The Album Club: "Seizure" by Chris Knox
 

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Penultimate album in round four. Discuss, debate, rate and review here.

Very enjoyable album. Some may feel it's repetitive, but I think cohesive is more applicable. I can't say I'll play it all the time, but if I'm in the mood for some artsy alternative rock stuff, this is just underproduced enough to be both relaxing and interesting. 8/10 or Liked it

Oh ****, "lighthearted jangly stuff". I hate lighthearted, jangly music.

It's not what you think it is. In fact, it honestly isn't really jangly. It's too fuzzy and loose to be jangle pop. Don't let my poor descriptors color your perception.

EDIT- Imagine glam and post-punk had a lo-fi child.

I'm going to listen to it soon enough in any case. I have very little idea what it will actually sound like, so anything can happen.

Your edit: Lol. That's hard to imagine, but it makes me curious.

Chirs Knox hhmmm, I dont't really recall the name or hearing anything by him, or so I thought until I heard the fifth track "Not Given Lightly." I've heard the song before, however I don't know where, perhaps I've heard the song in plug.dj. Chirs Knox is from New Zealand. I've seen that the album was release on label that I am familiar, Flying Nun Records, based in Christchurch. That label release material from bands that were part of the Dunedin Sound, and they are somewhat synonymous. Flying Nun Records have an amazing roster e.g. The Bats, The Chills, The Clean, Taco Cat and The Verlaines to name but a few recorded on that label.

Don't expect to hear the "jangle" guitar of the Dunedin Sound because its connection with Flying Nun Records. Chris Knox has more of a "lo-fi" sound. Maybe even a "lower-fi" sound compared to other lo-fi bands. The guitar on this album is heard with either over-drive or with dirty distortion. He is somewhere between the vibe of VU and the blah delivery of Beat Happening, with the lo-fi-ness of using a Casio keyboard in the same vein of Casiotone for the Painfully Alone.

I wrote most of the album review in my usual manner of being constantly sidetrack with a bunch of other things - reading & commenting in other thread and going back and forth between the album and other music I wanted to hear. I didn't solely listen to this album straight at one go. And perhaps that is a proper way to listen to an album. However there are very few times I do listen to an album straight through. So I am missing whether there are lulls in the album or whether the album taxes ones patients.

Wanna!! has a chord progression of a Chills song, with flippity-flap sound of #9 off the White album.
There is more backward sounds on Grand Mal.
Voyeur has more of a Violent Femmes meets Sunforest feel to it.

A little Clash, a little power pop, and some fuzzy wuzzy influences from the N.Y. post-punk scene lines up pretty well here, like a row of especially well worn but usable dominoes. Does it work? Mostly. Do I love it? Nah: needs more bass, oomph or some bigger sounding production. Not expecting White Light From The Mouth Of Infinity here, but I'm just not feeling the energy.

6 out of 10

I hate to be the one to tell you this but you find everything in the world to sound like Power Pop. I think the lo-fi-ness of the album excludes it from being proper Power Pop. Pilot and Raspberries were proper Power Pop bands from the 70s. (Pilot was absorbed into the Alan Parsons Project so you should know who they are.) The Romantics, Andy Bopp's group Myracle Brah (it's more like a Power Pop/Beat-music crossover) and the London band Good Shoes are all bands I associate with Power Pop. They all have a very clean & posh (hi-fi) sound.

Not really disagreeing per-se, but you should check out The Wildhearts and some of their ilk. Power pop is a wider sea than you'd think.

Lo-Fi home demo sounding album which I'm guessing was recorded on a 4-Track cassette recorder. Sounded like a cross between early 70's glam-rock and late 70's punk to me. Can't say I cared much for this one. It wasn't awful but it never rose above mediocre. The percussion sounded out of place with the guitar and the lack of bass and drums made it sound rather lacking overall. I thought the album would've benefited quite a bit if the percussion had been dropped altogether and a bass player and drummer had been added to the mix. The lyrics and vocals were OK but didn't exactly grab me either.

5/10