Trollheart

Title: The Grand Pecking Order
Artiste: Oysterhead
Genre: Psychedelia
Familiarity: Zero
Recommended by: TechnicLePanther

Expectations:Not the first clue. This is, or was, apparently, a so-called supergroup comprising members of Phish, Primus and The Police (not sure if the alliteration there was intentional or just incidental) and this was their only album. Hmm.

1. Little faces: Nice beat, kind of psychedelic with a weird, very quiet vocal. Not bad. Spacey. Man.
2. Oz is ever floating: More kind of hard rock/psych. Yeah it's okay.
3. Mr. Oysterhead: This is pretty funky. Great guitar solo.
4. Shadow of a man: Great guitar work continues into this track. Not crazy about the vocal, though the lyrical content is good. Actually, no, I'm getting into it now.
5. Radon balloon: This is a nice little low-key, almost folk track with a sort of Roger Waters feel to it.
6. Army's on ecstasy: The note of “let's just have a laugh” is wearing a little thin now to be honest. This is just silly, but then there's that rather sweet guitar. Hmm. Heads, tails, heads, tails.... give it an Orange.
7. Rubberneck lions: This is better. Kind of a Waitsy/Beefheart vocal then it trips along nicely with a nice sense of fun, while still being a good song. A tad overstretched for no reason though.
8. Polka dot rose: Yeah it's okay I guess. Meh.
9. Birthday boys: Back to the softer folky side of this band that I prefer. This is nice. Good vocal harmonies, acoustic guitar is really good. Strange little song, CSNY vibe about it.
10. Wield the spade: This is pretty weird. I kind of like it. Kind of.
11. Pseudo suicide: Good sense of seventies hard rock here, like the guitar runs.
12. The grand pecking order: Another very Waitsy style tune, kind of reminds me of “Underground” mixed with Genesis's similarly-titled “The Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging”. Pretty cool really.
13. Owner of the world: This has a kind of Bowie vibe to it. Decent rock. Not bad.

End result: It wasn't terrible. The somewhat jokey idea is a little annoying at times, as I said, but I wouldn't hate it. The music was decent enough. I certainly wouldn't be shouting about a new discovery though.

So, Love or Hate? Think it can have a Like.

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Trollheart

Title: Back to Black
Artiste: Amy Winehouse
Genre: Soul
Familiarity: Zero, though who hasn't heard of her?
Recommended by: Justthefacts

Expectations: Everyone loves this album and even the critics all agreed it was excellent. Me? I'll make up my own mind, thanks.

1. Rehab: Sounds very seventies motown certainly; don't like the sentiments expressed in the lyric, and considering her eventual fate maybe she should have listened when “They tried to make me go to rehab” but she said “no no no.”
2. You know I'm no good: This one's better. Got a nice rhythm to it.
3. Me and Mr. Jones: This is pure gospel, mixing in some elements of jazz and soul. Pretty good really.
4. Just friends: More in the soft soul mode now, with reggae kicking in, which kind of spoils it for me then.
5. Back to black: Yeah, this is excellent. A real motown sound with a very catchy hook and some pretty honest-sounding lyrical material. I have actually heard this, just didn't realise it was her.
6. Love is a losing game: Nice ballad, very soulful.
7. Tears dry on their own: Don't like the start, but then it develops something like a Supremes song. Nice. Percussion in the verses is annoying.
8. Wake up alone: Nice sort of fifties ballad.
9. Some unholy war: Another kind of balladic track.
10. He can only hold her: More upfront soul. Decent song but I'm not crazy about it.
11. Addicted: Yeah again it's okay but I'm not that impressed.

End result: I'm really not into this kind of music, and kind of don't see what all the fuss about her was when she was alive. But her talent as a musician can't be denied; it's just a tragedy, and a totally avoidable one, that she died so young. As I say, not music I generally go for, but for what it is, it is very good.

So, Love or Hate? Despite one Blue, I think the best I can give this is a Like.

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Trollheart

Title: Mister Asylum
Artiste: Highly Suspect
Genre: Alt-Rock
Familiarity: Zero
Recommended by: DwnWthVwls

Expectations: Not the first idea.

1. Mister Asylum: Straight into it anyway, with a big fuzzy guitar and a sort of lo-fi vocal, then it takes shape as a pounding rocker, very energetic. Like the way the guitar drives the song.
2. Lost: Faster rocker with a great boogie beat. Great ending.
3. Lydia: Kind of a grunge influence to this one. Kind of. The chorus certainly. The midsection and buildup from that is cool.
4. Bath salts: There's a great sense of desperation and even panic in this. The guitars bite and snap and the vocal is harrowing. Very powerful. The guitar riff is immense, and there's an excellent solo near the end.
5. 23: Just kind of keeps hammering you into submission, in a good way. These riffs would not be out of place on a metal album.
6. Mom: This starts very gently, and is the longest track on the album at almost five minutes. Oh, there it goes on another heavy riff. Mind you, now the riff is getting staggered, fragmented. Sort of boogeying along now. Seems to be a pretty bitter lyric, referring to a guy writing to the mother who abandoned him. Heavy. The riff is correspondingly angry and sharp.
7. Bloodfeather: Good pounding beat to this. Not a lot else though.
8. Fuck me up: Sort of punk energy, quite entertaining.
9. Vanity: Another one full of energy and some powerful riffs. Really good melody near the end there.
10. Claudeland: Exactly who is Claude, and why are we in his land? Good fast rocker to end anyway; superb solo. The slow blues ending is perfect.

End result: A fun album, chock-full of riffs and catchy tunes.

So, Love or Hate? Finally! One I can Love.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

TechnicLePanther

I don't know where you find the time.

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Many have tried to destroy it... but... true evil never dies. It is only... REBORN

SUGGEST ME AN ALBUM - I'm probably not going to listen to it but I will if you bother me enough.

YorkeDaddy

He takes care of his sister full time. Which obviously means a lot of opportunities to listen to an album

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9-Time Winner of MusicBanter's "Most Qualified to be a Moderator" Award

Trollheart

Not having a life helps.

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Trollheart

Title: You'd Prefer an Astronaut
Artiste: Hum
Genre: Alt-Rock/Shoegaze
Familiarity: Zero
Recommended by: bob

Expectations: I usually expect bob's recs to wow me. He hasn't done so well in recent times so here's hoping for a change in fortunes.

1. Little Dipper:Very powerful, almost post-rock opening before the vocal comes in, quite low and drawled, quite dreary if I'm honest. Music is good though.
2. Pod: Backwards masking? Hmm. Nice bassline. Song's a little raw for me. Yeah, not wild about this. Guitar bit at the end is good, but too late to change my mind at this point.
3. Stars: Seems this was a single, and more, a hit single. Do I know it? Of course not. Sounds nice though, very laidback ... until that guitar riff and now I think it's going to pick up ... oh. It didn't. Not yet anyway. Well, wait: kind of. Yeah, was not that impressed with that.
4. The suicide machine: Seems again to start laidback and low-key. Yeah this is nice. The sort of lazy, almost disinterested vocal works well here.
5. The very old man: This is very nice, even if I'm straining to hear the vocal at all. Really acoustic to the max.
6. Why I like the robins: Nice mixture of soft low-key and harder exploding guitar work here.
7. I'd like your hair long: Pleasant upbeat song, but I'm not gone on it to be honest. Give it an Orange.
8. I hate it too: Yeah, this is a decent rocker.
9. Songs of farewell and departure : Lovely little laidback closer.


End result: I can't say I was blown away, to be honest. Some good tracks, some not so good. Didn't really see anything that terribly different about this album, but I may have missed something. For now...

So, Love or Hate? I think a Like is the best I can do.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Plainview

If that's the case then that's pretty amazing and you should be very proud of yourself, Trollheart.

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Frownland

Imagine if The Batlord was just Trollheart's sister.

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Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

Trollheart

Title: Floral Shoppe
Artiste: Macintosh Plus
Genre: Experimental/Vaporwave
Familiarity: Ze-ro!
Recommended by: TechnicLePanther

Expectations: Expect weirdness! I see the track titles are all in some alien language, so I won't be transcribing those. If that doesn't suit, then you can all kiss my perfectly-formed backside.

1. : Nice sax and piano opening, but then there are samples flying in and out at all sorts of angles, something I absolutely hate. This is not a good start. Okay that was awful.
2. : Nice sort of cheerful synth but its really like some sort of seventies soul/pop song, until near the end where it gets all staggered and twisted up and warped. Still, for nearly six minutes it was listenable. Got to be worth an Orange of anyone's money.
3. : This however starts stuttering from the beginning, so we're Caretakering again, are we? Back to Red we go. Oh wait: might be settling dow ... no, back to the warped stuff. Sigh.
4. : This one on the other hand was alright. Soul/ Funk again but they left it alone.
5. : Big spacey keyboard; pretty good tune all told, and not freaky at all.
6. : Actually this is really gorgeous. Great guitar work. Please leave it alone and don't start chopping it up and messing with it!
7. : Back to the stupid repeating samples. This sounds like something Frownland would do. And there's six minutes of it. I think that earns it a Red. Actually as it goes along it gets better. Like that sax and it's settled down now. Changing to Green.
8. : Short but not bad.
9. : This one's pretty good too, kind of sense of Vangelis about it.
10. : I like the way this is constructed: the kind of almost industrial sounding synth and percussion, the vocoder-heavy vocal. Yeah, I like this.
11. : Yeah, was enjoying that till it just cut off abruptly at the end. Don't know whether that was ineptitude on the part of the uploader or if it's meant to do that. I'll still Green it though.

End result: I'm rally not sure what I just listened to. In the main, it was pretty good music, some of it quite excellent. At times I felt like I was listening to seventies soul, at others nineties electronica, and then the likes of James Blake and The Caretaker. Very odd. On the whole, though, I think I enjoyed it.

So, Love or Hate? I'll give this a Love.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018