A spasm of good sense is making my eye twitch
Continuing my trip up #album-of-the-day...
20.11.05 : Rise - Skillet (2013)
I decided Skillet were either going to be a pleasing ambient/indie trio or something less pleasingly heavy. Well, I was right on one of those counts. If I felt like being fair, I'd say it's not all that unpleasing but I'd suggest that calling the second track "Sick Of It" was somewhat trying their luck (and then they go for "American Noise" later - they're basically doing my work for me here!). Let's just say I'm not enough of a fan of their genre to appreciate the subtle differences between the various tracks and artists - which sounds nicer than saying "it all sounds the bleeding same". And 61 minutes of it was not what I needed, I'm afraid - but I'm happy to admit all of this is entirely my problem and we can all just move on. I did quite like the album cover though, even if I struggled to understand its relevance to anything.
The channel gave this one thumbs up and one "nice" but no comments at all. Wikipedia doesn't have an awful lot to say about the album except in the critical reception section, which is surprisingly full, Everyone agrees this is a better album than there previous album (which sounded like it disappointed a lot of people) but the reviews are mixed on this one. And obviously, it's the negative comments that are the most amusing - "pure exploitation, milking today’s headlines as crassly as their sound does radio’s most cynical demands" and "unfortunately, for many others, they will be left wanting; and honestly they will be vindicated in their thought".
"Customers also listened to" Fight The Fury, Thousand Foot Krutch and Nine Lashes - probably children's entertainers the lot of them. And I still won't appreciate the subtle differences between them - sorry guys!
20.11.06 : Puzzle - Biffy Clyro (2007)
Whilst not being the biggest Biffy fan in the world, I find their stuff mostly tolerable and was interested to see if I thought it stood out from the previous album for me, because they're not a million miles away. And yeah, I think they did - for me there's slightly more variation, I think the Scottish accents make it more palatable and it was a much more reasonable length at a mere 57 minutes (but maybe I'm being slightly unfair on Skillet here). I'd also say there's little danger of me sitting down and listening to this album again, but I do find that if the odd Biffy track pops up in my life then I don't go out of my way to avoid it. And seriously, what more could they want from me?!?
The channel gave this six thumbs up and one "Mon the Biff" comment. Wikipedia tells me the songs on this album are considerably more straightforward than their previous efforts and they strongly influenced by Sunny Day Real Estate and Red House Painters - I, for one, will take their word for it. It was well received both critically and commercially, reaching #2 in the UK charts (kept off the top by Rihanna's Good Girl Gone Bad). Apparently it also reached #39 in the overall world chart, which somewhat surprised me because I wasn't even aware this was a thing.
"Customers also listened to" some people I've actually heard of (amazingly) - Idlewild, Fatherson and Feeder. But whilst this isn't really my thing, I also didn't mind it.
20.11.09 : We Were Born In A Flame - Sam Roberts Band (2003)
Never heard of him/them, but I had a sneaking suspicion we were going to be in the same ballpark as the previous two albums - there's nothing like variety to spice your life up, is there? However, as soon as we started the album it was obvious we were thankfully in a different space. Country/folk/rock-ish - it's not something I'd obviously go for, but I didn't mind it. It was quite hummable-along-to - it's hard to tell on one listen whether it would be a grower or just all blend together though. Some of it veered dangerously close to Paul McCartney solo cheese, which didn't endear it to me, but it never lasted quite long enough for me to get too annoyed (but it was close!). I did like the tree on the album cover though - it's a very fine tree indeed.
The channel gave this three thumbs up and had a good laugh at the other Sam Roberts' expense. Wikipedia has more sentences than I expected on the album, but it feels like every one of them just says "you know what? Canada just loves shit like this!".
"Customers also listened to" The Sheepdogs, Wintersleep and Yukon Blonde - could those guys sound any more Canadian if they tried? Again, this isn't really my thing, but I didn't mind it.
Not the best round for me - I probably found Sam the closest to my musical tastes, but I'm not sure I can forgive him sounding like Macca at times and part of me wants to vote for the local(ish) crowd. So let's go for an honourable tie - we haven't had one of them for a bit! Biffy get the lyrics though because nothing beats a good bit of angst as the blog title.
Comments
Post a Comment