Boring boring boring..Mr Belfry summed it up. 4
What nomination was that lol.That's in fairness nowhere near as bad as your 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.
What nomination was that lol.
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'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'm enjoying it in the main.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.
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.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.
Ah, you've hit on two key points that were going to be part of my review.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 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.
Listening to this has made me think a lot about venoiserre.
Listening to this has made me think a lot about venoiserre.
You've got me craving butteries now.
Nothing manic about Stephen Morris mate !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.