Sixty-six times underwater somersault

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts

18/02/22 : The Dream - Alt-J



Despite what Andris might think, I'm not running a request show here - but this came up in the #AOTD channel at work and I'd never hear the end of it if he found out someone else had made me listen to it and I hadn't written about it.  Anything for a quiet life, eh?

I liked An Awesome Wave (their debut album) when it came out (nearly ten years ago now) but when I revisited it as part of #AOTD, I found it a bit bland - which was pretty much the last thing I was expecting.  And I've heard that Relaxer, their previous album was, shall we say, "not good" so I wasn't exactly rushing into this with a huge amount of expectation - but let's see, shall we...

And well, hmmm.  There's a lot of stuff in here - some of which goes together nicely and some of which doesn't.  I certainly didn't find it dull, but I did get the impression it was all a bit messy - I didn't think that it hung together as an album because plenty of the tracks didn't really even hang together as tracks.  If I was to listen to it multiple times I'd either totally get into it or hate it with a passion - but it feels unlikely I'll be giving that a go.  It's all a bit odd really - I struggle to imagine it will get them any new fans but it feels like it would satisfy the core Alt-J fans out there.  I am intrigued as to what's going on on the cover though.  Other people in the #AOTD channel either loved it or found it a bit dull, but there was a general consensus that it was better than Relaxer (which I might be forced to listen to now just to see how bad it is).   

As previously mentioned this debuted at #3 this week - I struggle to imagine it will hang around for long, but we'll see. Wikipedia doesn't have an awful lot on the album yet but I did note that David Force plays bagpipes and crumhorn on the album.  And no, I had no idea what a crumhorn was - it's a double-reeded woodwind instrument from the Renaissance period, apparently.  The album has done pretty well commercially though - top 20 in quite a few countries although they haven't quite cracked the US yet with it currently at #110 (there's still time though!).

"Customers also listened to" Tame Impala, James Blake, FONTAINES DC and Bastille - a somewhat odd mix to say the least.  Personally, I struggle to see this appealing to anyone who's not already an Alt-J fan - there are some nice noises on there in places but it feels a bit too infuriating without putting a lot of effort in for most people.

18/02/22 - Not an immediate grab for me
25/02/22 - No thank you.

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