I did caveat my comment with a ;) and it was a little tongue in cheek, and in no way aimed at any one particular poster.I have never used, and will never use, AI for a review. I do spend time on Wikipedia learning about the band and if there are interviews with the artist, I will try to read a few.
It depends on what you ask it.And as we know, therein lies the challenge with most LLMs, especially for this type of stuff. They're designed (unless explicitly told not to) to be agreeable to maximise engagement and favour meeting user expectations and biases rather than accuracy.
It's just told me I've got excellent taste when it comes to the public sculptures of the Black Country, I'm sufficiently happy about that that I almost didn't notice that it got completely mixed up between the BCNR and the Black Country Route :-)
Now it sometimes does get things spot, an obvious case in point being my excellent taste; but other times it hallucinates woefully, eg when it tells all the posters who've so far slagged this pick off that they have excellent taste too :-)
AI is a decent research tool as is Wiki, Album reviews and other on line resources. All are valid enough but only you know how you feel about any particular music. If output from any one of the above matches your opinion then to me its fair play to use it. Its brilliant to read fantastically crafted output on here from super smart posters but not everyone has that as a core skill and sometimes a little help goes a long way.I have never used, and will never use, AI for a review. I do spend time on Wikipedia learning about the band and if there are interviews with the artist, I will try to read a few.
I really try hard not to read “professional” reviews of records, though in many cases on older ones, I already have. In this week’s case I did actually read one though as this has been so acclaimed but I didn’t find I agreed with all of it though I did some of it.AI is a decent research tool as is Wiki, Album reviews and other on line resources. All are valid enough but only you know how you feel about any particular music. If output from any one of the above matches your opinion then to me its fair play to use it. Its brilliant to read fantastically crafted output on here from super smart posters but not everyone has that as a core skill and sometimes a little help goes a long way.
I found it simple but then I am as deep as a small puddle. I didn't like it at all.I really try hard not to read “professional” reviews of records, though in many cases on older ones, I already have. In this week’s case I did actually read one though as this has been so acclaimed but I didn’t find I agreed with all of it though I did some of it.
Have listened to this now six times which I think is the most for any one week since Big Star. I am now regretting that I recently wrote that great music should be challenging because this one has been very hard to pin down in terms of what I think. I both want to like it more than I do and hate it more than I do. Well done BC,NR for creating something so difficult to get one’s arms (or ears) around.
I did caveat my comment with a ;) and it was a little tongue in cheek, and in no way aimed at any one particular poster.
Deep down, I’m jealous of those with greater grasp of the English language than myself, which let’s face it, is basically everyone on here :)
I really try hard not to read “professional” reviews of records, though in many cases on older ones, I already have. In this week’s case I did actually read one though as this has been so acclaimed but I didn’t find I agreed with all of it though I did some of it.
Have listened to this now six times which I think is the most for any one week since Big Star. I am now regretting that I recently wrote that great music should be challenging because this one has been very hard to pin down in terms of what I think. I both want to like it more than I do and hate it more than I do. Well done BC,NR for creating something so difficult to get one’s arms (or ears) around.
Thanks ay itAu contraire, as part of the yam yam nation you have a fantastic linguistic heritage that should not be sniffed at and one that has proved more resilient than many other dialects.
I think so. I know I listened and didn't care for it; not sure I wrote on it.Did you review Tindersticks ‘Curtains’? it’s reminding me a lot of that album and how I felt.
I think so. I know I listened and didn't care for it; not sure I wrote on it.
But this one I did.
To wit . . . .
I thought the Tindersticks album was great. Very dramatic. I suppose the BC, NR album is dramatic, but it felt like a lot harder work with a much worse singer and less enjoyable music.Did you review Tindersticks ‘Curtains’? it’s reminding me a lot of that album and how I felt.
Top marks for listening to that six times through and trying to make sense of it.“The world is made for people who aren’t cursed with self-awareness.”
Annie Savoy, “Bull Durham”
First off, well done to @mrbelfry for bringing up a record that I’ve probably struggled more than any other to form an opinion about. I’ve seen Ant From Up There categoriz(s)ed as “baroque pop”. I dislike that term; it should be reserved for high school students playing AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” on xylophones. I prefer “chamber pop” better, though even that’s not perfect. I’m not sure it really matters anyhow, because before we get to the music, we have to talk about whether or not we believe Isaac Wood.
And I do. His depression seems very real, his descent into darkness not a pastiche. The fact that he quit the band due to "mental issues" four days before this record was released sprechgesangs volumes. Whether that was because he was afraid of what the reaction to this record might be, or a fear of dragging down the rest of the band with him, or a chemical imbalance combined with some horribly negative experiences, I don’t know. I don’t think it's for artistic effect, and I don’t think it’s self-pity. That’s why I included one of my favo(u)rite movie quotes above — he knows himself all too well to continue on his current course (which, I presume, would have been re-creating his nightmares in concert).
In this way he is very different than two other anti-hero behemoths, Thom Yorke and Kurt Cobain. Both remain absolutely revered, and enormously popular, and have/had far less self-awareness than Isaac Wood. Yorke is a fraud, his misanthropy calculated for maximum impact on his audience while he rides around in limos and moans about how tough life is as a rich rock star. But his inability to see his own laughable, ludicrous hypocrisy is a blind spot. Cobain is the opposite end. His popularity, being tagged as “the voice of a generation” in his mid-20s was too big a load to bear, and never what he wanted, especially dealing with own twin demons of serious gastrointestinal issues and a heroin addiction. He couldn’t be himself because he belonged to everyone else. So he took what he saw as his only way out. This is also a tragic example of a lack of self-awareness that makes one sad rather than angry (as I am about Yorke) as times always change, new voices come, the options to step away from the spotlight are infinite — choosing a shotgun is only one (and the most drastic one).
The world is made for a Yorke and a Cobain . . . not an Isaac Wood.
What I found in him is a lack of affectation. In that way I find Wood like a colossally-depressed version of James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem. Rather than “Dance Yrself Clean”, his motto is “Quit Yrself Clean”. The little references to Billie Eilish and Charlie XCX and the Adkins diet and the genius daughters in France are all Murphy-esque; the build-ups and instrumental layering; the symphonic ambitions mixed with cacophony — as much as BC,NR owes to Steve Reich (and Philip Glass) — which is a lot — they owe as much to the crew that wrote and played “Daft Punk Is Playing At My House” and “North American Scum”. You just can’t dance to ‘em (actually, yes you can — see below) and they aren’t as funny, but that’s on Wood’s inner turmoil.
Of course, Isaac Wood is gone now, and I agree with folks who say this band probably should have pulled a Joy Division/New Order move and changed their name when he departed (without having heard any new stuff admittedly). Does the cacophony, density and dissonance have a point to make? I’m not really sure. It’s missing something even with Wood, and what I think it’s missing is visuals. I was completely unsurprised to read the band members talking about scoring a film. While listening to this, I thought it would have made a great ballet score. Part of this is because hands down my favo(u)rite ballet is Jerome Robbins’ “Glass Pieces” which takes a variety of Philip Glass music as its score. And, hell, “Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming” is based on M83’s music, and that guy from Winger even wrote music for a ballet. I listened to this several times and kept seeing Yuan-Yuan Tan and Tiit Helimets in a pas-de-deux.
Sorry, I’m really getting specific here to my hometown experiences. Moving on . . .
Aurally, the first two-thirds of the record has a lot of surprises, like the interrupting drum on "Bread Song”, or the simplicity of the synth of “Good Will Hunting”, and these are full-fledged actual songs, whether I find the instrument selection too odd or the tempo changes too abrupt. The Concorde metaphor also rang a chord with me, being a finance guy with a love of aviation, and I actually spent a bit of time reading about how psychologists have used the sunk cost fallacy to describe we people stay in otherwise harmful relationships. That in turn makes me wonder how much of Isaac Wood’s noodling is about his presence in the band and the difficulty in letting go (it was easier for Peter Gabriel mentally, I guess).
The hard part, as nearly everyone else has mentioned, is the last three songs, which spiral down into a nearly-endless swamp of musical Gordian knots that neither the band nor — especially — Isaac Wood seems able to disentangle themselves from. I kind of wonder if that isn’t the point of them, but that doesn’t make them any easier to listen to, though his plaintive cries to the weather god that “snow globes don’t shake on their own” I found quite moving and cringeworthy at the same time. “Too long” yes, but real misery and depression are too long too, and an hour can feel like a day.
In the end, this wasn’t so much I record I enjoyed as one I both felt and endured in equal measure. Like others, I am impressed at the scope and the landscape of the ambition. Unlike others, Isaac Wood absolutely makes this record what it is, and I didn’t find him anything other than additive. That said, this is incomplete as performance art without visuals is, and for an old-fashioned good time, this simply isn’t one and isn’t supposed to be one. In the end, the best comparison is probably Throbbing Gristle, though their innate horrible weirdness is nothing like this.
Whew.
7/10 and an absolutely brilliant pick for making me work so hard. I may sideline myself next week if I have to use my brain at all.
Science Fair isn't even on this album so AI fail :(
Crescendo Core is good though.
I would be interested to see if those that have taken a dislike to the album might prefer their last album Forever Howlong. that doesn't have any of Isaac Wood on it but does feature a bunch of recorders
AI is a decent research tool as is Wiki, Album reviews and other on line resources. All are valid enough but only you know how you feel about any particular music. If output from any one of the above matches your opinion then to me its fair play to use it. Its brilliant to read fantastically crafted output on here from super smart posters but not everyone has that as a core skill and sometimes a little help goes a long way.
Loving reading the reviews of this album. Whilst I'm disappointed so far that no one has loved it as much as I do the responses so far have been thoughtful and considered. I will pick something simpler next time but expecting it to be universally disliked unless there are members of the thread that wear a fedora unironically“The world is made for people who aren’t cursed with self-awareness.”
Annie Savoy, “Bull Durham”
First off, well done to @mrbelfry for bringing up a record that I’ve probably struggled more than any other to form an opinion about. I’ve seen Ant From Up There categoriz(s)ed as “baroque pop”. I dislike that term; it should be reserved for high school students playing AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” on xylophones. I prefer “chamber pop” better, though even that’s not perfect. I’m not sure it really matters anyhow, because before we get to the music, we have to talk about whether or not we believe Isaac Wood.
And I do. His depression seems very real, his descent into darkness not a pastiche. The fact that he quit the band due to "mental issues" four days before this record was released sprechgesangs volumes. Whether that was because he was afraid of what the reaction to this record might be, or a fear of dragging down the rest of the band with him, or a chemical imbalance combined with some horribly negative experiences, I don’t know. I don’t think it's for artistic effect, and I don’t think it’s self-pity. That’s why I included one of my favo(u)rite movie quotes above — he knows himself all too well to continue on his current course (which, I presume, would have been re-creating his nightmares in concert).
In this way he is very different than two other anti-hero behemoths, Thom Yorke and Kurt Cobain. Both remain absolutely revered, and enormously popular, and have/had far less self-awareness than Isaac Wood. Yorke is a fraud, his misanthropy calculated for maximum impact on his audience while he rides around in limos and moans about how tough life is as a rich rock star. But his inability to see his own laughable, ludicrous hypocrisy is a blind spot. Cobain is the opposite end. His popularity, being tagged as “the voice of a generation” in his mid-20s was too big a load to bear, and never what he wanted, especially dealing with own twin demons of serious gastrointestinal issues and a heroin addiction. He couldn’t be himself because he belonged to everyone else. So he took what he saw as his only way out. This is also a tragic example of a lack of self-awareness that makes one sad rather than angry (as I am about Yorke) as times always change, new voices come, the options to step away from the spotlight are infinite — choosing a shotgun is only one (and the most drastic one).
The world is made for a Yorke and a Cobain . . . not an Isaac Wood.
What I found in him is a lack of affectation. In that way I find Wood like a colossally-depressed version of James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem. Rather than “Dance Yrself Clean”, his motto is “Quit Yrself Clean”. The little references to Billie Eilish and Charlie XCX and the Adkins diet and the genius daughters in France are all Murphy-esque; the build-ups and instrumental layering; the symphonic ambitions mixed with cacophony — as much as BC,NR owes to Steve Reich (and Philip Glass) — which is a lot — they owe as much to the crew that wrote and played “Daft Punk Is Playing At My House” and “North American Scum”. You just can’t dance to ‘em (actually, yes you can — see below) and they aren’t as funny, but that’s on Wood’s inner turmoil.
Of course, Isaac Wood is gone now, and I agree with folks who say this band probably should have pulled a Joy Division/New Order move and changed their name when he departed (without having heard any new stuff admittedly). Does the cacophony, density and dissonance have a point to make? I’m not really sure. It’s missing something even with Wood, and what I think it’s missing is visuals. I was completely unsurprised to read the band members talking about scoring a film. While listening to this, I thought it would have made a great ballet score. Part of this is because hands down my favo(u)rite ballet is Jerome Robbins’ “Glass Pieces” which takes a variety of Philip Glass music as its score. And, hell, “Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming” is based on M83’s music, and that guy from Winger even wrote music for a ballet. I listened to this several times and kept seeing Yuan-Yuan Tan and Tiit Helimets in a pas-de-deux.
Sorry, I’m really getting specific here to my hometown experiences. Moving on . . .
Aurally, the first two-thirds of the record has a lot of surprises, like the interrupting drum on "Bread Song”, or the simplicity of the synth of “Good Will Hunting”, and these are full-fledged actual songs, whether I find the instrument selection too odd or the tempo changes too abrupt. The Concorde metaphor also rang a chord with me, being a finance guy with a love of aviation, and I actually spent a bit of time reading about how psychologists have used the sunk cost fallacy to describe we people stay in otherwise harmful relationships. That in turn makes me wonder how much of Isaac Wood’s noodling is about his presence in the band and the difficulty in letting go (it was easier for Peter Gabriel mentally, I guess).
The hard part, as nearly everyone else has mentioned, is the last three songs, which spiral down into a nearly-endless swamp of musical Gordian knots that neither the band nor — especially — Isaac Wood seem able to disentangle themselves from. I kind of wonder if that isn’t the point of them, but that doesn’t make them any easier to listen to, though his plaintive cries to the weather god that “snow globes don’t shake on their own” I found quite moving and cringeworthy at the same time. “Too long” yes, but real misery and depression are too long too, and an hour can feel like a day.
In the end, this wasn’t so much I record I enjoyed as one I both felt and endured in equal measure. Like others, I am impressed at the scope and the landscape of the ambition. Unlike others, Isaac Wood absolutely makes this record what it is, and I didn’t find him anything other than additive. That said, this is incomplete as performance art without visuals is, and for an old-fashioned good time, this simply isn’t one and isn’t supposed to be one. In the end, the best comparison is probably Throbbing Gristle, though their innate horrible weirdness is nothing like this.
Whew.
7/10 and an absolutely brilliant pick for making me work so hard. I may sideline myself next week if I have to use my brain at all.
I hope not, because complexity is fun to analyis(yz)e — it just takes a lot of work. TBH it is a hard record to “love” if one’s disposition is generally sunny, or angry. It’s like Munch’s paintings of people on their deathbeds, or Jude The Obscure — you can be impressed, wowed, moved or made to feel deeply, but masterpieces are more often uplifting than helplessly trapped in quicksand as I gave them at any rate. Put it this way, though: I will listen to it again. The complexity is a charm IMO.Loving reading the reviews of this album. Whilst I'm disappointed so far that no one has loved it as much as I do the responses so far have been thoughtful and considered. I will pick something simpler next time but expecting it to be universally disliked unless there are members of the thread that wear a fedora unironically
I think it's obviously a me album. Pretentious and annoying is on brandCorrect, it was just this past May 2025 here in the history when this was done as the end of round sports theme.
I remembered it once I heard it on the first play again this week, and I even correctly guessed that I had attributed this track to Coatigan before I looked it up:
“Basketball Shoes” - Black Country, New Road = Coatigan
It was one of the 8/15 I got incorrect, and just to show that I had no idea what mrb was up to even back then, I put him down for my selected track out of "I have no idea".
It gets some stuff wrong which is why its important to cross check (like Wiki). If you are specific in questions it normally gives you accurate answers in my experience.It is a terrible research tool. So regularly gets things completely wrong, and is all about the format and presentation (which is its strongest aspect). And people way too readily take it as gospel. And now it is the first result a search spits out too whether you like it or not. It is a huge backwards step for the internet and internet based fact finding.
I may be late to the party (still evening here), but I did sneak in a listen today.