bannister

This would be my first time doing this, but count me in too.

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You're not punk, and I'm telling everyone.

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last.fm

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"Give a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day.

But, set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life."

- Terry Pratchett

Bulldog

Noted

Making it...

AbominableHoman
Bannister
BoardsOfCanada
Bob
Bulldog
CanWllCorfe
Dankrsta
James
JTWilliams
NumberNineDream
OctaneHugo
Rezz
Zarko

Making it 5 pair-ups and 1 three-way swap.

I'll do all the matchings up a bit later...

OctaneHugo

I know next to nothing about electronic music. Sure, I can pick out the influences in other music and recognize what it sounds like, but I don't differentiate between trance or techno. Thus, Duga sent me Infected Mushroom's Vicious Delicious, claiming it "has a ton of rock influence, so it is an easy transition." Wikipedia labels this as psychedelic trance (duga used this term as well), trip-hop and industrial (so, at least I know a little about one of those genres). Let's go.

"Becoming Insane" starts off the album with some crazy guitar that sounds pretty cool. Then it goes straight into electronic mode with a robotic voice and a total electronic beat. The voice was annoying but some cool stuff starts going on around that guitar. At this point it devolves into a clash between some dance elements and the electronic stuff going on. Then some Spanish (I guess) vocals start going down, starting off filtered and progressing to a "standard" style. These were pretty good and went over the beat prett nicely. Then they got more high pitched again which took an adjustment, but still fit well. This album was described to me as something that had elements of rock in it, and this is where you hear it. It takes the arrangements of rock music and just crams in the electronic. Then a guitar started that I wasn't all that fond of - didn't like the tone of it. Didn't fit. Goes back to full-on electronic mode with some dude shouting "INSANE INSANE INSANE" over it. Not bad but definitely not as good as earlier in the song. It closes out with that sweet guitar from earlier, which is much appreciated. Overall the song alternates on quality for me, though I can't say how good or bad it is at any one point in time.
"Artillery" follows up with an electronically drenched hip-hop beat and a guitar I'm still not quite sure of. Then some guy starts rapping, and he's decent, but the beat is kind of boring. A cool filtered guitar (it sounds like) kicks in and that's all well-and-good, but I think me and Mr. Bad Hype Man are going to have a problem (WHAT! WHAT! WHAT!). Then the guitar kicks in after some terrible whispering and then I start reconsidering listening to this song at all. What an awful event at 1:55, truly tragic. I hear his mother passed out when she heard the news. I stomach the next 30 seconds and wait for something good to happen, and the by-comparison-amazing rapper comes back, but the beat still isn't listening to me. That goddamn guitar. Stop it. Some more whispering and then it's Return of the Spanish Guy. Then the truly sh‎ty portion kicks in again and I had to turn it off.
"Heavyweight" opens sinisterly (though not without some mood-ruining tape recorder sounds!) and then kicks in with the electronic. Then a dying cat with a piece of food caught in it's throat starts wailing and I made a "What the fu‎‎ck is this sh‎‎it?" face. Straight up, hand to what god you pray to. Then it got less bad but was still boring and the FU‎CKING GUITAR I DON'T LIKE IT. Sort of faded into the background here, to be honest. This is always what electronic music has done to me. I gave up on "Heavyweight" and skipped the next 5 minutes of the song in the hopes that my interest could be held.
"In Front of Me" opens with a neat beat and is then promptly ruined by the vocals. Blegh. At this point I suddenly felt like playing Torchlight since I never finished it, but no, stop that. You're listening to music (possible. HAWHAW!). Around the 1:11 mark it started getting worse so I skipped it again.
"Special Place" has a good opening beat (notice a theme here?) and then bad vocals. They stop quickly, though, so I'm free to enjoy the fu‎ck out of this beat which is pretty decent. It soon degrades, though, but it's still the best part of the song. Some energetic stuff going down here. This goes on for a while and then they start singing again and I'm eeeeehhhhhhhhhh. I took one for the team and let the song finish. The goddamn vocals, man. The goddamn vocals.
"Suliman" opens with a clipping beat and then some dou‎chebag starts singing "Scooby dabba doo" over it or some sh‎it. Can you tell I'm fed up with the album yet? I'm indifferent to this entire bloody genre, and this album is no exception. The 4:15 mark was kind of neat, with a nice guitar.

And this is where I stopped. Why? Because this has helped me come to the conclusion that I've been floating around in my head for a while. I can listen to individual electronic songs and think they're good or bad, but any more than that and I can't do it. Who knows why? I'll listen to the rest of these songs individually sometime and see what happens, yeh? I'd like to thank duga for helping me finally get a concrete opinion on electronic stuff in my mind. I don't hate this album, I just don't care about it.


10/15/10: In retrospect this review's entirely ignorant. While I still don't enjoy this album or electronic music really at all, it implies that I've stopped trying to find good electronic - I haven't. I'm not sure what state of mind I was in when writing this, but I don't like it. Let you, reader, know that I will never write off an entire genre, though I'll most definitely have pre-conceived notions of what to expect (perhaps that's what I was trying to state here).

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duga

My bad, I completely missed this.

Wow, man...you tore this album UP. I really didn't see that coming...this is seriously the one electronic artist that both my electronic loving friends and rock loving friends can agree is good. You must really not like electronic music. What is it about it? Does it just get to overwhelming for you? From the sound of it you like to have consistency in your music as well as familiarity. If you have never gotten into electronic music the familiarity is gone, but I can recommend you things that are a bit more even...that is, if you still want to try to get into electronic music.

One thing I've noticed about different genres of music is that each one requires its own unique approach, and each person has a different approach to each one. It's all about finding that "click" in the music and once that happens, you will probably be loving it. That's why I stick to genres I am not familiar with at all...I know at some point I'll just "get it".

Anyway, thanks for trying to put up with the album. Apologies for sending you something so horrendous to your ears.

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Confusion will be my epitaph...

Bulldog

Well, as I say, from this evening to Thursday I'll be on a beach drinking copious amounts of boozahol, so let's say Friday's the realistic start date for this next one

Still not sure about a theme by the way. Ii'm leaning towards not doing one at all, but feel free to throw some ideas around while I'm gone.

jtwilliams

That sounds like one hell of a time! How bout a relaxing, throwin' a few (or more) back and enjoyin' the music theme? In light of your trip Cheers! Have one for me

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OctaneHugo

I wouldn't consider myself a person who needs consistency or familiarity, definitely not. I just can't get into electronic music. Stuff that has electronic elements, yes, but when something builds itself off of that sound I just can't get myself into it. Like I said, I can listen to one song or something and maybe enjoy it but any time I've tried to listen to an album I fail to finish it. It fades into the background, or is terrible.

I'll definitely keep an open mind but at this stage of my life it seems like electronic music has gotten all the chances it will.

Oh, no apology necessary. I now I chewed it up at the end but that is, by far, not the worst thing I've ever listened to.

Uh, when a band releases it and says it's an EP?

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OctaneHugo

An album recorded in 1974 that was only released in 2009, supposedly classified as proto-punk? Let's do it.
"Keep on Knocking" opens with a surprisingly upbeat guitar riff. I was expecting something more like Suicide, especially from a name like Death, but I got something pretty energetic. Then there's a guitar solo that screams 70's and the song continues. This one's incredibly energetic and doesn't wait for anyone. Pretty good song. Vocals are nothing special but fit well. Enjoyable.

"Rock-N-Roll Victim" opens with more fast paced music, this time with clapping, and some echoey crazy person vocals. Once again, they fit very well with the song, and there's a kickin' riff. Like the opener it's repetitive, but it should be repetetive, and it works very well.

"Let the World Turn" starts with some quiet, echotar and some softer vocals than the rest. Sounds like the guy's doing a bad Roger Waters impression. Doesn't mean the vocals are bad, though. They fit in with what the guitar's doing, and they're pretty good overall. About 30% of the way through it kicks into overdrive like the rest and has another good solo and more fast singing. There's a cool drum solo that leads back into some quiet guitar. It ends fast with some more singing.

"You're a Prisoner" returns to the fast paced tone the first couple of songs took on and has some awesome echoey vocals in the chorus that do a sweet callback section with the guitars that leads into a solo. More good riffs on this one as well. Another good song.

"Freakin Out" opens with a scream of "DEATH" and then some quick guitar thrashes and cymbal crashes that lead to yet another great riff and more awesome vocals. The lyrics here are really, really well done, and the chorus is going to be stuck in my head for days, along with all these riffs I'm listening to.

"Where Do We Go From Here???" takes the opening guitar from "Let the World Turn" and makes it less echoey and much louder, takes some aggressive vocals and tosses them together that leads to some more great riffing and a chorus that fits well but has some potential to be annoying. It follows a very similar structure to "Let the World Turn" in that there's breaks in between the riffing sections, filled by the guitar chords. The vocals - besides the aforementioned slightly annoying chorus - are again very well done, and very catchy. Another outro of guitar noise finishes this one out.

"Politicians in My Eyes" opens with some good riffing, takes a small, break then goes into some quick drumming that helps along a stuttering guitar crash and some really, really awesome vocals that sound a lot like H.R jamming along, especially since it's about politics. I guess. There's some tremendous yelling at the end of this that fits in perfectly with the noisy riff and drumming. It gets a little "Interstellar Overdrive" at the end when the sound starts switching sides, and it really, really works. What a great outro. About 2 and a half minutes of some great noise that shifts from your average guitar to a Death From Above 1979-esque sound and back to guitar again.

And just like that, it was over. It ended perfectly, but that doesn't change my disappointment that I'll never get to hear any new Death material, especially since the singer perished to cancer in 2000.

I loved this. And while I don't think I did a particularly good job of displaying my enjoyment here, this is a hell of a record. I highly recommend it. To anyone. It makes me wish they wouldn't have been so stubborn and just changed their bloody name and released their music, because this is downright amazing.

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Antonio

well i'm glad that you liked it, and i agree, it's a real shame that they couldn't release any more material.

and yeah, in a sense this is an unfinished album, so that's probably why it seemed so brief.

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Antonio

so wait, am i suddenly not in it?

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Been making some new music lately, check it out

My MB Journal-I talk about music and stuff!

add me on Steam!
http://steamcommunity.com/id/commandercool