The Album Review Club - Week #147 - (page 1942) - Blonde On Blonde - Bob Dylan

mrbelfry said:
Don't worry. When the football starts again I'll have less time to crawl through skips looking for words other people have thrown away. Here's my review

*******

Many years ago before it was hip and trendy my brother and I had a podcast. Initially you have a couple of topics you're passionate and a little knowledgeable about but then you quickly run out of stuff so either have to repeat yourself or work up some kind of emotion about something you care little about. Then people start listening and you realise your words have a weight they don't deserve and you can never change your mind about anything you have ever said for fear of sounding hypocritical and incoherant whilst your ignorant word vomit stays sat in your own ears for ever and ever causing an infection in your brain you can never get over. Then you don't renew your podcast host subscription and the world moves on.

Now imagine you've written a song about your child being still born, your mother's alcoholism and stroke, and why all immigrants are great. Your pain is forever on display, your ideas ripe for criticism and stuff doesn't even rhyme properly. And an idiot will give it a rating out of 10 and write a long justification that's as much about getting faceless people on the internet to think you're interesting as it is about any criticism of art you're not really qualified to make. Your primal scream of damaged, damaged, damaged echos around huge arenas when a therapist would tell you to move on, make peace and to stop reliving the past but your fans like the old album better and demand you stay in your filth so I can get the cathartic release of having an honest to goodness emotion that is not ennui. Medicate, meditate, medicate.

Anyway IDLES are a band big on violence. The violence of heartache, of emotion, of honesty, of love, of noise. Crawler is undeniably an IDLES album. All the hits are here - the atmospheric one that builds, the dancy one, the political one, the one that makes you feel like a social worker who wishes they worked in Aldi and wouldn't have to deal with the pill bottles next to the kettle. Obviously I love it because I hate subtlety.

MT 420 RR is a lovely doomy opener. Detuned guitars, terminator heart beat pulsing, lonely sleigh bells, slow building to a cinematic crescendo.

The Wheel is a song I don't really enjoy but I do find myself with a form of IDLES tourrettes where I do randomly blurt non sequiturs in Tesco "the wheel", "date night", "concrete to leather", "baby baby baby", "make me sway"

When The Lights Come On was a single for some reason. It's kind of boring musically and if you already hate Joe Talbots vocals this is a song that will confirm all your preconceptions. Worst song on the album. It's about realising you're old. Is this something worth saying?

Car Crash is an absolutely stone cold banger. Drums, noise, doom, monotony is where IDLES hit home for me. It even goes a bit ugly Nirvana at the end before ending big but not busy.

New Sensation is a political dance number but feels like the band are having to work themselves up about something they aren't bothered by. It lacks conviction and because I hate subtlety it's a callback to my intro.

Stockholm Syndrome again feels like it's lacking conviction. When there is a Muse song with the same title that is saying more you know you've had a bad day.

If I survive a nuclear apocalypse and I find myself in a karaoke bar surrounded by grizzled irraditated men with huge chunks of their hair falling out I'll sing The Beachland Ballroom.

Crawl and Meds are both fine. Meds has a nice free jazz trumpet bit. This and their subsequent album affirms my belief that IDLES are Radiohead but in prettier dresses......or the Black Eyed Peas. It's too soon to say really.

Kelechi is a waste of 30 seconds. Progress confirms that it's Radiohead and no BEP's that IDLES are channeling but without the same sense of cohesion. Wizz sounds like they hated the comparison and have turned to self harm as a way to express their displeasure.

King Snake feels mistitled but is probably one of the political songs they do. They've done this song better elsewhere but it's fine enough.

The End returns us to beginning with some doom laden optimism. Despite it all life is beautiful. A weed is a flower growing out of a crack etc.

So in summary an 8.5 mainly due to Car Crash and The Beachland Ballroom. But for the love of God someone let these guys know it's spelt Thing not Fing - these affectations push you into Russel Brand territory.

I'm going to see these guys in December and a couple of things strike me. If the band can pull off the violent emotion that they seem to do which results in this great communal experience which their live shows are purporting to be then who is faking it? Are IDLES retreading emotion, reopening old wounds and carving fresh inventions in their skin? If not ands it remains authentic then why am I here? I wouldn't buy tickets to an actual car crash and I don't want a front row seat in family court so why am I comfortable watching these guys pole dance on razor blades?

Or are they authentic and I'm the fake? Should I apply some felt tip scars to my arms and work myself into an outrage about how bad the sandwiches at pret have got?

Or should I just go and feel the doomy bass in my chest and hope that somehow in that moment I can have all the disparate parts of me coalesce into the same sense of self conviction IDLES offer. For full disclosure I feel it's important to point out that I have never bought a sandwich from pret but I could if I wanted too mainly because of all the money I save not smoking and drinking. I hate myself more than you hate IDLES
Click to expand...

So much to unpack in that.

In the meantime, I'll settle for laughing at the thought of you randomly blurting date night or the wheel in Tesco.
 
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Speaking of New Sensation, which is a great song to dance to either way, I love the line 'so you want to retrain now, jumping from the right to the left brain now'. It was a response to Sunak's proclamation during covid that people in the creative industries would simply have to re-train. Like the play between left/right and sides of brain. And since then I have not been able to look at Rushi without imagining him as a dancer.
 
Coatigan said:
Speaking of New Sensation, which is a great song to dance to either way, I love the line 'so you want to retrain now, jumping from the right to the left brain now'. It was a response to Sunak's proclamation during covid that people in the creative industries would simply have to re-train. Like the play between left/right and sides of brain. And since then I have not been able to look at Rushi without imagining him as a dancer.
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I expressed this poorly in my review but I had this in mind when talking about how you run out of things to talk about. Still birth, alcoholism, immigration, sunaks mean comments. One of those things is not like the others
 
It is interesting reading people's takes on individual songs. But I never really listen to them as individual songs, and I think the order and the transitions here play a big part. Just tried it. The wheel, is completely different, coming off the back of the last 30 seconds of MTT420 RR, than if you juat start it on its own. As is in turn When the Lights, coming off the back of 'can I get a hallelujah'. That is what I like about this album. It is not just a collection of songs, it is a piece. Ending, as pointed out already, in a bit of a rounding off.
 
RobMCFC said:
Thread business. @journolud has asked to drop down the batting order so I want to bump the next four posters one week forward.

Please can the following posters let me know if the new dates are OK:-

@FogBlueInSanFran 31/7
@Mancitydoogle 7/8
@threespires 14/7
@LGWIO 21/7
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Not for me — busiest two weeks of my year at work which is why I missed the Stanglers (I have thoughts, I did listen). Happy to do anytime after next week.
 
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