What ignorance is cannot be argued over anymore
Continuing my trip up #album-of-the-day...
20.07.17 : Trust In The Lifeforce Of The Deep Mystery - The Comet Is Coming (2019)
Never heard of the band or the album - but from the band name I was going to be amazed if it wasn't some kind of ambient electro-noise or some dreadful hippy nonsense. And obviously I was hoping for the ambient electo-noise. And it is, but it's kinda jazzy ambient electro-noise - which would generally send me running off screaming in the opposite direction. But, actually, I quite liked it - what is going on? Some of it did get a bit too much for me, but overall it was a far more bearable listening experience than I was expecting.
The channel showed a lot of love for this - a few "i've never have listened to this normally, but yeah it's good" comments. Wikipedia has the following extensive entry on the album "Trust in the Lifeforce of the Deep Mystery is the second studio album by English band The Comet Is Coming. It was released on 15 March 2019 under Impulse! Records". Wikipedia also tells me the band is made up of three guys - King Shabaka, Danalogue and Betamax - and I'm not entirely convinced those are their real names.
"Customers also listened to", it will not surprise you to hear, a load of people I've never heard of - I can't say I'll be checking any of them out or even rushing back to this album, but it was much better than I was expecting to.
20.07.20 : Alopecia - WHY? (2008)
"WHY?" indeed would you name an album Alopecia? Another one I was coming to blind - I was assuming it would something pretty heavy from the band and album name. And, well, I was pretty wrong there, I can tell you. It's kinda odd - Wikipeda describes it as "indie pop" and I can see where they're going with that, but there's a higher degree of quirk here than that suggests to me. I'd maybe say it's a combination of The National and They Might Be Giants? I didn't mind it, but then again I didn't particularly like it either. And I still don't see why you'd call an album Alopecia.
The channel was quietly positive on this and particularly praised the lyrics - and I think albums with good lyrics are something that's been somewhat lacking on this list so far, but I can't say they jumped out at me as being particularly good - I'll accept they were quirky and sometimes a bit juvenile, but I didn't get "good" from them. Wikipedia has slightly more on this album than on the previous one - stretching to 5 sentences as opposed to 2. It also tells me it got to #28 in the US Heatseekers Album chart, which obviously got me intrigued because I'd not got the faintest idea what that was - and basically it's a chart for people who haven't had a "proper" hit yet. And, amusingly, some outfit called The Tragically Hip have had 10 albums in the Heatseekers chart without even once making it big, which strikes me as nominative determinism at its finest.
"Customers also listened to" another load of people I've never heard of - and again I'm not going to be investigating them. I think there might have been a time I'd have gone for this and I might get into it given time, but on first listen it just didn't grab me, I'm afraid.
20.07.21 : To The Bone - Steven Wilson (2017)
And a third one I approach in ignorance - people with normal names tend to be either singer-songwriters or guitar maestros, and I was guessing the latter for Mr Wilson. And, well, I was wrong - but it kinda reminded me of the type of albums guitar maestros put out, but without being overly guitar-y, so maybe it's just maestro-y. Wikipedia tells me it's "progressive pop" - and I, for one, am not going to argue with them. I didn't mind it, but it didn't overly grab me on first listen - I can imagine that I could get into it if I gave it the time, but when do I have the time to give anything the time these days? I'd have to say I'm not 100% convinced by the album cover though.
The channel liked this and particularly recommended Porcupine Tree if this is your sort of thing. Wikipedia tells me I really should have heard of Steven Wilson before because he's been around for ages (he's even older than ME!) and that this album got to #3 in the UK charts (and #58 in the US charts, which seems like a decent effort by the lad). The critics generally liked it, except for the guy from Progressive Music Planet (which is mostly definitely not a place I'd like to live) who said "a poorly written, poorly arranged, disjointed collection of substandard songs. It's not prog but that's not why I don't like it". Somebody was having a bad day, weren't they?
"Customers also listened to" - yeah, you guessed it, although I suspect most of the bands listed featured one Mr Steven Wilson on them somewhere. I would say that whilst I'm not rushing to revisit this, I am intrigued by his output and how I've managed to miss him all these years.
Definitely not WHY?, but it's a toss up between the other two - although I feel like Steven Wilson's offering is more my cup ot tea, I'm going with The Comet Is Coming because I enjoyed it a lot more than I was expecting.
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