David Gray comparisons and i do not like him.
Bored long before the last track. 5/10
Click to expand...
Neil Young did a song in the 70's called Southern Pacific. About the USA railway.
So that railway now has 2 songs (that I know off)
 
It's all very nicely done, beautifully written, some lovely piano bits, I love a good piano bit, and yet it's leaving me cold. I can appreciate the art, the skill, the storytelling but it's not resonating with me. I feel very distant from it all. There's nothing here grabbing me. It's not the storytelling as I love an Americana album...I just am not getting it. I played it to my Wife to see what was what and she said it was a bit "dull".

It gets a 5.
 
Wordy little sumbitch, isn’t he? That’s okay — so am I.

I think this is better song-for-song than some of the other reviews give it credit for. But what’s been done to some of the songs also makes it worse and it’s why it’s leaving some of you “cold” I think. I’ll get to that.

There are a number of tunes here I found pleasant and interesting, and JR’s voice held my attention a reasonable amount of the time.

Rob is right about the lyrics on The Curse and Another New World which are meandering (in a good way) story songs with minimalist backing, especially The Curse, which might as well be American Pie for its originality. It is truly haunting and beautiful, as Simonesque as I think most of us agree it is. As noted before, I found Lark even a stronger Simon comp. This is all okay with me — I miss Paul Simon to a degree.

Lantern I really liked — it reminded me of someone I haven’t heard in decades: Glen Campbell. Not the echoey alternative backing guitar in the solo, but the cadence and the lilt in JR’s voice. I think this is the one I will definitely listen to most.

I was not as fond of the The Remnant — that felt like a mid-career Supertramp tune sung an octave lower. See How Man Was Made (no, thanks) channels much of what is bad about Flaming Lips and little of what is good about them. Change of Time is the opposite and better though.

The drag when I listen to a record like this is that I know it’s going to slow down the tempos and become artier as it gets near its close. But I was pleasantly surprised by Orbital and Long Shadows, with their pick up in pace and lyrics determined to inject a little fun and joy.

I’m not surprised JR is popular in Ireland. Lyrically he does over-convolute sometimes (like my reviews), which makes his music a tad pretentious IMO (like my reviews). But that’s not a big deal (like my reviews). The world has searched fruitlessly for the second post-1980 Irish artist without a hint of pretension (so whoever it is can join The Pogues). As such he fits right in with countless others popular there (even though he’s from a college town in Idaho).

But the real problem underscored here on so many songs (Southern Pacifica being the most egregious example — it’s a railroad song FFS) is how a certain dark brooding English band (who learned all they know from the Irish U2) has fucked up popular music.

I, of course, am talking about Radiohead.

See, the new rule since those pasty weenies became The Greatest Band In The World is this: if it’s slow, sad, quiet, mournful, meaningful, pretty, brooding, meant to be poetry — somehow, some way, it must be drenched in atmospherics, at least in parts, so the music sounds like it was recorded at 2 am on the floor of the Grand Canyon. Else it won’t feel “important”.

Sigh. Any place you look, whatever you listen to — Radiohead is everywhere.

6/10. It should have been a 7.
 
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FogBlueInSanFran said:
Wordy little sumbitch, isn’t he? That’s okay — so am I.

I think this is better song-for-song than some of the other reviews give it credit for. But what’s been done to some of the songs also makes it worse and it’s why it’s leaving some of you “cold” I think. I’ll get to that.

There are a number of tunes here I found pleasant and interesting, and JR’s voice held my attention a reasonable amount of the time.

Rob is right about the lyrics on The Curse and Another New World which are meandering (in a good way) story songs with minimalist backing, especially The Curse, which might as well be American Pie for its originality. It is truly haunting and beautiful, as Simonesque as I think most of us agree it is. As noted before, I found Lark even a stronger Simon comp. This is all okay with me — I miss Paul Simon to a degree.

Lantern I really liked — it reminded me of someone I haven’t heard in decades: Glen Campbell. Not the echoey alternative backing guitar in the solo, but the cadence and the lilt in JR’s voice. I think this is the one I will definitely listen to most.

I was not as fond of the The Remnant — that felt like a mid-career Supertramp tune sung an octave lower. See How Man Was Made (no, thanks) channels much of what is bad about Flaming Lips and little of what is good about them. Change of Time is the opposite and better though.

The drag when I listen to a record like this is that I know it’s going to slow down the tempos and become artier as it gets near its close. But I was pleasantly surprised by Orbital and Long Shadows, with their pick up in pace and lyrics determined to inject a little fun and joy.

I’m not surprised JR is popular in Ireland. Lyrically he does over-convolute sometimes (like my reviews), which makes his music a tad pretentious IMO (like my reviews). But that’s not a big deal (like my reviews). The world has searched fruitlessly for the second post-1980 Irish artist without a hint of pretension (so whoever it is can join The Pogues). As such he fits right in with countless others popular there (even though he’s from a college town in Idaho).

But the real problem underscored here on so many songs (Southern Pacifica being the most egregious example — it’s a railroad song FFS) is how a certain dark brooding English band (who learned all they know from the Irish U2) has fucked up popular music.

I, of course, am talking about Radiohead.

See, the new rule since those pasty weenies became The Greatest Band In The World is this: if it’s slow, sad, quiet, mournful, meaningful, pretty, brooding, meant to be poetry — somehow, some way, it must be drenched in atmospherics, at least in parts, so the music sounds like it was recorded at 2 am on the floor of the Grand Canyon. Else it won’t feel “important”.

Sigh. Any place you look, whatever you listen to — Radiohead is everywhere.

6/10. It should have been a 7.
Click to expand...
Radiohead, ouch. Otherwise a fair and detailed review.
 
FogBlueInSanFran said:
Wordy little sumbitch, isn’t he? That’s okay — so am I.

I think this is better song-for-song than some of the other reviews give it credit for. But what’s been done to some of the songs also makes it worse and it’s why it’s leaving some of you “cold” I think. I’ll get to that.

There are a number of tunes here I found pleasant and interesting, and JR’s voice held my attention a reasonable amount of the time.

Rob is right about the lyrics on The Curse and Another New World which are meandering (in a good way) story songs with minimalist backing, especially The Curse, which might as well be American Pie for its originality. It is truly haunting and beautiful, as Simonesque as I think most of us agree it is. As noted before, I found Lark even a stronger Simon comp. This is all okay with me — I miss Paul Simon to a degree.

Lantern I really liked — it reminded me of someone I haven’t heard in decades: Glen Campbell. Not the echoey alternative backing guitar in the solo, but the cadence and the lilt in JR’s voice. I think this is the one I will definitely listen to most.

I was not as fond of the The Remnant — that felt like a mid-career Supertramp tune sung an octave lower. See How Man Was Made (no, thanks) channels much of what is bad about Flaming Lips and little of what is good about them. Change of Time is the opposite and better though.

The drag when I listen to a record like this is that I know it’s going to slow down the tempos and become artier as it gets near its close. But I was pleasantly surprised by Orbital and Long Shadows, with their pick up in pace and lyrics determined to inject a little fun and joy.

I’m not surprised JR is popular in Ireland. Lyrically he does over-convolute sometimes (like my reviews), which makes his music a tad pretentious IMO (like my reviews). But that’s not a big deal (like my reviews). The world has searched fruitlessly for the second post-1980 Irish artist without a hint of pretension (so whoever it is can join The Pogues). As such he fits right in with countless others popular there (even though he’s from a college town in Idaho).

But the real problem underscored here on so many songs (Southern Pacifica being the most egregious example — it’s a railroad song FFS) is how a certain dark brooding English band (who learned all they know from the Irish U2) has fucked up popular music.

I, of course, am talking about Radiohead.

See, the new rule since those pasty weenies became The Greatest Band In The World is this: if it’s slow, sad, quiet, mournful, meaningful, pretty, brooding, meant to be poetry — somehow, some way, it must be drenched in atmospherics, at least in parts, so the music sounds like it was recorded at 2 am on the floor of the Grand Canyon. Else it won’t feel “important”.

Sigh. Any place you look, whatever you listen to — Radiohead is everywhere.

6/10. It should have been a 7.
Click to expand...

Radiohead haunt you haha. I’m so tempted to go with ‘Ok Computer’ next review - one of my favourites
 
BlueHammer85 said:
Radiohead haunt you haha. I’m so tempted to go with ‘Ok Computer’ next review - one of my favourites.
Click to expand...
giphy.gif
 
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