Moss

You have to be in the right mood. Not an album you throw on at a BBQ. Very spare, quiet, intimate, and acoustic. More of a quiet headphone album. He just bares his soul on it.

Trollheart

Title: Drones
Artiste: Muse
Genre: Alt-Rock/Progressive Rock
Familiarity: Heard Black Holes and Revelations; loved it

Track 1(Love) Bit more dancy than I expected; buzzy synth, voice is a little croony but this is not bad.
Track 2 Just a few seconds of a sergeant major shouting at recruits. Meh. I see how it fits in to the story, but as a track I can't give it any rating.
Track 3(Love) Great boogie swing to this; like this a lot.
Track 4(Love) Love the piano here; sort of a cross between U2 and Coldplay. Shut up everyone: I happen to like them. Great hook in the chorus. Powerful guitar too.
Track 5(Love) Superb neoclassical opening then it takes off. Very proggy.
Track 6(Love) Yeah, really like this one too. Some great proggy keyboard
Track 7 Clever yeah, but again I can't really rate a spoken passage that doesn't do anything for me.
Track 8(Love) Very Queen! Which is not a bad thing, though others would have you think otherwise. Not quite as good as the previous tracks but still pretty darn good.
Track 9(Love) Again, a great hook and a wonderful melody.
Track 10(Love) This is a lovely ballad
Track 11(Love) Longest track at ten minutes; lovely acoustic and orchestral opening with whistling, reminds me of the Alan Parsons Project, beginning of The Turn of a Friendly Card. Some unbelievably emotional slide guitar, getting quite Floydy now. Surprisingly, this appears to be a second ballad --- until it kicks up in the fifth minute and changes totally. Excellent song. And now it's back into ballad territory, pulling in of all things Elgar's “Nimrod” from “The Enigma Variations”. Superb.
Track 12(Love) Really nice closer; acapella chorus chant thing. Wraps everything up nicely, referencing the opener and asking the question “Are you dead inside?” After this, no way!

End result: Look, you haters can hate all you want, and I may not be sophisticated enough to appreciate two guys yelling at each other from the roofs of opposite buildings while a third tries to unjam a photocopier while cursing in Yiddish, or the sound of a garden gate creaking in a soft rainstorm while someone bashes a kipper against a lamp-post and sings “The Star Spangled Banner”, but I know what I like, and I like this. A lot. A real lot.

So, Love or Hate? If it was all like the penultimate track, this would be a shoe-in for True Love. As it is, the rest is very, very good, just not that good. So it's instead pure Love here. Haters gonna hate. Don't care.

Chances of a full review:9/10

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Plainview

I thought Drones was awful, but you're entitled to your opinion!

Are recs closed? You really need to give OK Computer a spin if you liked In Rainbows. I actually prefer Kid A and Amnesiac, but OK Computer is the pinnacle of Radiohead's rock sound.

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Trollheart

A fish, often eaten for breakfast.
They are, and I doubt I'll be accepting recs for the same band twice in future. As i said, I'm trying to experience a lot of different stuff here.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Moss

Oh, that's what I thought. Interesting visual.

Plainview

Fair enough, though you're never going to get a chance to explore the bands you've liked at this rate!

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Trollheart

Yeah I can see it now. "Is Janszoon not giving me any more recs?"

"Didn't you hear? He died. Well, he was ninety-two you know! You've been doing this for over fifty years now. You ever going to get to listen to the bands you want to? Hello? Hello? Ah ****: someone call a doctor!"

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Moss

What the hell is a "Kipper"?

grindy

Sooo.... where can one buy said kippers?
I have an album to record.

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A smell of petroleum prevails throughout.

Trollheart

Title: ... Like Clockwork
Artiste: Queens of the Stone Age
Genre: Rock
Familiarity: Zero

Track 1(Love) Good opener, kind of tribal/chanty sort of thing going on.
Track 2(Love) Good hard rocker
Track 3(Love) This is beautiful
Track 4(Hate) Nah, didn't like this one much.
Track 5 This is all right I guess. Not mad about it.
Track 6(Love) This however is really nice. Definite sense of motown soul about it. Before the screaming guitar that is!
Track 7(Love) This one has great power and a cool piano line going through it.
Track 8(Love) Nice kind of hard rock/blues vibe with a very Bowie-style vocal. Very catchy.
Track 9(Love) Like the kind of swinging feel of this. Great keyboard ending.
Track 10(Love) Just sumptuous, beautiful.

End result: Not an album I had expected to be much impressed by, but I was. Not saying I'm about to become a fan or anything, but this was very enjoyable and well written, with some real surprises.

So, Love or Hate? Yeah, that's another Love.

Chances of a full review: 4/10

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018