Hold your breath and count to four - pinky swears don't count no more

Continuing my trip up #album-of-the-day...

20.04.14 : The Agony & The Ecstasy - High Contrast (2012)

And we're back into the land of the unknown album again - ah, a drum and bass variant this time which isn't usually my thing.  I like the odd track from time to time, but suspected a whole album would prove to be a bit too much for my sensitive ears.  And so it proved, unfortunately.  I quite liked some of the tracks, but it all kinda blurred into one bleepy Casio keyboard mess for me.  And some of it strayed dangerously close to "Everything Is Awesome" territory - which nobody needs a whole albums worth of.  The channel totally disagree with me and declare it to be merely "awesome" as opposed to "everything is awesome" - I remain to be convinced personally.

Wikipedia tells me that some random Welsh paper reviewed it and described it as "short and to the point" - I know I do bang on about album lengths, but it's 85 minutes long which is, by no commonly used definition, "short and to the point".  Having said that, although I did notice I was listening to it for quite some time, I didn't find it dragged (which is often a criticism I have of drum and bass at the best of times).  So maybe what I'm saying is I quite liked it, without realising I did - stranger things have been known!

"Customers also listened to" a load of people I've never heard of but I just suspect I won't be far wrong if I assume they're drum and bass dudes.  Overall, I don't think this was quite my thing, but the fact that I managed to cope with a whole 85 minutes of it means there must have been something there so, you never know, I may revisit at some point. 

20.04.15 : Roosevelt - Roosevelt (2012)

Yup - no idea about this one either.  However, the sound I made in my head after having seen the album cover was a good approximation - he makes the sort of music you'd imagine he would from just looking at him.  It's not going to set the world alight, but it's some perfectly pleasant 80s style synth-jangliness (that's a recognised genre, right?).  I can't see me bothering to revisit it, but I enjoyed the experience whilst I was there.  The channel's views ranged from "interesting" to "inoffensive" - I think you'd have to be a particular type of person to be actively offended by this.

Wikipedia has absolutely nothing to say about the album and very little to say about the man noting that "A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject" - has he been getting his Mum to write nice things on his Wiki page?  I'd have to say he hasn't chosen a particularly great stage name for SEO - there have been some slightly more famous Roosevelts out there over the past couple of centuries.  In fact, I think he does well to feature 7th in the Wikipedia search results - coming in just ahead of Roosevelt Island in Manhattan.

"Customers also listened to" Holy Ghost and Cut Copy (who I've amazed myself by having heard of) and a load of other people who are no doubt renowned for their contribution to synth-jangliness.  I didn't mind it at all, but I can't see any occasion where I'd play it again, I'm afraid.

20.04.16 : Billy Talent II - Billy Talent (2006)

Talking about judging albums by their cover, I knew perfectly well I wasn't going to like this album from just one look.  And when I saw the first track was called "Devil In A Midnight Mass", then you probably heard my eyes rolling in disbelief.  But - whilst it's not really my thing, I actually quite liked this.  It reminded me of the Gary Moore stuff that sixth-form me used to listen to (before he got the blues and I got old) - and it also brought My Chemical Romance to mind, which is another band I surprise myself by quite liking.  So I take back all the unpleasant things I thought about Billy and admit that, from time to time, I can be wrong (it's very rare though, obviously).   The channel pretty much agreed with me and it managed to draw one person in as well, which is the only change in personnel in this round.

Wikipedia amusingly states "The album has less anger and language than their previous self-titled album as they had mellowed out and matured as men and as a band" - I know this means I won't like the previous one as much, but I'm still tempted to check it out to see how angry they really were.  It also tells us that II got to #1 in Canada and Germany - two countries with an obvious overlap in their musical tastes.  I was however very disappointed to find out that the band doesn't feature one Mr William Talent amongst their ranks.

"Customers also listened to", to my complete unsurprise, a load of people I've never heard of before.  However, if you ever want to ruin your day before breakfast then you can do far worse than just look at the album cover of Hefty Fire by The Bloodhound Gang - I've included a link because I'm nice like that, but I suggest proceeding with caution (or maybe not proceeding at all).  I won't be slipping Billy Talent II on to the old turntable every day, but I can see it would hit the spot when in a particular kind of mood, so was pleased to be given the musical education of not judging a book by its cover (which I've obviously had a million times already and will continue to blithely ignore).

So, of the three albums here, Roosevelt is probably the one that's closest to my natural musical territory but it's also the one that I'm least likely to ever go back to.  And so, to my complete surprise, Billy Talent take the round.

20.04.07 - Some albums I've actually heard before!
20.04.17 - Another album I've actually heard!