Title: Enter Humanity
Artiste: cloudcover
Genre: Indie rock/folk
Familiarity: I've heard
Frownland and some of YorkeDaddy's other material. Impressed by most of it.
Recommended by: um, YorkeDaddy
Expectations: It'll have to go a long way to beat or even equal
Frownland, but I'm hoping for a great album.
1. Bellinus bertaldo: Where the hell are all these weird titles coming from?
Anyway, nice folky acoustic with almost wooden drumming and harmonica. Kind of has a medieval minstrel feel to it. Harmonica is great, good backing vocals.
2. Abdi hasan awale qeybdiid: Nice bassline, seems to be about someone on the run. The special effects of weaponsfire is a little twee though. It's a little sparse if I'm honest and does not end well.
3. Effectiveness of Alcoholics Anonymous: There's that piano I like so much. Feel of ELO's “Mr. Blue Sky”. Good vocal harmonies.
4. Indiana Klan: Interesting instrumental. First real use of hard electric guitar. Nice sort of Russian folk melody, very soft, at the end.
5. Battle of Ghaghra: This is total seventies Eagles. Vocal sounds a little strained if I'm honest. Acoustic guitar is nice. Yeah, sorry YD but as it goes on the singer (that's Schuyler, isn't it?) seems to find it harder to reach the notes. Which is odd, as he's a good singer but he really seems to be struggling here. I think it's way too long as well.
6. Psephotous: Nice little song. Not a whole lot more I can say about it; doesn't make a huge impression on me.
7. Adam: Ooh! Love the church organ! Lovely piano then, soft ballad. Like this. Guitar coming in now. Best track so far.
8. Winberg Park: Now this sounds like the album is beginning to pick up at last. Oh but the vocal is so hollow! It's like he's singing at the back of a church or in a tunnel. I'm sure it's intended but it has a negative effect on my listening experience. Which is a pity cos the music is gorgeous. And it's over.
9. Bolodou: More slow church organ, nice. Thinking instrumental here? Some nice vibraphone or mirambas or something. Very stately, almost sepulchral.
10. Mary Fahl: Another acoustic folky tune. Not bad. Very short again.
11. Dario Maestripieri: No, not feeling this at all. Too clever for its own good, and I fear they're showing off their knowledge of this guy's research (on monkeys?), which sort of leaves anyone who doesn't know who he is scratching their head. Like me. Boo.
12. Bautzen Railway Station: Now this sounds beautiful. Big thick synth with a real eighties new-wave feel and techno percussion, lovely Spanish guitar and a sound like a train pulling out of the eponymous station. Excellent. But again, way too short. Could have enjoyed a lot more of that.
13. Luigi Galleani: Good hard rocker with a nice hook. Great solo there.
14. The monsters are on Maple Street: At least I recognise this title:
Twilight Zone episode, right? Somewhat disappointingly, it's yet another instrumental. A good one, but still, I had hoped to see a clever lyrical idea in this song. I don't feel the music matches the title at all; thought it would be much more threatening, doomy, oppressive, bleak.
15. Minister of the Interior: Nice melody; not mad about the vocal though. Another acoustic folky half-ballad with more than a little of The Beatles in it.
End result: I see this was released before
Frownland and it shows. Too much acoustic folk, too many instrumentals, and Schuyler seems still to be honing his voice. Amazing that only eight months later these guys would release something so much better. Overall, a rather large disappointment and if this had been the first I'd heard of cloudcover I would likely have written them off and not bothered with later releases.
So, Love or Hate? Sorry Yorky but I really have to give this a very weak
Like, and it just escape a Meh by the skin of its teeth. Expected so much more.