gotjuice

NumberNineDream was nice enough to send me Little Flecks Of Foam Around Barking, the second album by the late 80s/early 90s British group The Chrysanthemums.

Honestly, this is album is...it's interesting. Overall it's a humorous record, fairly light-hearted, poking fun via pop culture references (most of which I didn't understand ) as well as parodying the bombast and pretentiousness of some progressive rock albums. There are cheesy song titles and lyrics that make you laugh at their intentionally over-the-topness. Take the 28 second long track "The Hygrometer Song":

Diving in the ocean
I found an instrument
for measuring the moisture content of air.
It said 82% so there could be
somewhere moister than the ocean!
Ba ba ba ba!

And yet, even though the album is and succeeds as a parody of progressive rock (and all the glory of its flute solos), Little Flecks Of Foam is a damn well done album on its own merit. It is a double album, but it's anything but boring, as it ranges the gamut from acoustic guitar and gentle British vocals to noisy solos to tracks that wouldn't sound out of place on a Beatles album. The lyrics, as I sort of mentioned already, range from hygrometers to Joan Of Arc. Thus, even though the album initially might make you chuckle, eventually it has to be appreciated as a fine representative of the brand of music it seeks to poke fun at. Thus, why it's interesting (to me at least).

Overall, definitely worth a listen. Not sure honestly how often it would crack my listening rotation, but once again: I love this trading post because it forces me to listen to stuff I probably otherwise wouldn't, and that's always good. Thanks N9!

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