Marillion - Marillion.com
I got an actual Marillion album on CD now, so you could say I'm getting serious about giving this band a proper chance. Why this album? Because it's the one I bumped into downtown.
So far, I really like the first three tracks on the album. After that, it's still good, but I'm not entirely sure what I feel about the album as a whole yet. I've only listened to the whole thing once. The singer is good, I like a lot of the sounds and how it sounds very 2000's, while also sounding quite 70's. There's just something about the recording quality and the artwork that is so the year 2000 that I would be in no doubt when it was from, even if it didn't say so on the back of the cover. The moodier version of this band seems to sit best with me. When they go dad rock, I'm less on board, but I do like this album so far. It's quite possible that I will get more albums with Marillion. Like any artist, I need some time to let them grow on me.
Favorite track off this disc: "Deserve".
Mor Karbasi - Daughter of the Spring
What a girly looking cover, but don't be fooled. This is quite an interesting album that takes us through a variety of singer songwriter, fado and middle eastern styled tunes. Mor Karbasi has quite a voice and she is very good at microtonal melismatic singing. I'm not usually a fan of middle eastern music and vocal styling. A lot of it sort of sounds the same to me. Like it's nearly the same melodies over and over. Mor Karbasi finds ways to keep me interested and there's this strong emotional component to her singing on this album. I need to give it more time before I know just how good it is, but my first complete listen of this album left me quite impressed. I learned about this artist in the world music magazine Froots and I've got a long list of artists from there that I still need to check out. I'm expecting to find several more worthwhile artists from this, but we will see.