Title: Brighter Now
Artiste: The Legendary Pink Dots
Genre: Experimental
Familiarity: Zero
Recommended by: bob
Expectations: Oh I really hate it when I see experimental! Never mind; it's one of bob's. He'd never rec something he expected me to hate. Would he?
1. Red castles: Sounds a bit like early progressive rock to me. Not mad about the vocal to be honest. Meh, revise that: don't like anything about this.
2. Louder after 6: And this is more like psychedelia, though it's better than the first track. Still not gone on it though. The sped-up bit at the end is very annoying.
3. The wedding: Could be on to something here? Nice piano but again I hate his almost Thomas Dolbyesque vocal. Just sounds really stupid.Green for the music though.
4. Apocalypse then: This is better too. From now on, all songs will be rated exclusive of the vocal, which I officially hate. Bassline here is cool. Synth is great too. Now I'm liking it less as it goes along. That seldom if ever happens, but it's happening here. Switching from Green to Orange. The ending sucks. This almost went White. Way, way, way too long.
5. Legacy: Now let us rip off the main melody for Bowie's “China girl” in the hope we can make this song good. Hey, it's working. I think he's writing Green. He is! All praise the TWD!* And Iggy.
6. City ghosts: God I really hate this one. It just grates on me, and it seems to go on forever. Oh, a belch at the end. How appropriate.
7. Hanging gardens: Sampler/vocoder is nice, again the bass rules and the overall synth/choral vocal is really good. Okay, again they've overstayed their welcome. Song is once more too long and the sampler is getting on my nerves now. Don't these guys know the saying “less is more”???? Even when it seems it should be over it's back for another two frigging minutes!! GAAAHHHH!!!!
Oh look: backwards masking. How original!
Did they just sing the whole ****ing TRACK backwards to extend this to six effing minutes??? Right: changing to Red. **** you.
8. Soma bath: I don't think I'm going to like anything here now. I've just had enough of these guys and they're not getting any more tolerance from me. Sod this. One more track to go.
9. Premonition 4: Dear God almighty! Starting off with the nursery rhyme “Ring around the roses”! Okay the mood after that gets pretty dark and ominous, give it that. Maybe it's linked to something like
The Shining, who knows? Maybe it'll be instrumental and save me that awful vocal. Think I'd be that lucky? Neither do I. You know, maybe I am. Why isn't the rest of the album like this? This is great. Too late though.
End result: Goddamn it bob! This was a cluster****! Awful album, awful band. Please do better next time. I don't expect this level of crap from you of all people.
So, Love or Hate? Well d'uh! A big, fat, sticky, smelly
Hate.
* Note: This was written before the passing of Bowie, otherwise I would never have invoked his name.