The Album Review Club - Week #124 - (page 1478) The Magical World of the Strands - Michael Head & The Strands

[bennyboy]

Physical Graffiti 7/10.
Again not heard for years.Surprised at some songs Plant's voice annoyed me.
Never liked the opener Custard Pie but from then on up to In the light was brilliant.
Struggled after that,so the 7 is for the brilliance before.
Prefer Led Zep as a compilation more than albums.

 

[Onholiday(somemightsay)]

P

i heard they were doing chaz and dave covers.
Cant wait.

I have it on good authority he was the sole driver behind the Smurfs go pop album - always been a happy go lucky soul for my money.......... ;-)

 

[GoatersLeftShin]

I absolutely love this album. I've not heard it for a few years and was made up to put it on in work today.

If you want to know how to play a guitar riff then Jimmy Page is the absolute master. The first 6 tracks are some of the greatest riffs ever made. When you add in the riffs from the other albums, I honestly don't think there's any one better. The album shows his astonishing ability to play the guitar - he can move from a hard rock to blues to folk and make it all sound so natural.

Of course, whilst the guitar is the best part of the album, the rhythm of the album is driven by that amazing drum and bass combo.

I also love the quieter stuff as well. It's a very well rounded album in terms of styles.

Someone earlier mentioned about the Beatles, Stones, Led Zeppelin and The Who being the masters of 60s/70s rock and trying to find anyone to compare to them in the 1980s. Good luck with that, you won't find any band who come close to these titans. Bands like REM, Blondie, U2, New Order, Depeche Mode, The Police etc are good bands... but they are nowhere near the level of the titans. You might as well throw in Duran Duran and The Human League - good bands, but still miles away!

I love Led Zepellin, although I am not a big fan of Plant's voice. I would love to hear someone like Bon Scott or Ian Gillan do the vocals as I much prefer their voices and don't find them whiny.

Overall, it's a superb album: 8/10

 

[OB1]

Wonderful album review from OB1, as per the other poster’s comments. And like probably everyone else who has read it, it’s got me desperate to dig it out again and play the album again too.
It seems churlish to take issue with anything in tbh, as I basically agree. However, this being a forum an’ all, I guess I might as well.
1) I had it for ages on a single AD 90 TDK tape, and would always play side one of the tape, but just FF the second side. Like others have posted, I think sides 3&4 are more uneven, and the quality dips, with some ‘throwaway’ tracks. For that reason it’s a 9/10 album for me. If they’d just released sides 1&2 as a single album then it would be 10/10.
2) re the comment about Kashmir, great track that it is, for epic sounds, I actually prefer Stargazer. Even though possibly, ahem, inspired by Kashmir, that Rainbow track is unsurpassed in terms of lyrics, vocal performance, instrument playing and orchestration. They say Phil Spector created the Wall of Sound, well that track for me has it and then some.
3) ob1’s frequent mentions of layering of guitar sounds just kinda reinforces my view about how Zeppelin really were masters of the studio recording, but that with technology as it was in the 70s they would have benefited so, so much from having an additional musician tour with them live. Floyd did it to fantastic effect with Snowy White, and I don’t know if it was the band or Grant being money-minded, or an ego thing from Page, but to do justice to these off-the-scale studio tracks live they needed it, imho.

Anyway as I said, cheers @OB1 - a pleasure to read :-)

Thanks.

Disc 1 of Physical Graffiti is so good and has such a consistent sound, even though not all the tracks were from the PG sessions, that the second disc was always going to be weaker. However, it is all relative and most bands would kill to put out one album as good as that second half.

As I said at the start of the review, I don't have a favourite song. I edited out some comments about constructing a top 20 songs for one of BH's polls, when I really like many of the tracks therin equally. I think though that I had Kashmir in second place but on another day... Suffice to say that I do prefer it to Stargazer but Rising is an album I like almost as much as PG. Stargazer has a cleaner sound and Blackmore's solo is epic. All great music.

I'm not sure Zep were hampered by not having additional musicians live but I only saw them once. I think their live approach rather differed to Floyd's; certainly in Floyd's latter days.

 

[OB1]

On a separate note Plant was in the local Indian by me while my missus was in there a couple of Thursdays ago and offered them a cake they didn't want on his table. He was in there on what they call "Happy Days" which is the cheap special night. Obviously tighter than those jeans he used to wear. She said he was a smooth bastard

I went to see Prince at Wembley Arena quite a number of years back and stood in th aisle behind our block was one Robert Plant, with a rather attractive lady on either arm - I though that was quite smooth.

Don't know if he is Rod Stewartesque when it comes to getting his wallet out but he clearly is not a bread-head - as I once saw him describe John Paul Jones - because if he was, he would have done a Zep reunion tour. Plant is the reason we've not had one of those.

 

[OB1]

How do you rate Monster Fog ?

I couldn't get much out of Out of Time and Automatic For the People and I assume of course that nobody will choose Monster on this thread.

IIRC, I rather liked Monster at the time but haven't played any of my REM albums in ages.

 

[OB1]

They absolutely were — or had pretensions of being so. Listen to the first twenty seconds of I Will Follow. Hear that echo? Now try Gloria. Listen to the chorus. You can almost see Bono raising his mike to the adoring crowd.

But . . . I didn’t say that was bad though. I like U2. At one point I really, really liked them. Seen them in concert more than any other band from the War tour up through, what, 12 years ago I think? They’re pretty good at it.

I don't class U2 as one of my favourite bands but I have most of their albums; not sure if I bought their most recent one.

Seen them a few times live. They do stadium / areas shows rather well and they do make an effort to be inventive with their shows.

Have to be one of those four post punk whatever bands. I'd include The Police too but what about Van Halen: they are post punk!?

 

[mancity2012_eamo]

They absolutely were — or had pretensions of being so. Listen to the first twenty seconds of I Will Follow. Hear that echo? Now try Gloria. Listen to the chorus. You can almost see Bono raising his mike to the adoring crowd.

But . . . I didn’t say that was bad though. I like U2. At one point I really, really liked them. Seen them in concert more than any other band from the War tour up through, what, 12 years ago I think? They’re pretty good at it.

I wouldn’t pay 50p into the Dandelion Market to see them on Sunday afternoons here in Dublin back in the late ‘70’s.
They couldn’t play and Bono couldn’t sing. They were from the posh school down the road too, which didn’t give them any cred with us even if Bono was from Finglas.
Paul McGuinness saw something in them though and he is the real key to their success.
He managed them brilliantly. They recorded their first three albums with Steve Lilywhite who they learned loads from. They took onboard a lot of his ideas and one thing I do admire them for, is that they learned their craft. I mean they learned how to play and Bono learned to sing.

McGuinness managed them brilliantly. They toured Europe and America early on and not so much the UK. They aimed big. To break the US.

Love them or loathe them. They were the biggest band on the planet at one stage. I’m not overly gone on them, but have to admit that Unforgettable Fire and Joshua Tree are good albums. I’ve seen them twice in the ‘80s in Croke Park when you could get tickets for them. They are very good live. I’d say they got better late 80s into the 90s but by then tickets were gold dust and I really couldn’t be arsed jumping to hoops to try and see them when the return home.

Bono is an asshole, but he was crafty in how they conquered America, something Geldof couldn’t do. Geldof didn’t have McGuinness pulling the strings though.

 

[FogBlueInSanFran]

I wouldn’t pay 50p into the Dandelion Market to see them on Sunday afternoons here in Dublin back in the late ‘70’s.
They couldn’t play and Bono couldn’t sing. They were from the posh school down the road too, which didn’t give them any cred with us even if Bono was from Finglas.
Paul McGuinness saw something in them though and he is the real key to their success.
He managed them brilliantly. They recorded their first three albums with Steve Lilywhite who they learned loads from. They took onboard a lot of his ideas and one thing I do admire them for, is that they learned their craft. I mean they learned how to play and Bono learned to sing.

McGuinness managed them brilliantly. They toured Europe and America early on and not so much the UK. They aimed big. To break the US.

Love them or loathe them. They were the biggest band on the planet at one stage. I’m not overly gone on them, but have to admit that Unforgettable Fire and Joshua Tree are good albums. I’ve seen them twice in the ‘80s in Croke Park when you could get tickets for them. They are very good live. I’d say they got better late 80s into the 90s but by then tickets were gold dust and I really couldn’t be arsed jumping to hoops to try and see them when the return home.

Bono is an asshole, but he was crafty in how they conquered America, something Geldof couldn’t do. Geldof didn’t have McGuinness pulling the strings though.

All that I already know that you wrote is fair, and all I didn’t know is interesting. Thanks for that.

One quibble — I’m still not sure Adam Clayton knows how to play bass :)

 

[FogBlueInSanFran]

I have a rather odd take on Led Zep — it’s kind of like a mirror compared to the rest of the world. I don’t care that much for their earliest stuff, up until IV, but I think “In Through The Out Door” is wildly underrated (as I do Robert Plant’s solo stuff). Thankfully, it kind of all meets in the middle 70s — where this ambitious record sits — along with the aforementioned IV and Houses of the Holy.

Now — I do think they’re uneven. Plant’s lyrics sometimes veer toward early Neil Peart. One of their three best songs is a cover (the 300-foot high tsunami that is “When The Levee Breaks”, to go along with the other 300-foot high tsunami that is “The Ocean”. The third is noted below). But I could winnow down their collective output by 40-50% and what would be left — the meat — could be near the best rock ‘n’ roll humans have deigned to imprint on wax. And as such, the irony — as @OB1 thoughtfully points out in his remark about Zep being so FM-friendly in the States — is that this WASN’T a singles band. Yet I think of them as a SONG band and not an ALBUM band. Weird, right? It isn't really to me, because there's so little thematic that ties the songs on their records together.

I think earlier comments on side 1 and 2 together being a 9 or 9.5 are valid for me too. Though I’m a little less enamo(u)red of “In My Time of Dying” , the other five are no-doubt-about-it classics that would represent the pinnacle of any band’s career. “Kashmir” is my favo(u)rite Zep song of all time and could be 20 minutes longer. The riff is so, so, so good. “Houses” and “Custard” and “Rover” are blockbusters, and just FYI — “Trampled” is a FUCKING GREAT DANCE SONG, you mugs :).

As much as guitarniks want to focus on Page — and I’ve got no issue with that — what makes Zep for me is Plant and Bonham. It’s hard for me to think of a rock singer I prefer to Plant. His voice is so unique. He strives for notes and sounds and just when you think he’ll break, he nails them. And no one has precisely the same thwomp on a snare or splash on a cymbal as Bonham. He pedals a bass drum like he’s (or it’s) in labo(u)r and he’s trying to get a baby bass drum to come out. It’s instantly recognizable. And that’s not to overlook JPJ whose keyboard noodling adds as much art and funk as his bass adds backbone. What a fucking band. Pound for pound, guy for guy, the best rock n’ rollers ever?

But their tunes didn’t always match their talent, and side 3 and 4 do falter (and I rarely play them). I get it. When you’re such masters you can just screw around and something good comes out, you just release it. But every top writer needs an editor. And too often I don’t think Zep had enough of one (which sometimes happens with total artistic freedom and your own label). This goes back to my comment that some of Zep’s output I could do without. Still, there’s plenty of good if not great stuff — “Night”, “Wanton”, “Sick”, “Light” and “10” all qualify — but in the company of record 1 they dilute the overall some. I might, however, argue that the variety such screwing around brings adds something ragged and unkempt that makes the whole thing a little more off-the-cuff, which is a positive.

It’s pretty easy to see why anyone would fall in love with this. For me, it’s a great reminder of what kings they were. It’s somewhere between an 8 and a 9 for me, but it's not quite consistent enough for a 9; we’ll go 8/10 and figure plenty of you lot will drag the average up. A great listen regardless.