MicShazam

The Divine Comedy - Casanova (1996)



I don't enjoy the caroony vocal delivery. He constantly sounds as if he's forcing his voice to sound deeper and more Roy Orbison-like than it really is. Like he's doing a parody of said singer.
It has the unfortunate side effect of making it all sound like a comedy album (no pun intended).

Too much of a Tom Jones/Las Vegas entertainer vibe to this. I feel like this should be playing to a crowd of tasteless rich people on a cruise ship.
The strings sound phony and sterile and the music is in general just too bloodless to leave any impact on me.

It's not the type of music that bothers me, it's specifically how lacking in personality and flavor this album is. I find it generally agreeable, but I hope the artist has some other albums that demonstrate his creative vision and skills better.

I feel a bit bad for crapping all over this album, but it hits several pet peeves of mine in a bad way. It kind of exemplifies an artistic sensibility that I'm very
much looking for the opposite of.



Further silly nitpicks
- In one track, he's whistling out of tune.
- In some tracks, he's sort of acting out lines while half-singing, and it doesn't work at all. Especially not where he's sort of affecting a fake laugh.
- I've complained about the fake sounding strings already, but I hate them so much by the end of the album that I'm complaining about them again.
- Both the drums and the bass are so utilitarian in nature that they do almost nothing to add to the experience.
- Due to the prancing and posturing and occasional attempts at a seductive sort of persona, I feel like he's a poor man's Bryan Ferry at times.
- The generally overproduced, flat vibe of the music really makes the 50+ minute run time drag.
- His falsetto is allright. The deeper he tries to sing, the more unconvincing it sounds.
- Spoken word passage around the 41:00 mark is not funny or interesting.
- Said spoken word passage is followed by a track that sounds like the intro to a boring British soap opera.



Listened to: 1.0 times. I can't stand another round of this. It makes me miss previous week's album.

Rating: 3/10, which makes me realize I was way too hard on the Hiatus Kaiyote album.

Frownland

Starts off with some solid drumming that makes me think I might not hate the album. Song progresses and outs itself as pretty straightforward pop stuff. Second song sounds like Mike Patton being ironically schmaltzy as he fronts cake. The song also perpetuates rape culture. Third song is straight gouda. Fourth song has me wondering how people can sit down and pop this album in. It'd make sense to listen to if it came on the radio, but to listen to it on your own volition? That mindset towards music reflects a dark corner of humanity.

He weirdly reminds me of Carl-Michael Eide, but if he had decided to do some bland crap. Charge starts with 15 seconds of silence so SKIP! That's not music. Songs of Love tells me that this guy is boring as **** in bed. I skipped Frog Princess because starting a song with "I met a girl" gets you nowhere with me. I can't wait for this **** to end. Through a Long Sleepless Night is a little more heavy than the rest of this featherfooted record. God his falsetto is awful. **** this album I'm done.

This is very tepid and safe music. I can see why TH would be into that, but it's not for me. 1/10

Should I add a poll?

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Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

MicShazam

Ouch! I really thought my negative reaction would be in the minority. If there's any people sitting on a more positive take, maybe now would be a good time to chime in before Trollheart jumps off a bridge

A poll would probably be fine. Since people still have to actually write something to get their own album on, I'm guessing it won't tempt people to just vote instead of writing. Not anyone who was going to write something, anyway.

Frownland

Anteater is a tepid and safe music connoisseur and he only gave it a 6.5/10, that should tell you a lot about the album .

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Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

MicShazam

I like a lot of tepid and safe music too, so shouldn't I have loved it then?
I'm not sure the math on this one checks out.

Trollheart

I guess you can add a poll, but I wouldn't accept just voting for an album as being necessarily contribution, vis a vis keeping your own album in the list. I'd still want some sort of comment on it if not an actual review. I suppose it would show at a glance how an album went down with the majority.
The Kickstarter address is....

I'm not surprised you all hate this album, but you know, **** you all. I hate you anyway so who cares?

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Anteater

I like a lot of stuff that isn't yacht rock or smooth jazz tho. Get gud bruh.

It isn't a bad record really: I'm just a schmaltzmeister to the point where its hard to impress with me with schmaltz unless its got a little extra zing to its zang.

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Trollheart

Oh, I should point out that in general people here seem to hate my music taste anyway, so I don't expect any other reaction than the one I'm getting, and I don't give a single ****, never mind two. It's cool to **** on my taste so if it keeps them happy what do I care? Doesn't change my mind a single iota and it won't stop me listening to the music they all hate. Ant has been the kindest so far, and I reckon will end up remaining the only one who even gave this album any kind of decent rating, but hey, you know, Hi I'm Trollheart.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

MicShazam

I have a feeling there's going to be many records in the album club over time that don't exactly go over well with the majority in here. At least you had the balls to choose something that doesn't attempt to pander. I feel like my own pick, while a really good album, isn't exactly the most honest expression of what my tastes are really like. If I didn't try to be so diplomatic, I'd have chosen something far more likely to go down in flames.

I wouldn't say so either. I just really don't like it personally. If I had to judge it more at an impersonal distance, I'd say it's clearly competent, creative and has a vision of it's own. It's just that the way it achieves all that grates on me

Trollheart

Meh, it doesn't matter what I pick, they'll hate it anyway, so I may as well pick something I at least like. And you can change your pick if you so desire.
You'd be surprised indeed at how little that helps.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018