The Album Review Club - Week #194 (page 1303) - Ants From Up There - Black Country, New Road

[RobMCFC]

Are Salvation Army bands allowed to have a go at Klemzer or is that haram?

??

Was that a long way of saying ‘It’s shite’ ;-)

No it wasn't, it just wasn't to my taste.

 

[Coatigan]

It was really bugging me, that opening bit of Chaos Space Mountain, and not being able to put a finger on what colin steele bit it sounded like. Found it now, one of the segments of The Reccuring Dream. Either version really. Pretty much the same sequence.

Phew, can now untense!

Not claiming any tomfoolery or such, just pointing out the similarity.

 

[threespires]

??

Sorry, mindlessly amusing myself on a Friday afternoon by seeing if I could offend all three Abrahamic religions (including my own) in one sentence.

If you substitute the saxophones with clarinets (which they should have :-)) then at times BCNR sound a bit like the worlds strangest Klemzer band (from the Ashkenazi Jewish tradition, you'll know the type of thing - think of the wedding bands playing Hava Nagila). Then in my head I saw your Salvation Army Lieutenant berating the band for playing none Christian songs and it was a short hop to him telling them it was haram.

Tbh - it was better in my head than on paper.

​

 

[Coatigan]

Sorry, mindlessly amusing myself on a Friday afternoon by seeing if I could offend all three Abrahamic religions (including my own) in one sentence.

If you substitute the saxophones with clarinets (which they should have :-)) then at times BCNR sound a bit like the worlds strangest Klemzer band (from the Ashkenazi Jewish tradition, you'll know the type of thing - think of the wedding bands playing Hava Nagila). Then in my head I saw your Salvation Army Lieutenant berating the band for playing none Christian songs and it was a short hop to him telling them it was haram.

Tbh - it was better in my head than on paper.

​

The best jokes are the ones that need explaining!



As are albums too, ostensibly.

 

[Saddleworth2]

listening to it took me back to 1971 or 1972 when I bought an album featuring a bass player called Colin Hodgkinson. The NME were raving about him and his band Back Door and their first album which was labelled as jazz/rock/fusion. Black Country New Road reminds me a little of them in terms of very proficient musicians trying to do something different and push genre boundaries.

Whilst I loved the first Back Door album, at the moment I'm not loving BCNR. I think they are using their proficiency to illustrate how clever they are rather than concentrating on music quality. Take the track 'Snow Globes' which starts with a chord sequence that sounds like a child practicing their scales. That simple sequence is then simply embellished with layers of different instruments a bit like a very simple bolero. I will listen more but......

Here is a bit of Back Door for anyone that fancies a bit of a rest.

 

[BlueHammer85]

Squeeze - East Side Story

Squeeze are a interesting band throughout the years with so many chops and changes and 'big' names involved at certain points - it's little surprise that when you have the writing talents of Tilbrook and Chris Difford , co producer
Elvis Costello, Production of Dave Edmunds and likes of Paul Carrack for 'Tempted' that this was always going to be a well polished, produced and a solid Album.
'Tempted" and 'Labelled with Love' are excellent songs, 'In Quintessence', 'Piccadilly' and 'Is That Love' are also good tracks and have funny witty lyrics - some tracks I found pretty mediocre and washed over me.
The strength of the lyrics pushes this to a comfortable 7. Good pick.

7/10

 

[Coatigan]

listening to it took me back to 1971 or 1972 when I bought an album featuring a bass player called Colin Hodgkinson. The NME were raving about him and his band Back Door and their first album which was labelled as jazz/rock/fusion. Black Country New Road reminds me a little of them in terms of very proficient musicians trying to do something different and push genre boundaries.

Whilst I loved the first Back Door album, at the moment I'm not loving BCNR. I think they are using their proficiency to illustrate how clever they are rather than concentrating on music quality. Take the track 'Snow Globes' which starts with a chord sequence that sounds like a child practicing their scales. That simple sequence is then simply embellished with layers of different instruments a bit like a very simple bolero. I will listen more but......

Here is a bit of Back Door for anyone that fancies a bit of a rest.

You kinda hit the nail on the head for me there. These types of albums imho work best when they genuinely feel like they are the work of any one or more of these.
A tortured genius, unrestraining themselves. A group of talented guys just wanting to have fun, with no real ambition at stardom. Someone wanting to experiment or express themselves without any real aspirational purpose. Guys that totally missed their calling. Etc

But once they deviate from that and it starts to sound like an attempt at a professional record, it quickly risks sounding too either too clever or too pretentious, or overdone, and loses its charm. The trick to it is in the nonchalance.

That said this does have some excellent individual songs.

 

[Saddleworth2]

You kinda hit the nail on the head for me there. These types of albums imho work best when they genuinely feel like they are the work of any one or more of these.
A tortured genius, unrestraining themselves. A group of talented guys just wanting to have fun, with no real ambition at stardom. Someone wanting to experiment or express themselves without any real aspirational purpose. Guys that totally missed their calling. Etc

But once they deviate from that and it starts to sound like an attempt at a professional record, it quickly risks sounding too either too clever or too pretentious, or overdone, and loses its charm. The trick to it is in the nonchalance.

That said this does have some excellent individual songs.

which ones do you like?

 

[BlueHammer85]

 

[FogBlueInSanFran]

I’m going on a post-Thanksgiving jog in a bit to a little spot near my house called Dystopian Point, right on the San Francisco Bay, that looks out over San Quentin prison. This seems the ideal music to accompany me to such a place.

In case you’re wondering: roast turkey, cornbread/pasilla pepper stuffing, green beans, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and my wife’s homemade apple pie, plus a bottle of Carneros Pinot noir and a pre-meal Chardonnay. I am guessing about 5,000 calories :)