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

BlueHammer85 said:
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1/10 !
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Oh dear, I'll have to try and pretend I haven't seen that.A bit more context to the story and the band reaction


I have managed to separate Van Morrison's ludicrous Covid statements from his previous and even more recent body of work so should be able to put this to the back of my mind.

I have quite enjoyed the melodrama of this album on first listen, exhilarating and exhausting at times. Shades of Bauhaus, Siouxse and the Banshees and mybe even the Cranberries in there for me.
 
journolud said:
Oh dear, I'll have to try and pretend I haven't seen that.A bit more context to the story and the band reaction


I have managed to separate Van Morrison's ludicrous Covid statements from his previous and even more recent body of work so should be able to put this to the back of my mind.

I have quite enjoyed the melodrama of this album on first listen, exhilarating and exhausting at times. Shades of Bauhaus, Siouxse and the Banshees and mybe even the Cranberries in there for me.
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all done in jest, I can assure I judge solely on the music and not a care about the singer/bands political beliefs.
 
journolud said:
Oh dear, I'll have to try and pretend I haven't seen that.A bit more context to the story and the band reaction


I have managed to separate Van Morrison's ludicrous Covid statements from his previous and even more recent body of work so should be able to put this to the back of my mind.

I have quite enjoyed the melodrama of this album on first listen, exhilarating and exhausting at times. Shades of Bauhaus, Siouxse and the Banshees and mybe even the Cranberries in there for me.
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Interesting context. This is all obviously new to me, as noted it was a one off album I liked and was somewhat locked in time.

Seeing that picture, I did for a moment wonder whether I'd be the the first to nominate an album that would get cancelled over the week!

But the context helps and I guess is somewhat beyond what the image alone says. Still a bit of a bad taste in my mouth though ;).
 
journolud said:
Oh dear, I'll have to try and pretend I haven't seen that.A bit more context to the story and the band reaction


I have managed to separate Van Morrison's ludicrous Covid statements from his previous and even more recent body of work so should be able to put this to the back of my mind.

I have quite enjoyed the melodrama of this album on first listen, exhilarating and exhausting at times. Shades of Bauhaus, Siouxse and the Banshees and mybe even the Cranberries in there for me.
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I was going to say VM had a lot of goodwill in the bank before he went completely off the rails, but actually as a bare minimum he's always been a miserable twat hasn't he.

Her statement sounds a bit immature tbh and a bit stunt like.

Anyhow the melodrama bit is where I can't work out if it's doing it for me or not, the sweeping, cinematic thing works best when it has something else to temper it or as Coats would say to provide a juxtaposition. Need to listen to the lyrics more to see if they do as from the first listen I'm not getting enough counterpoint from the music.
 
threespires said:
I was going to say VM had a lot of goodwill in the bank before he went completely off the rails, but actually as a bare minimum he's always been a miserable twat hasn't he.

Her statement sounds a bit immature tbh and a bit stunt like.

Anyhow the melodrama bit is where I can't work out if it's doing it for me or not, the sweeping, cinematic thing works best when it has something else to temper it or as Coats would say to provide a juxtaposition. Need to listen to the lyrics more to see if they do as from the first listen I'm not getting enough counterpoint from the music.
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The counterpoint for me is that they are ultimately simplistic soft catchy pop songs. But are produced to an inch of their life where you lose sight of that.

It's like if you took a ready made taylor swift album, and then went oh btw tay, we've got you Dave Lombardo on drums hen, and Aaron Dessner gets to fiddle with it.

That's not the only appeal in it for me btw. But maybe because when going to the gig I was told I was going to see 'the Australian Texas', the contrast that struck me has stuck with me.
 
Coatigan said:
That's not the only appeal in it for me btw. But maybe because when going to the gig I was told I was going to see 'the Australian Texas', the contrast that struck me has stuck with me.
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Texas, now there's a discussion: a really promising debut (went to see them around the time it was released) and then everything I've heard since has made me want to run a mile from it.
 
By the way, I enjoyed Prisoner on first listen. It will be interesting to see where it goes on the next few listens, whether I can get caught up in the drama or whether the voice begins to grate.
 
RobMCFC said:
By the way, I enjoyed Prisoner on first listen. It will be interesting to see where it goes on the next few listens, whether I can get caught up in the drama or whether the voice begins to grate.
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My prediction. The voice will probably grate, the songs though will become more pleasant as they become more familiar.
 
Two listens in and I'm afraid that this one really isn't doing anything for me. There was nothing that was really standing out memorable until I got to "Austerlitz" and a couple of the tracks after that.
 
Listening this far and reading up on the band and how popular they are down under and this controversy with Hayley Mary and thinking about other life experiences . . . . all this together has led to one very difficult, personal conclusion: I am quite clearly prejudiced against middle-and-upper-class Australians.
 
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FogBlueInSanFran said:
Listening this far and reading up on the band and how popular they are down under and this controversy with Hayley Mary and thinking about other life experiences . . . . all this together has led to one very difficult, personal conclusion: I am quite clearly prejudiced against middle-and-upper-class Australians.
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You call that a prejudice? ..
 
Prisoners by The Jezabels is what happens when people try too hard to be interesting and then reveal themselves to be quite conservative. If they'd just gone for a more standard indie pop rock approach then they might have been more succesfull as there are hints here and there that they can write a tune. They just bury it under washed out guitars and ill disciplined vocals. Alternatively they could have just leant into the atmosphere and vibe and wrote some tunes like Austerlitz. The moral of the story here is that you shouldn't try so hard.

Opening track Prisoner has a super opening few bars that goes from gothic to tragic quite quickly and is all you really need to hear from the album to decide if you'll like the rest. Coatigan is right in that the album is a grower but that's largely because it's quite hard to hear what's going on and you benefit from a few goes round to acclimitise. A few times I had to make sure I was still wearing my headphones - everything feels very distant and indistinct. Which is a same because the band are trying quite hard particularly the drummer but they don't manage to even sound super interested in what they are doing and so I fundamentally am not either.

The drummer seems to feel how disinterested the band are and decides to try and play everything everywhere all at once to inject some energy into the band. Sadly it irritates more than inspires like a laugh track on a particular bad sitcom which isn't Friends or one of the other popular ones.

I didn't hate listening to this but I can't say I particularly enjoyed it either. There are a couple of interesting lyrics here and there particularly on City Girl but if you like that just go and listen to Chappel Roan instead. Every lyrical highlight though is bookended with stuff that seems to just be concerned by a rhyme than anything interesting but on City Girl it does seem a little lighter on it's feet and i can never really hate something that says "toodaloo" but it's not really enough.

The Jezabels are probably a fine pop band and should write songs for Eurovision instead of trying to be interesting and atmospheric. Alternatively they could clean up their sound and play it a little more straightfoward. Horsehead would be a good example where they could have sounded like Kings Of Leon or the Killers but the outlines needed to be drawn with a thicker marker It almost worked but they couldn't quite pull it off - the only way to truly succeed at this in my opinion is to make it look like you're not trying. a 6 for effort.

Incidentally I was mildly aggravated that there were two guys in this band and I'm concerned about their safety. Also I think they've spelt their band name wrong and I understand why they might be inspired by taking up the cause of a woman who you may consider has been unfairly maligned by history although in this instance they may have backed the wrong horse. They could for instance have called themselves "Rose West" if they really wanted to be edgy but they wouldn't be able to fake being interesting or insightful then.
 
mrbelfry said:
Prisoners by The Jezabels is what happens when people try too hard to be interesting and then reveal themselves to be quite conservative. If they'd just gone for a more standard indie pop rock approach then they might have been more succesfull as there are hints here and there that they can write a tune. They just bury it under washed out guitars and ill disciplined vocals. Alternatively they could have just leant into the atmosphere and vibe and wrote some tunes like Austerlitz. The moral of the story here is that you shouldn't try so hard.

Opening track Prisoner has a super opening few bars that goes from gothic to tragic quite quickly and is all you really need to hear from the album to decide if you'll like the rest. Coatigan is right in that the album is a grower but that's largely because it's quite hard to hear what's going on and you benefit from a few goes round to acclimitise. A few times I had to make sure I was still wearing my headphones - everything feels very distant and indistinct. Which is a same because the band are trying quite hard particularly the drummer but they don't manage to even sound super interested in what they are doing and so I fundamentally am not either.

The drummer seems to feel how disinterested the band are and decides to try and play everything everywhere all at once to inject some energy into the band. Sadly it irritates more than inspires like a laugh track on a particular bad sitcom which isn't Friends or one of the other popular ones.

I didn't hate listening to this but I can't say I particularly enjoyed it either. There are a couple of interesting lyrics here and there particularly on City Girl but if you like that just go and listen to Chappel Roan instead. Every lyrical highlight though is bookended with stuff that seems to just be concerned by a rhyme than anything interesting but on City Girl it does seem a little lighter on it's feet and i can never really hate something that says "toodaloo" but it's not really enough.

The Jezabels are probably a fine pop band and should write songs for Eurovision instead of trying to be interesting and atmospheric. Alternatively they could clean up their sound and play it a little more straightfoward. Horsehead would be a good example where they could have sounded like Kings Of Leon or the Killers but the outlines needed to be drawn with a thicker marker It almost worked but they couldn't quite pull it off - the only way to truly succeed at this in my opinion is to make it look like you're not trying. a 6 for effort.

Incidentally I was mildly aggravated that there were two guys in this band and I'm concerned about their safety. Also I think they've spelt their band name wrong and I understand why they might be inspired by taking up the cause of a woman who you may consider has been unfairly maligned by history although in this instance they may have backed the wrong horse. They could for instance have called themselves "Rose West" if they really wanted to be edgy but they wouldn't be able to fake being interesting or insightful then.
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Which Jezabel out of the many knocking around in the texts of old that definitely were not made up do you think they are championing?
 
mrbelfry said:
Prisoners by The Jezabels is what happens when people try too hard to be interesting and then reveal themselves to be quite conservative. If they'd just gone for a more standard indie pop rock approach then they might have been more succesfull as there are hints here and there that they can write a tune. They just bury it under washed out guitars and ill disciplined vocals. Alternatively they could have just leant into the atmosphere and vibe and wrote some tunes like Austerlitz. The moral of the story here is that you shouldn't try so hard.

Opening track Prisoner has a super opening few bars that goes from gothic to tragic quite quickly and is all you really need to hear from the album to decide if you'll like the rest. Coatigan is right in that the album is a grower but that's largely because it's quite hard to hear what's going on and you benefit from a few goes round to acclimitise. A few times I had to make sure I was still wearing my headphones - everything feels very distant and indistinct. Which is a same because the band are trying quite hard particularly the drummer but they don't manage to even sound super interested in what they are doing and so I fundamentally am not either.

The drummer seems to feel how disinterested the band are and decides to try and play everything everywhere all at once to inject some energy into the band. Sadly it irritates more than inspires like a laugh track on a particular bad sitcom which isn't Friends or one of the other popular ones.

I didn't hate listening to this but I can't say I particularly enjoyed it either. There are a couple of interesting lyrics here and there particularly on City Girl but if you like that just go and listen to Chappel Roan instead. Every lyrical highlight though is bookended with stuff that seems to just be concerned by a rhyme than anything interesting but on City Girl it does seem a little lighter on it's feet and i can never really hate something that says "toodaloo" but it's not really enough.

The Jezabels are probably a fine pop band and should write songs for Eurovision instead of trying to be interesting and atmospheric. Alternatively they could clean up their sound and play it a little more straightfoward. Horsehead would be a good example where they could have sounded like Kings Of Leon or the Killers but the outlines needed to be drawn with a thicker marker It almost worked but they couldn't quite pull it off - the only way to truly succeed at this in my opinion is to make it look like you're not trying. a 6 for effort.

Incidentally I was mildly aggravated that there were two guys in this band and I'm concerned about their safety. Also I think they've spelt their band name wrong and I understand why they might be inspired by taking up the cause of a woman who you may consider has been unfairly maligned by history although in this instance they may have backed the wrong horse. They could for instance have called themselves "Rose West" if they really wanted to be edgy but they wouldn't be able to fake being interesting or insightful then.
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Always an amusing read. Not much there I disagree with, extent aside perhaps. But mate, just gonnae grow a pair and give it a boody 3 ffs ;)
 
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