The Torture Chamber

Trollheart · 10-31-2015, 08:29 PM

It may be a long album but that doesn't excuse him. You have to complete it Batty or I'm marking you down as a no-show. On my desk, by Monday, or you get a Yellow Alert. Unless you want to admit defeat and just take a score now? You can do that; not complete it, give up and be a pussy, like I probably will tomorrow. Just let me know.

Trollheart · 11-01-2015, 04:47 PM

Title:Metal Machine Music
Artiste: Lou Reed
Genre: Noise
Evil Bastard: Frownland

Ah, so here we go then. The apex of my musical fears, the beast that crouches in shadows waiting to eat my entrails, the album that has prompted one reviewer to pray for the soul of the engineer who had to sit through its recording. Enough to make strong men wet themselves and even turn the most hardened metalhead to jelly; an album to send sane men screaming for the exits and which is rumoured to have been responsible for more than one nervous breakdown. Perhaps. Surely this will be then the one which defeats me, and makes me the first to pussy out by not listening to it all the way? It only has four tracks but they're all sixteen minutes long, so let's see how far we can get through this.

Well that's a surprise. Far from the discordant, formless cacophony of pointless feedback sound I had expected, I can actually pick out some melody here as the first track begins! Admittedly, I'm only thirty seconds in but still I'm not screaming yet. I can definitely hear the cadences of music in this, sort of like an orchestra composed only of guitars tuning up before the performance. Two minutes in and still okay. It also kind of sounds like there is some sort of vocal chorus of guitars going and I can hear different things happening. It's not something I'd listen to for fun, but it's no Merzbow that's for sure. My ears remain intact and it's not at all like nails on a blackboard as I had expected. I'm quite cautiously optimistic about this, and I had no idea I would be.

Into the second track now with something that sort of sounds like bagpipes. Completely surprising myself, I'm quite enjoying this now, and may end up having to properly review it in some depth down the road. For now though, it's a whole lot more pleasant and easy to listen to than I ever expected it to be. If this is seriously just guitars in front of amps, Reed is making the sound of bells, pianos, whistles, chimes and a whole lot more with just these two workhorses. Really ****ing impressive. The amount of reverb, echo, fade, tremelo, whatever-the-****-you-guitarists-call-it here is amazing. It's kind of fading out halfway through track two but now coming back with an almost steam engine sound and horns. I can see why this is so respected, and from the outside that would never have been the case. Sort of like ambulance sirens now, though still amazingly tuneful.

If I had to describe this to someone who had not heard it, this is how I would do it: it's like having one of those old radios that you could tune to a lot of weird stations, but tip the dial very slightly and you were kind of in limbo, with the sound of the station you were closest to just kind of ghosting in; you could hear it but not quite make it out. That's what this sounds like: being just on the verge of being able to hear a really great guitar symphony but just slightly out of phase with the transmission. I like this more as it goes on, and now into track three. It's kind of hard to write anything descriptive, as there are definitely sounds, harmonics, melodies, ideas, tunes even, but it's all much more melodic than I expected. I thought I'd get hit in the face by a big screaming screech of feedback that would basically go on for four tracks, and that wasn't what happened at all.

That was much, much more pleasant than I expected, and my biggest positive shock since “enduring” Gnaw Their Tongues. I thought this would be the one to make me be the first to stop at least halfway, but I made it all the way through.

The Batlord · 10-26-2015, 10:20 AM

God damn I was drunk last night.

DeadChannel · 10-26-2015, 10:43 AM

Okay, don't worry Trollheart. I found ya ****ty album.

DeadChannel · 10-26-2015, 09:35 PM

Okay, I know it's a little late again, but you know me.

I'm going to be listening to Rockin' With the Rhythm by The Judds, which is apparently some combination of crap and country music, or something.

Kicking it off is the track “Have Mercy”. I'm not entirely opposed to country, but I feel like it's immediately hitting on a number of cliches regarding the **** side of the genre. Of course, we needed another country song about cheating. I guess it's not spectacularly bad in any major kind of way, but it's dull enough that I generally do not give a flying ****. Not a lot of energy for a song about something that generally has extreme emotions attached to it. However, in terms of bad country music, I've heard a lot worse. Some girl at school keeps trying to get me to listen to Toby Keith. Moving on.

Next song is Grandpa. ****, this is just one of those boring ass pop country ballads. Also, the lyrics seem... very conservative. Jaysus. I, for one am praying that this song ends soon. Born in le wrong generation, I guess. Yes, that's right, tell me about the days when life expectancy was 25 and black people had to use the “coloured” fountain. The good old days, right? **** off.

Next up, hopefully something that's a little bit more upbeat, I'm falling asleep. Okay, I don't mind this guitar opening. Sadly, it opens with really stupidly written lyrics about working in a coal mind. “Working in a coal mine/going on down down/working in a coal mine/oops I got to slip down”. That's not well written. What the **** does “I got to slip down” mean? One thing I'm noticing is the base guitar: the way it's produced really doesn't seem to jive with the rest of the music. Oh, good, it's over.

If I were you is another boring country-**** ballad. Joy. Mandolin that comes in for a moment was nice, but that's probably just because mandolins are bad-ass. It can't be because they're actually using it well, because they're not. It flits in for a moment, and so far hasn't showed up again. I haven't commented on the lyrics because they're stupid and super cheesy... “If I were you I'd fall in love with me”. **** off with that ****. Hire a better songwriter or something. I want some outlaw country.

And now onto the title track. Wait, did she have an accent before? Oh well, I'm a Ramones fan I guess. Here's a question: is there anyone boring enough to be into this sort of music? I mean, again, it's not the worst country I've heard, but that's part of what makes it so dull. At least some of the really bad stuff is bad enough to laugh at. This is just...

The next song is called “Tears for You”, and contains the word “ownsome”, rhyming with “lonesome”. I rest my case.

With this next track, I'm about ready to “Cry Myself to Sleep”. Or maybe just fall asleep. Seriously, this album throws absolutely nothing of interest my way. For pop country, it doesn't even have any compelling hooks. Why was it popular? Oh yeah, people suck, right. Moving on.

Next song is “River Roll On”. I hate it. What else can I say? What is there to say? I really hate that acoustic guitar sound where it's mixed just low enough to never offend anyone. Maybe that comes from hundreds of hours of listening to over-zealously strummed folk punk, though. I'm probably going to wash this album out of my mouth with some Days N' Daze.

Give me a sec, seems like I don't have the last two songs of the album. I'll go find that ****, bare with me. Okay.

I wish this album wouldn't treat me this way, to be honest. Boring. I really have no comments on this song, because it's so boring. **** it. You know what? I've decided to cleanse myself of this record by listening to this other record of wholesome Christian music:

Finally, onto the last song. In trying to find a place to listen to it I've had to wade through covers. **** those people and their ****ty taste in music. I think this is a live version by the band (Well, manufactured country-**** duo). I sure do hope that's okay. I guess you can assume that any thoughts that I might have on the album version will be identical. Really melodramatic singing, boring guitar, so far no other instrumentation. Yep, I hate this.

Well, that sucked. Oh well, at least I have this:

**Frownland** · 10-31-2015, 09:32 PM

If you can't listen to Metal Machine Music with headphones, I recommend placing two of your speakers (if you can separate them) with one facing your left ear and the other facing your right. I say this because the stereo effect made MMM more enjoyable for me.

The Batlord · 11-01-2015, 01:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frownland

You don't have to, that was a very long album. Now go listen to Haus.

FYI, by tired I meant drunk. I was at the point where I was too wasted to string sentences together without having to retype every other word.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frownland

If you can't listen to Metal Machine Music with headphones, I recommend placing two of your speakers (if you can separate them) with one facing your left ear and the other facing your right. I say this because the stereo effect made MMM more enjoyable for me.

+1

It's an album where there's always something happening in one ear, which then dies as something else starts up in your other.

**Frownland** · 11-01-2015, 04:50 PM

**** my inability to torture you with that rec, you kind of like MMM!!! This is like Christmas for me.

I'm thinking you should just do all of my album rec reviews in the context of this thread.

Trollheart · 11-01-2015, 04:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frownland

**** my inability to torture you with that rec, you kind of like MMM!!! This is like Christmas for me.

I'm thinking you should just do all of my album rec reviews in the context of this thread.

I have to admit I was totally surprised. I liked it from the first and it just got better as it went on. The ending (that kind of AWOO-GAH! AWOO-GAH! repeated) was excellent. **** the haters. I may be on my way to the Dark Side...

**Frownland** · 11-01-2015, 04:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trollheart

I have to admit I was totally surprised. I liked it from the first and it just got better as it went on. The ending (that kind of AWOO-GAH! AWOO-GAH! repeated) was excellent. **** the haters. I may be on my way to the Dark Side...

I'm so proud of you.

10-31-2015, 08:29 PM	#1 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,996	It may be a long album but that doesn't excuse him. You have to complete it Batty or I'm marking you down as a no-show. On my desk, by Monday, or you get a Yellow Alert. Unless you want to admit defeat and just take a score now? You can do that; not complete it, give up and be a pussy, like I probably will tomorrow. Just let me know. __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

11-01-2015, 04:47 PM	#2 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,996	Title:Metal Machine Music Artiste: Lou Reed Genre: Noise Evil Bastard: Frownland Ah, so here we go then. The apex of my musical fears, the beast that crouches in shadows waiting to eat my entrails, the album that has prompted one reviewer to pray for the soul of the engineer who had to sit through its recording. Enough to make strong men wet themselves and even turn the most hardened metalhead to jelly; an album to send sane men screaming for the exits and which is rumoured to have been responsible for more than one nervous breakdown. Perhaps. Surely this will be then the one which defeats me, and makes me the first to pussy out by not listening to it all the way? It only has four tracks but they're all sixteen minutes long, so let's see how far we can get through this. Well that's a surprise. Far from the discordant, formless cacophony of pointless feedback sound I had expected, I can actually pick out some melody here as the first track begins! Admittedly, I'm only thirty seconds in but still I'm not screaming yet. I can definitely hear the cadences of music in this, sort of like an orchestra composed only of guitars tuning up before the performance. Two minutes in and still okay. It also kind of sounds like there is some sort of vocal chorus of guitars going and I can hear different things happening. It's not something I'd listen to for fun, but it's no Merzbow that's for sure. My ears remain intact and it's not at all like nails on a blackboard as I had expected. I'm quite cautiously optimistic about this, and I had no idea I would be. Into the second track now with something that sort of sounds like bagpipes. Completely surprising myself, I'm quite enjoying this now, and may end up having to properly review it in some depth down the road. For now though, it's a whole lot more pleasant and easy to listen to than I ever expected it to be. If this is seriously just guitars in front of amps, Reed is making the sound of bells, pianos, whistles, chimes and a whole lot more with just these two workhorses. Really **ing impressive. The amount of reverb, echo, fade, tremelo, whatever-the-*-you-guitarists-call-it here is amazing. It's kind of fading out halfway through track two but now coming back with an almost steam engine sound and horns. I can see why this is so respected, and from the outside that would never have been the case. Sort of like ambulance sirens now, though still amazingly tuneful. If I had to describe this to someone who had not heard it, this is how I would do it: it's like having one of those old radios that you could tune to a lot of weird stations, but tip the dial very slightly and you were kind of in limbo, with the sound of the station you were closest to just kind of ghosting in; you could hear it but not quite make it out. That's what this sounds like: being just on the verge of being able to hear a really great guitar symphony but just slightly out of phase with the transmission. I like this more as it goes on, and now into track three. It's kind of hard to write anything descriptive, as there are definitely sounds, harmonics, melodies, ideas, tunes even, but it's all much more melodic than I expected. I thought I'd get hit in the face by a big screaming screech of feedback that would basically go on for four tracks, and that wasn't what happened at all. That was much, much more pleasant than I expected, and my biggest positive shock since “enduring” Gnaw Their Tongues. I thought this would be the one to make me be the first to stop at least halfway, but I made it all the way through. __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018*

10-31-2015, 09:32 PM	#6 (permalink)
Frownland SOPHIE FOREVER Join Date: Aug 2011 Location: East of the Southern North American West Posts: 35,541	If you can't listen to Metal Machine Music with headphones, I recommend placing two of your speakers (if you can separate them) with one facing your left ear and the other facing your right. I say this because the stereo effect made MMM more enjoyable for me. __________________ Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth. d e a f b o x

11-01-2015, 04:50 PM	#8 (permalink)
Frownland SOPHIE FOREVER Join Date: Aug 2011 Location: East of the Southern North American West Posts: 35,541	**** my inability to torture you with that rec, you kind of like MMM!!! This is like Christmas for me. I'm thinking you should just do all of my album rec reviews in the context of this thread. __________________ Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth. d e a f b o x

10-26-2015, 10:43 AM	#4 (permalink)
DeadChannel Music Addict Join Date: Dec 2014 Location: Canada Posts: 1,259	Okay, don't worry Trollheart. I found ya ****ty album.

10-26-2015, 09:35 PM	#5 (permalink)
DeadChannel Music Addict Join Date: Dec 2014 Location: Canada Posts: 1,259	Okay, I know it's a little late again, but you know me. I'm going to be listening to Rockin' With the Rhythm by The Judds, which is apparently some combination of crap and country music, or something. Kicking it off is the track “Have Mercy”. I'm not entirely opposed to country, but I feel like it's immediately hitting on a number of cliches regarding the ** side of the genre. Of course, we needed another country song about cheating. I guess it's not spectacularly bad in any major kind of way, but it's dull enough that I generally do not give a flying . Not a lot of energy for a song about something that generally has extreme emotions attached to it. However, in terms of bad country music, I've heard a lot worse. Some girl at school keeps trying to get me to listen to Toby Keith. Moving on. Next song is Grandpa. , this is just one of those boring ass pop country ballads. Also, the lyrics seem... very conservative. Jaysus. I, for one am praying that this song ends soon. Born in le wrong generation, I guess. Yes, that's right, tell me about the days when life expectancy was 25 and black people had to use the “coloured” fountain. The good old days, right? off. Next up, hopefully something that's a little bit more upbeat, I'm falling asleep. Okay, I don't mind this guitar opening. Sadly, it opens with really stupidly written lyrics about working in a coal mind. “Working in a coal mine/going on down down/working in a coal mine/oops I got to slip down”. That's not well written. What the does “I got to slip down” mean? One thing I'm noticing is the base guitar: the way it's produced really doesn't seem to jive with the rest of the music. Oh, good, it's over. If I were you is another boring country- ballad. Joy. Mandolin that comes in for a moment was nice, but that's probably just because mandolins are bad-ass. It can't be because they're actually using it well, because they're not. It flits in for a moment, and so far hasn't showed up again. I haven't commented on the lyrics because they're stupid and super cheesy... “If I were you I'd fall in love with me”. off with that . Hire a better songwriter or something. I want some outlaw country. And now onto the title track. Wait, did she have an accent before? Oh well, I'm a Ramones fan I guess. Here's a question: is there anyone boring enough to be into this sort of music? I mean, again, it's not the worst country I've heard, but that's part of what makes it so dull. At least some of the really bad stuff is bad enough to laugh at. This is just... The next song is called “Tears for You”, and contains the word “ownsome”, rhyming with “lonesome”. I rest my case. With this next track, I'm about ready to “Cry Myself to Sleep”. Or maybe just fall asleep. Seriously, this album throws absolutely nothing of interest my way. For pop country, it doesn't even have any compelling hooks. Why was it popular? Oh yeah, people suck, right. Moving on. Next song is “River Roll On”. I hate it. What else can I say? What is there to say? I really hate that acoustic guitar sound where it's mixed just low enough to never offend anyone. Maybe that comes from hundreds of hours of listening to over-zealously strummed folk punk, though. I'm probably going to wash this album out of my mouth with some Days N' Daze. Give me a sec, seems like I don't have the last two songs of the album. I'll go find that , bare with me. Okay. I wish this album wouldn't treat me this way, to be honest. Boring. I really have no comments on this song, because it's so boring. it. You know what? I've decided to cleanse myself of this record by listening to this other record of wholesome Christian music: Finally, onto the last song. In trying to find a place to listen to it I've had to wade through covers. those people and their ty taste in music. I think this is a live version by the band (Well, manufactured country-** duo). I sure do hope that's okay. I guess you can assume that any thoughts that I might have on the album version will be identical. Really melodramatic singing, boring guitar, so far no other instrumentation. Yep, I hate this. Well, that sucked. Oh well, at least I have this: