Trollheart

Album title: Hotel California
Artiste: Eagles
Genre: Rock/Country
Year: 1976
Label: Asylum
Producer: Bill Szymczyk
Chronological position: Fifth album
Notes:
Album chart position: 1
Singles: “New kid in town”, “Hotel California”, “Life in the fast lane”
Lineup:
Glenn Frey: Vocals, guitars, piano, clavinet, synth
Don Henley: Vocals, drums, synth
Joe Walsh: Guitars, slide guitar, piano, electric piano, organ, synth, vocals
Randy Meisner: Vocals, bass
Don Felder: Lead guitar, pedal steel, vocals


Review begins

Hands up anyone over thirty who does not recognise that album cover? It's about as iconic really as Dark Side of the Moon, Nevermind or Thriller: you simply can't mistake it. And in 1976 the Eagles made this album one of the biggest selling of not only that year, but all time, cracking off another three hit singles from it, two of which went to number one. It's an album that has really no flaws; every track on it is perfect and I never tire of listening to it all the way through. It's also the first Eagles album made without Bernie Leadon and the last to feature Randy Meisner. Leadon is replaced by Joe Walsh, who would figure in the rest of the Eagles' short-lived career. Let's face it, when your album is nominated for album of the year and you can only be pipped to the post by the classic Rumours, well, that says it all really, doesn't it?

A concept album (their second) about generally the excesses of living la vida loca in hedonistic California, and by extension to the rest of America and the world, the album is full of songs that could easily have been hits had they been released, and there is not one moment of filler as far as I'm concerned. We open on the title track, as dour, lonely acoustic guitar takes us in and the sound of wind blowing over the desert is the backdrop to the allegorical tale of a wanderer in the desert, who, unable to go any further that night, spots the enigmatic Hotel California in the distance, and goes up to the door. There he meets a beautiful woman, who welcomes him in, but soon he discovers that things are not as they seem. In a sort of pastiche of drugs trip and horror story, the narrator comes across crazy characters --- “She's got a lot of pretty pretty boys that she calls friends” --- odd practices --- “In the master's chamber they gather for the feast. They stab it with their steely knives but they just can't kill the beast --- and eventually, Hammer-style horror as he is told, as he tries to escape, “You can check out any time you like but you can never leave!”

Henley sings this, and his voice is perfectly suited to its laidback style developing into a sort of lazy panic as the full story unfolds and the horror of what he has stumbled into reveals itself. It's a song too that showcases the talents of all three guitarists --- Frey, Walsh and Felder --- and of course the by-now familiar vocal harmonies. Perhaps the best part about it though is the long guitar fadeout which is a duet between Felder and Walsh, one of the most famous fadeouts on any song I believe. In total it runs for more than two minutes and is instantly recgnisable from the first note.

Another hit single is “New kid in town”, which I've never understood but it appears to refer to a town who lavish attention on each new arrival and pair him up with their local beauty. Seems a bit Twilight Zone-ish to me, but seems to be a metaphor for the transient nature of fame and the fickle attitude of fans. It's driven on a really nice organ line and moves along at a breezy pace, and again I'm sure you know it as it was a hit single, so no need to describe it to you. It's Frey's turn to take the vocal, and it will be seen that on this album this is in fact the only song he sings, Henley taking the lion's share, with just the one farewell performance from Meisner and one effort from Walsh. It's Henley though for the next track, yet another hit, the rocky “Life in the fast lane”, where the Eagles return to the harder style of songs like “Midnight flyer”, “James Dean” and “Earlybird” and show they can rock out when required. A song obviously about succumbing to the many temptations of being rich and famous, the drugs, the women, the fast cars, I suppose it could be seen as a cautionary tale. At its heart though it's just a great rock song, and was probably interpreted backwards by many who lived, or wished to live, this lifestyle.

These are all great songs, but by the time the album was out a while we had all heard them on the radio, and for me, Hotel California really only begins to shine properly from here on out. Any other album, you have three hit singles and you can expect to hit a nosedive, the comedown after the party. Not so with this album. “Wasted time” is a beautiful, aching ballad about two friends who realise they must separate for the good of each other, as Henley sings “You can get on with your search baby, and I can get on with mine”. Lovely piano opens the song, and there's a sumptuous orchestral accompaniment to the chunky guitars, and it slips into an orchestral instrumental continuation of the song in “Wasted time (reprise)”, the last instrumental the Eagles would ever record until their reunion twenty years later.

Then we kick up for “Victim of love”, where sharp, snapping guitars drive the song in an unsympathetic song about a woman who uses men (what a surprise) and Henley arches an eyebrow and asks “You say he's a liar, and he put out your fire. How come you still got his gun in your hand?” Certainly a heavy slice of misogyny in the line “Victim of love, it's such an easy part, and you know how to play it so well.” Walsh's guitar comes into its own here, smashing and punching and delivering some true almost hard rock to the usually laidback Eagles style, but after that it's down the gears to the end of the album, as “Pretty maids all in a row” comes in slowly and gently on a fading in piano line and gives Walsh his only vocal on the album. It stomps along on a powerful, dour drumbeat from Henley, with some beautiful close harmony backing vocals again and a lush little synth line closing it out. Meisner then gets to bow out on “Try and love again”. Whether he's saying something here about leaving the Eagles or not I don't know, but it's one of his best songs and runs on a great ringing guitar, with a jumping solo and perhaps an indication of his feelings prior to leaving the band when he sings “It might take years to see through all these tears”.

The finale would have to be something special, and it is. “The last resort” would have to go down as the Eagles' first real eco-song, bewailing the using up of natural resources and the greed of businessmen and developers. “Built a bunch of ugly boxes” sings Henley in disgust, “and Jesus! People bought 'em!” Another soft little piano introduction precedes Henley's vocal, the music building up in layers line by line, and we hear pedal steel for the first and only time on the album (a backhanded compliment to Leadon?) with the orchestra coming into full flower about halfway through. Then it all drops away to the simple piano line that began the song, the strings slowly swirling in and meeting the keys, as we head into the finale of one of the longest songs the Eagles had, to that point, recorded. It ends, and pretty much is, a depressing and sad song as Henley asks “Who will provide the grand design? What is yours and what is mine? There is no more new frontier; we have got to make it here. We satisfy our endless needs and justify our bloody deeds in the name of destiny and in the name of God.”

The song finishes on a muted, powerful, mournful strings outro that fades away, as if to rob us of any hope that there might be a solution, that the destruction of our planet and by extension ourselves is avoidable. A dark, bitter ending, it kind of bookends the album with the title and opening track, showing how twisted and warped ambition, greed and self-absorption can be. It leaves you with a sour taste in your mouth, a feeling of guilt, but at least in my case anyway, a feeling of having participated in something that is almost a spiritual experience.

TRACKLISTING AND RATINGS

Hotel California
New kid in town
Life in the fast lane
Wasted time
Wasted time (reprise)
Victim of love
Pretty maids all in a row
Try and love again
The last resort


Afterword: This was the album everyone had, even if you weren't an Eagles fan or even into rock or Country music. Like Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell, it was just one of those albums. You had to have it in your collection. It was, as I said earlier, both the peak and the beginning of the end for the Eagles' career. Where did you go from here? There was only one way. And as infighting began to tear the band apart, they would release one more album, garner a few more hit singles before they split, as we thought, forever.

Rating:

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Trollheart

That's where we'll leave The Eagles for now; come back to them later. Don't fear, Bowie fans: I'll be getting back into his discography soon also. But for now let me go in something of a different direction, beginning with

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Alan_Parsons_Project


Album title: Tales of Mystery and Imagination
Artiste: The Alan Parsons Project
Genre: Progressive Rock
Year: 1976
Label: Charisma
Producer: Alan Parsons
Chronological position: Debut album
Notes: Based on the work of Edgar Allan Poe
Album chart position: 56 (UK) 38 (US)
Singles: “(The system of) Dr. Tarr and Professor Feather”, “The Raven”, “To one in Paradise”
Lineup:
Alan Parsons: Vocals, organ, guitar, synth and more
Eric Woolfson: Keyboards, Harpsichord, organ, vocals
Dennis Clarke: Sax
Francis Monkman: Keyboards, organ
John Miles: Guitar, vocals
Kevin Peek: Guitar
Laurence Juber: Guitar
David Paton: Guitar, bass, vocals
Ian Bairnson: Guitars
Andrew Powell: Keyboards
Leonard Whiting, Arthur Brown, Jack Harris, Terry Sylvester: Vocals
Stuart Tosh/John Leach/Burleigh Drummond: Drums and percussion
(There are a ton of people here, so forgive me if I don't list them all.)

Review begins

The Alan Parsons Project would make their name with progressive pop style songs such as “Old and wise”, “Eye in the sky” and “Don't answer me”, and by having a constantly rotating series of vocalists, including some of the best in the business, some of whom would drift in and out, album to album, some of whom would make up a core “squad” as it were of vocalists. Parsons himself would never sing, except once here, and only through a vocoder. He was the brains and heart of the operation, and as an engineer by trade was much happier playing the music and producing it.

Based loosely on the works of horror fiction writer Edgar Allan Poe, the album seeks to represent some of his best stories through the medium of music, and it's quite a task they've set themselves here for their debut album. The idea of creating a mood, evoking an atmosphere that recalls the story you're trying to tell, with or without lyrics, is a daunting one, but here I think the APP do quite well with it. That's not to say it's a completely successful attempt, but generally speaking I think over the course of the album they managed it more times than they failed.

We open on “A dream within a dream”, which though it has no vocals does have a narrated introduction by the great Orson Welles, as piano and synth build up behind him. As his narration ends a lonely recorder whines and then the bassline that would become distinctive to David Paton thumps in like a slow heartbeat, piano and organ joining it as the percussion slips in, and the piece begins on a slow, moderate tempo with very progressive sprinkled guitar from Ian Bairnson, somewhat reminiscent of Mike Oldfield. The sound builds up in layers, driven by Burleigh Drummond's sudden hammering percussion and then fades away slowly, leaving only the bassline to take us into “The Raven”, on which we hear Alan Parsons use the vocoder to relate the poem against, firstly just bass and percussion and then sharp guitar punching in. A big almost orchestral run takes the tune before it slips back down on choral vocals and back into a sound which would become a signature one of The Alan Parsons Project, easily identifiable as them whenever it was played, and it was played often.

The vocal then becomes clearer as Leonard Whiting --- who, oddly enough is not a singer but an actor --- takes over, and then Bairnson lets rip with a pretty heavy solo as the vocal rises in urgency and power. Softly then, almost like a hymn, the vocals go choral and fade down as the track winds towards its gentle end. Much more uptempo then for “The tell-tale heart”, vocals this time supplied by Arthur Brown (yes, the Arthur Brown, he of the Crazy World) and it bops along really well on Bairnson's romping guitar and Paton's ticking bass. Then after about two minutes it slows down to a stately waltz almost, with sumptuous synth and piano joining the orchestra before it all takes off again, this time fading into what would become another motif of the APP, a kind of low, fading choral vocal line and back in comes Bairnson, the tempo picking up again and exploding into a fine solo before the vocal comes back for the final verse.

A soft ballad then with the orchestra sweeping along slowly in “The cask of Amontillado”, vocals this time taken by John Miles. It begins to ramp up on harder guitar and percussion in the second minute and then falls back to a solo piano, beginning again to build with some really nice backing vocals and ends on an APP instrumental motif and into “The system of Dr Tarr and Professor Fether”, brought in on tough guitar and punching percussion in a style again which would become identified with the APP. A dark voice declares “Just what you need to feel better” and then Miles takes the vocal again. I can see why this had a shot as a single; it's quite commercial and even poppy in its way, and points something of the direction towards later songs such as “Prime time”, “Children of the moon” and “Don't answer me”. I like how they throw in part of the vocoder section of “The Raven” near the end. Clever.

The penultimate track is one big long instrumental. Lasting over sixteen minutes and broken into five sections, “The Fall of the House of Usher” opens on “Prelude”, which runs for more than half of the composition, seguing directly in from the end of the previous track and into a narrated vocal by again I think Welles, then it's a very spooky and unsettling orchestral line that takes the piece as we move into the dark, forbidding house, jumping at shadows, suffocated by the thick, cloying air, listening for sounds. Reminds me a little of the themes to the Star Trek movies in places. Gets a little grand and majestic halfway through, the orchestra swelling proudly before dropping back again, like someone breathing a sigh of delight at being home before realising something evil is waiting there for them. And the music then swells and gets more urgent and scary as it heads towards the end of this section.

“Arrival” is a short piece that comes in on thunder, rain and Phantom-of-the-Opera-style church organ, busy synth that rises and overtakes the organ, perhaps meant to illustrate the pulserate of the arriver before slow percussion hits in and the guitar wails its accompaniment. The synth fades away and back, as does the organ, and as we head towards the final minute comes back in, almost as if it's passing by, then a strong riff on the guitar closes the section and takes us to the one-minute “Intermezzo” which is pretty much a kind of suspense soundtrack, rising and pulling us into “Pavane”, where Paton's portentous bass and some acoustic guitar softens the mood somewhat, the familiar APP theme as it were returning. Sounds like mandolin there, probably is not --- I see a kantele is used, so it could be that, though I don't know what one of them sounds like --- and it takes the melody mostly on its own, as it builds back up for the big finale, fading out then to “Fall”, which is less than a minute of descending (obviously) discordant sounds, which certainly does symbolise a crashing to the ground and a sense of something dying.

It ends, naturally, abruptly, and we're left with one final track, the ballad “To one in Paradise”, which foreshadows the likes of “Time”, “Ignorance is bliss” and “Siren song”, and features the ex-Hollies singer Terry Sylvester, with some lovely backing vocals and swirling synth, a very nice ending to a pretty dark album that still manages to keep the attention and doesn't descend into total darkness.

TRACKLISTING AND RATINGS

A dream within a dream
The Raven
The tell-tale heart
The cask of Amontillado
The system of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether
The fall of the House of Usher (i) Prelude (ii) Arrival (iii) Intermezzo (iv) Pavane (v) Fall
To one in Paradise

Afterword: Quite an undertaking, and one which in general worked well, however something of a gamble to do this for your first album. Nevertheless, The Alan Parsons Project would go on to become, if not famous, then at least known, as they would have a few hits along their eleven-year career. If you're looking to get into them, honestly this is not the best place to start (and I didn't), but once you've heard and enjoyed their other material, it's a nice look back to see how they started off.

Rating:

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Trollheart

This band looks like they went through some changes in style and musical direction, starting off as death-doom, then changing to gothic metal, then prog rock, then alt-rock and god knows what they are now. They sound American to me but they're not, as they hail from Liverpool, and I know pretty much sod-all about them, other than seeing their albums crop up from time to time, often in of all places PROG Magazine! So it should be an interesting journey at least. Got a tank full of petrol? Munchies for the road? Then turn that key and let's head off.




Album title: Serenades
Artiste: Anathema
Genre: Death-Doom
Year: 1993
Label: Peaceville
Producer: Anathema
Chronological position: Debut album
Notes: The only album to feature Darren White on vocals. Apparently.
Album chart position: Unknown
Singles: None
Lineup:
Darren White: Vocals
Vincent Cavanagh: Guitars
Danny Cavanagh: Guitars
Duncan Patterson: Bass
John Douglas: Drums

Review begins
Given that this is a death-doom album, I'm going to assume the title is ironic, as indeed must be the label they recorded on. I realise now that the names Vincent and Danny Cavanagh are familiar to me, but that might be because they worked on someone else's album/project: I'm still certain I've never heard an Anathema record. Of course, they do tie in to one of my favourite bands, Antimatter, but I don't think the Cavanagh brothers had anything to do with that. Anyway, the album opens on “Lovelord rhapsody”, which punches it pretty much from the off with snarling, grinding guitars that want to eat you and a low, growled vocal. I can see the amalgamation of doom metal and death metal here, as it is slow and sludgy but with hard, sharp riffing guitars and kind of death vocals, but I'd put it more on a doom metal footing, at least for this track, than death metal.

I can't say I'm impressed with the vocals, but then as I said in the notes, this was the only album on which this particular singer, er, sang, so maybe vocally it gets better from the second album. The two Cavanaghs can certainly play well though; there's an almost progressive or neo-classical feel to their music at times, which perhaps points the way they would go on later albums, ditching the doom and death influences as they went in a more gothic and even progressive direction. Ignoring the vocals, this is a pretty lovely track really; I can dig the melody. Speeding up a little now as it heads into the last two minutes, percussion banging away and the more reflective nature of the guitars fading as they get a bit more raw and brutal.

“Sweet tears” is definitely harder and more direct, though then again there's a really nice gentle part in the last minute, with some clean vocals, almost like a chant, then we go all French for “J'ai fait une promesse”, bringing in an acapella vocal from someone only identified as “Ruth”. Acoustic guitar joins her for the second verse, and backing vocals (female; could be her own, multitracked, I don't know) come in too. It's nice, but seems out of place on such a basically hard and heavy album. But then, I don't know jack about Anathema; maybe they do this all the time. It's certainly an interesting change, and shows they have other strings to their bow. All Sabbathy then for “They (will always) die” which grinds, grunts and growls along, showing really very little of the more expressive side of the two guitarists. Which is not to say it's bad, just a little formulaic compared to the other tracks. There is some nice gentle guitar work at the end, actually sounds like synth but I don't think Anathema use them, at least this early in their career.

“Sleepless” then sounds like an indie rock or alt-rock song, almost like something The Police might play, though it does then pick up on harder guitar and a bit of growling. It's an odd one for sure. Not quite certain what to think about it. Back to the slow, doomy, grindy music for “Sleep in sanity” with the return of White's dour growl, though the music is actually quite uplifting in an odd way. These Cavanagh brothers certainly complement each other. There's a kind of eastern feel to the melody, reminds me a little of Maiden and Dio. A short little track then in “Scars of the old stream” (sounds like they're using backwards masking here) with a spoken vocal, weird little tune and it leads into the longer, and more doomy “Under a veil (of black lace)”. It's nothing special .... and then, just as I write that, it changes into a quite introspective guitar piece - though White keeps roaring like a wounded animal - and a really nice melody takes the tune. I guess you can see how they were, even then, capable of stretching beyond the perhaps limited strictures of death-doom.

A much shorter track again, “Where shadows dance” is a good bit more on the death side of things, kind of hard to get much of a handle on it as it's so short, less than two minutes, but this is made up for by the closer, which runs for a staggering twenty-three minutes! It's the “Supper's ready” of death-doom! “Dreaming: the romance” opens very ambient; I would definitely say synth but again I see no credit. Given the length of the song, I expect a pretty long instrumental intro - okay, I see Discogs has a credit for “Orchestral arrangements”, so I guess there's an orchestra involved. That would explain it, as there is no way in Hell this introductory section could be only on guitars, unless these two Cavanaghs are gods or something. It's actually beautiful and epic, almost heartbreaking in its slow buildup, which so far has run for almost four minutes. No, seven minutes now. It's sort of like listening to a symphony, no, more like one of YorkeDaddy's Daydream Society albums. Really relaxing and not at all what I had expected, though I'm already learning to expect the unexpected with Anathema.

Nine minutes now, and it's still that lovely, laidback, ambient instrumental with a sort of dark hum underpinning it. Might be about to change: there's something in the air, I feel. Something wicked this way comes? Or something wonderful? Well, despite that subtle feeling nothing different has happened and we're now halfway through and it's still the orchestral symphony, for want of another word. Absolutely gorgeous. Seventeen minutes in now and I really doubt it's suddenly going to explode on a doom or death riff and growl. This has to go Blue, even if that ends up happening, but I'd be surprised. No, it didn't change. That was unbelievable lovely.

TRACK LISTING AND RATINGS

Lovelorn rhapsody
Sweet tears
J'ai fait une promesse
They (will always) die
Sleepless
Sleep in sanity
Scars of the old stream
Under a veil (of black lace)
Where shadows dance
Dreaming: the romance


Afterword: So much more than I expected originally. Yes, there are the raw death/doom songs, but inbetween them are some really different ideas and the closer just took my breath away. I'm suddenly excited to see how these guys developed over the coming years, if they could be this versatile on their debut album. Also will help if their new singer doesn't sound like White. Overall, mightily impressed.

Rating:

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The Batlord

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grindy

Holy ****, man!
Welcome back. We missed you.

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A smell of petroleum prevails throughout.

Ol’ Qwerty Bastard

Whoa! Didn't expect that after clicking on the thread. Welcome back!

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grindy

It'd be funny if after having posted this he'll stay away for another year.

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A smell of petroleum prevails throughout.

Zhanteimi

Welcome back! Wow.

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Zhanteimi

LetsTalkMusic

Ol’ Qwerty Bastard

I think you mods are just trolling us and this was actually an entry submitted before he left.

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grindy

I'm too much of a neat freak to have let it messily stay in the queue for that long. Just the thought makes me want to take a shower and organise some stuff.

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A smell of petroleum prevails throughout.