Trollheart

Yes, yes. I know I'm late to the party...


Artiste: Sigur Ros
Nationality: Icelandic
Album: Takk...
Year: 2005
Label: Geffen
Genre: Post-rock/Ambient/Art rock (thanks, Wiki...)
Tracks
Takk...
Glósóli
Hoppípolla
Með blóðnasir
Sé lest
Sæglópur
Mílanó
Gong
Andvari
Svo hljótt
Heysátan
Chronological position: Fourth album
Familiarity: Zero
Interesting Factoid:
Initial Impression: Am I back in Solar Fields territory?
Best track(s): Hoppípolla, Sæglópur, Mílanó, Andvari
Worst track(s):No, I don't think there was anything on this album I didn't like.
Comments: So once again we come to a band most people here seem to know, and love, but of which I am completely ignorant. However, in an effort to step away from my English-dominated music collection, I'm prepared to branch out and give these guys a go. They've certainly been successful, though I'm a little unsure, going by the less-than-clear genres Wiki slaps on them, if they'll be my cup of Tetley, but sure, as they say, we'll give it a go. What's the worst thing that can happen? (You had to ask, didn't you?)

Nice, ambient synth opening on the title track, very short, just under two minutes, with a sort of prelude perhaps to the album? Not an awful lot in it, but we shall see how it goes from here in. Things staying nice and relaxed, with some sprinkly piano and a rather nice female vocal on Glósóli: of course I have no idea what she's singing about, but if the music is good enough that can matter less than it usually does, and this music is quite nice I must say. More percussion coming in now, nice powerful guitar ramping up the tension. Have to admit, I like this so far. Beautiful piano intro to Hoppípolla, soon joined by slowly thumping drums and some nice strings. Oh, wait. I'm wrong about the singer; the falsetto vocals of Jón Þór Birgisson fooled me into thinking he was female until I checked, and I see he's a guy. Woops! Well, he puts in a fine performance here, but you could definitely be forgiven for thinking Sigur Ros have a female vocalist. Um. Anyway, lovely use of a full choir too on this track.

Sé lest is very interesting: almost nine minutes of pretty much pure ambience, that falsetto vocal rising above tinkling piano to form a really lovely soundscape, while Sæglópu changes everything, kicking it all up and becoming easily the heaviest and most dramatic track on the album so far. The longest track then, at just over ten minutes, Mílanó keeps things fairly strong but with some more nice soft piano running like a river through the tune; surprisingly, it's over rather quickly. Things get a bit manic with Gong but then slow right back down as the album winds towards its end, with Andvari pulling back on the throttle and idling along, and it's nice and slow then for the final three tracks.

I do like this. It's different, and of course, among the very many languages I can't speak is Icelandic, so not being able to understand the lyrics is a little off-putting and perhaps leads to an overall lesser enjoyment of the album for me than someone who's fluent in this language might have, but I still found a lot to keep me interested and make me come back to check out this band some more.
Overall Impression: Very nice, a new band to look into.
Intention: As above, listen to some more of Sigur Ros's material.

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Trollheart

Mayhem - Imelda May - 2010


There's a cold hand of dread touching my shoulder as I look at the genre here. I've never been any sort of a fan of rockabilly music, but to be fair, I've never listened to a full album of it before, so what am I judging my dislike on? Well, mostly its affiliation with the fifties, a decade whose music I generally can't stand. Happy Days? You can keep it, mate. Just not into all that stuff. But hey, Imelda's an Irish artist and I should at least give her a shot. Doubt I'll be breaking open an extra packet of cookies on this one, though!

Starts off okay, to be fair: decent guitar rock. Imelda has a good voice, though I could do without the annoying wolf-howls on "Psycho", and the addition of brass on the title track just doesn't really work for me, but then I'm not overfond of brass anyway. Much better is the slow ballad "Kentish Town Waltz", really beautiful and touching, showing another side of Imelda as she reins in the madcap freneticism to turn in a truly lovely song. Course, it doesn't last, but the cool shuffle of the almost thirties-inspired "All for You" keeps the quality high, and there's a touch of Fleetwood Mac's "When the Sun Goes Down" in "Eternity", while there's an eclectic mix of reggae and swing on "Inside Out".

This seems to be a thing with Imelda May: far from being just a rockabilly artiste, she appears to cross over and mix several genres, from thirties swing and jazz to reggae and country-infused folk, seemingly equally comfortable wherever her music takes her. But her main love does remain rockabilly, and she rocks out in no uncertain fashion in this style on tracks like "Sneaky Freak", "Pulling the Rug" and "Let Me Out", with a curious mix of Mariachi and Hawaiian music in "I'm Alive" that somehow works. The album ends on an interesting rockabilly take on Soft Cell's "Tainted Love": always hated the song, and I have to say this doesn't make me like it any the more.

Interesting album, certainly eclectic, decidedly diverse. Not the sort of music I normally listen to, and I'd probably not be in a hurry to listen to another album of hers, but for what she does Imelda May does it well, and I suppose the biggest compliment I can pay this album is that I know what I hate, and I don't hate this. Much.

TRACK LISTING

Pulling the Rug
Psycho
Mayhem
Kentish Town Waltz
All for You
Eternity
Inside Out
Proud and Humble
Sneaky Freak
Bury My Troubles
Too Sad to Cry
I'm Alive
Let Me Out
Tainted Love

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Key

Another favorite album of mine. For the record though, the vocalist is a guy, his name is Jonsi Fergusson. He's done one or two solo albums to my knowledge which are fantastic. Sigur Ros are a great band if you can appreciate the sound more than anything, which I can see that you have. Very nicely reviewed.

Trollheart

Thanks Ki, but as you can see I did suss that out soon after, and corrected myself. I suppose I could just have gone back and deleted the bit about female vocals, but I wanted to show that I'm not infallible (though I am) and also how the guy's voice made such an impression on me, and was so different that I did in fact mistake it for female. Always think it makes the review seem a little more real/honest if you admit the mistakes you made while reviewing, eg "There are no ballads on this album --- oh wait, there's one" or "This beautiful piano piece which lulls you to --- ah. Just became a heavy guitar-oriented track. I see." Leaves you with more of an impression of this being a first-time review, as all these are.

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Key

I must have missed that, or just read the review too fast. I did like the way you went about it though. You noted most if not all the strong points of the album. Andvari alone is such an emotional roller coaster when you hear it for the first time. One of the cool parts of that song is the end, where it repeats and repeats, but it's more incredible than annoying.

Trollheart

Oh, how the mighty have fallen!


Artiste: Suzanne Vega
Nationality: American
Album: Nine objects of desire
Year: 1996
Label: A&M
Genre: Folk rock
Tracks:Birth-day (Love made real)
Headshots
Caramel
Stockings
Casual match
Thin man
No cheap thrill
World before Columbus
Lolita
Honeymoon suite
Tombstone
My favourite plum
Chronological position: Fifth album
Familiarity: “Suzanne Vega”, “Solitude standing”
Initial impression: Kind of puts me in mind of a meeting between Simon and Gabriel...
Best track(s):No cheap thrill, World before Columbus
Worst track(s):Most of the rest of it, really.
Comments: Though I would certainly count myself a fan of Suzanne Vega, somehow I never got past her first two albums. Brilliant (each in different ways) as those two were, I just seemed to have drifted away from her music after that. Not a conscious decision I think, but maybe I got caught up in all the hype at the time, with her videos on MTV and her singles in the charts, and going to see her live: maybe it was all just oversaturation and when it was over, like a spent/selfish lover, I just rolled over and muttered “seeya” and left in the night. Not literally, you understand.

So here's my chance, now that I have her discography, to see what Suzanne got up to while I was away. By all accounts, she's still successful, highly-thought of and despite the fact that her albums no longer break the top ten --- a steady decline since “Solitude standing” almost hit the top slot back in 1987, with this one falling just outside the top forty --- she still shifts more than enough units to keep herself in the style to which, no doubt, she's become accustomed. But is there a reason for this fall in commercial popularity? Or did people (like, I have to admit, myself) just jump off the bandwagon after '87 and leave it trundling on, unconcerned as to where it went without them? Have we, to mix metaphors a little, missed the boat, and will I wonder, after listening to this album, why I stopped buying her records?

And do I ever stop asking questions? Well, do I?

Two tracks in, and I'm already asking more questions. Where's the acoustic guitar? The folk aspect of her music that drew me to her initially? This all sounds a little too electric, a little too, well, pop for me. The lazy lounge of Caramel sounds like it should be in some old forties movie, but it's better than what has gone before, with a certain Waits charm about the clarinet and bass, while Stockings (who else could write a song about a woman wearing stockings and somehow not make it sound that sexual?) is a lot rockier, with hard guitar and pulsing bass and a sort of bossa-nova beat, with something of Neil Hannon's Divine Comedy in the melody, and some pretty wild trumpet, almost arabic style.

As I listen to this more I get the feeling (reinforced with each new track I hear) that this is not Vega's own music, but what some record execs feel she should be playing. I'm not saying she didn't write it, as I know she did, but it just doesn't have the same heart as her earlier work, at least for me. Other than the pretty distinctive voice, if I heard this on the radio I'd probably not recognise it as being her product. Maybe she was just trying other things, but this sounds more like an album written to try to get attention, hit singles, commercial success --- which is odd, considering she had her biggest success with “Solitude”. Maybe trying to recapture the genius of that album backfired? Either way, I'm only halfway through, but though it's not a terrible album, I really don't see me ever seeing this as a great one.

In fairness, No cheap thrill comes closest to the sort of song I've come to expect from her, but it's very much in the minority, along with World before Columbus, which really goes back to her basic sound, and is in fact one of the few favourites I would have on this album. Sadly, after that, for me, it's downhill all the way. I feel after listening to this album that Vega is trying to sound like Waits, though of course that could just be me. Still... Maybe two objects of desire on this one, Suzy, never nine. Not for me, anyhow.
Overall impression: A little confused, if I'm honest, and somewhat disappointed.
Intention: I'm really not sure. Is all her music post-1987 like this?

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Trollheart

Superb German prog


Artiste: RPWL
Nationality: German
Album: Trying to kiss the sun
Year: 2002
Label: Tempus Fugit
Genre: Progressive Rock
Tracks
Trying to kiss the sun
Waiting for a smile
I don't know (what it's like)
Sugar for the ape
Side by side
You
Tell me why
Believe me
Sunday morning
Home again
Chronological position: Second album
Familiarity: Zero
Interesting Factoid: RPWL stands for Phil Paul Rossettio, Chris Postl, Karlheinz Wallner and Yogi Lang, the four original members of the band, though they're now a quintet.
Initial Impression: Good progressive rock, elements of Marillion and Gazpacho
Best track(s): I don't know (what it's like), Side by side, Believe me, Home again
Worst track(s): None
Comments: Been getting back into listening to some, to me, new progressive rock bands recently, and I'll be featuring some of them here on “Bitesize” over the next week. RPWL are a band whose music I've had on my PC for over a year now and yet never got round to listening to. I had a few listens to this already and found I really liked it. Good mix of lengthy, properly-prog epics and some really nice ballads, great instrumentals and really well-constructed songs, and even though they hail from Germany, where singers often tend to the sharper, more gutteral sound, or at least usually give themselves away by their heavy accent, there's a soft melliflousness about singer Yogi Lang's voice, almost a Gilmouresque quality to it. He also plays keyboards though, leaving the fretwork to Karlheinz Wallner.

There's a lovely sitar melody in I don't know (what it's like) which gives the song a very eastern-sounding influence. I find this closest to the best of Jadis, and it's extremely catchy and commercial. I'm not crazy about the somewhat unconventional ending though. It hits right then into a much heavier, grungier slow rocker, more in the vein of Hendrix or Free, with Sugar for the ape; lots of heavy guitar and a sort of metallic, muffled, almost mono vocal, though the chorus is quite incongruous with the rest of the song. Strange. Lovely piano ending, all the same.

After the somewhat pastoral sound of Side by side there's a big heavy prog epic in You, with a lot of Mostly Autumn in it, although even here RPWL don't push it too much. I would not call them an acoustic band, but with the exception of Sugar for the ape there's not anything too heavy on this album, and a lot of it is quite laidback without being boring. There's a Beatles vibe to Believe me, with a guitar solo almost lifted from Threshold's Sunrise on Mars and more sitar, this time though backing rather than leading. The album ends well then on the epic Home again, with a powerful homage to Gilmour in the ending solo, helping to set the seal on an album which proved to me, even on first listen, that further investigation into RPWL is required.
Overall Impression: A really good prog band who I need to listen to more.
Intention: More, please!

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The enchantress returns... and the magic's still there


Artiste: Stevie Nicks
Nationality: American
Album: In your dreams
Year: 2011
Label: Reprise
Genre: Rock
Tracks:
Secret love
For what it's worth
In your dreams
Wide Sargasso Sea
New Orleans
Moonlight (A vampire's dream)
Annabel Lee
Soldier's angel
Everybody loves you
Ghosts are gone
You may be the one
Italian summer
Cheaper than free
Chronological position: Seventh album
Familiarity: “Bella donna”, “The wild heart”, “Rock a little”, “The other side of the mirror”
Initial impression: Yeah! Stevie is BACK!
Best track(s):For what it's worth, In your dreams, Moonlight (A vampire's dream), Soldier's angel, Italian summer
Worst track(s):Eh, yeah...
Comments: I've always been a big fan of Stevie, ever since her Fleetwood Mac days, and while I wouldn't say all her albums were completely without their duff tracks, each of them nevertheless has a special place in my heart, even if I haven't heard the two prior to this, her latest. Stevie has a way of singing directly to your heart and your soul, and her appeal does not diminish --- at least, for me --- with the passage of time and as age begins to advance on her. The album sleeve couldn't be more typical Stevie: all that's missing is a horn in the horse's forehead to make it a unicorn. She's not known for rushing out albums though: after the initial flurry of four albums between 1981 and 1989, it was five years before her fifth album, and seven to the one after that, with a staggering ten years elapsing between 2001's “Trouble in Shangri-La” and the release of this album.

Stevie's solo albums have always contained a healthy dose of country and folk lodged firmly within the rock, and this is no exception, with tracks like For what it's worth and the closer Cheaper than free allowing Mike Campbell to show his talent on the steel guitar, while our old friend Greg Leisz adds mandolin. Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics is heavily involved in the album, writing most of the music, playing guitar and adding backing vocals, even duetting with Stevie as well as producing the album, and “In your dreams” seems to see the reunion of Stevie and her ex, Lindsey Buckingham, who plays guitar and also duets with her on one of the songs. A reconciliation? Perhaps. Time will tell. But so far this is one hell of a good album, which to be fair is no more than I'd expect from Ms. Nicks. But it even has me impressed, and I was already expecting it to be good.

There's a great mix of straightahead rock, country and ballads, with some really nice violin from Ann Marie Calhoun and Torrey del Vitto on tracks like New Orleans, but perhaps the standout on the album is one of only three songs on which Stevie writes both lyrics and music, the powerful semi-ballad Moonlight (A vampire's dream), on which she utilises her mystic/wiccan image to the full, with a beautifully delicate piano melody framing the song, while the following Annabel Lee is adapted from the poem by Edgar Allan Poe, then the sharp starkness of Soldier's angel kicks you right in the gut. Lindsey Buckingham's uncompromisingly stripped-back guitar sounding like a peal of doom behind Stevie's stricken, ragged vocal and the thump-thump-thump of doomy drums makes this song at once unsettling and impossible to ignore, and perhaps there's another contender for standout. Buckingham also adds his vocal to this, though it's more on the chorus than as a duet, and Stevie, the fogotten widow of a soldier, sings the verses alone, which only seems right and in keeping with the spirit of the song.

Absolutely beautiful and sumptuous strings arrangement in Everybody loves you, one of two songs on which Stewart adds his vocals, then Stevie kicks out the stays and rocks like a good thing on Ghosts are gone, evoking memories of Enchanted from “The wild heart”. Whether this is meant to be further indication that the rift between her and Buckingham has been healed or not is open to debate, but they certainly seem to work well together again, and seem to be enjoying the experience.

I've done my best to pick my favourite tracks on this album, but to be honest it's been a hard choice, as most of this could have gone into that category. It's just that good. Proof once again that good things come to those who wait, and even a decade after her last album Stevie can still blow them all away. Thirty-some years in the business, not including her time with Fleetwood Mac, and she still has it. Probably always will. Sixty-four years old this year, and still sounding like a twenty-year old. That's our Stevie: she'll probably never really grow old.
Overall impression: One of the best Stevie Nicks albums I've heard since “Bella donna”, way back in 1981.
Intention: As it always has been, to continue buying and enjoying her records. Must give “Trouble in Shangri-La” and “Street angel” a listen before long, too.

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Decent effort from Irish rock band


Artiste: Bell X1
Nationality: Irish
Album: Music in mouth
Year: 2003
Label: Universal Island
Genre: Rock
Tracks:
Snakes and snakes
Alphabet soup
Daybreak
Eve, the apple of my eye
Next to you
West of her spine
Bound for Boston Hill
Tongue
White water song
In every sunflower
I'll see your heart and I'll raise you mine
Chronological position: Second album
Familiarity: “Bloodless coup”
Interesting factoid: Although this album didn't quite break Bell X-1 commercially, it did get them noticed outside of Ireland when one of the tracks featured on the TV series “The O.C”
Initial impression: The production on this album is woeful!
Best track(s): Eve, the apple of my eye, In every sunflower, I'll see your heart and I'll raise you mine
Worst track(s): Although some of the tracks are not great, I can't in fairness paint any of them as bad.
Comments: Again I fall foul of not paying enough attention to my native music. I reviewed Bell X1's most recent album, “Bloodless coup”, back at the end of last year and was quite impressed with it. It did in fact win a Polly award (see my main journal) for one of the tracks, but other than that album I really don't know any of the music from this Dublin band, so in an attempt to redress this I'm giving this one a shot. The first thing I have to say is that I thought the opener, Snakes and snakes, was an instrumental, but find this is either down to woeful production, where the guitar is so loud and overpowering that the vocals can't be heard, in fact you barely realise they're there at all, or the singer can't sing. I know the latter not to be the case, unless he's vastly improved his ability on "Bloodless coup", so maybe this is an intentional thing; I guess we'll find out as the album goes on.

Actually, about thirty seconds before the end, the vocals come in strongly, and it is a good song, but you have to wonder at the production values? Even if it was meant to sound like that, why? The next song seems to have very muddy vocals too, so is this going to continue? Yeah, “Daybreak” is the same: vocals so distant it's like they're being sung hundreds of yards away. That said, the guitar work on this track is lovely, but with rubbish production like this (unless I've got hold of a bad copy: and why then would only the vocals be hard to hear? It's not like it's muffled, just seems so far down in the mix it's almost buried) it's difficult to critique a track which is not supposed to be an instrumental, but comes across almost as one.

Note: Okay, the mystery is solved. Seems it's my amp which after my computer had to be disassembled earlier today has decided to throw all the treble into the left speaker and bass into the right, so with the balance in the middle, where it usually is, I'm getting little of either. Let's reset the knob and see how we go again, back from the start. I'm not erasing the above, to remind myself not to be such a dickhead in future. Probably won't work though...

So, back we go. Bearing the rant I had at the beginning, Snakes and snakes now comes across as a much more powerful song, and yes, the guitar is sharp and loud, but now that I've sorted my amp it doesn't drown out the vocals, far from it. God I'm an idiot! Ah-ah-annnnyway... the track that got them noticed via the series “The O.C”, a lovely piano ballad called Eve, the apple of my eye is indeed a worthy song by which to announce your presence to the world, and I can see why it raised some eyebrows. Definitely indications of what was to come. Some lovely Nick Cave-style Fender Rhodes, I think.

There's a certain sense of folk or bluegrass about West of her spine, and a deep, lazy, almost Waitsesque quality to Bound for Boston Hill, with some nice slide guitar, while Tongue comes across with a very Zep vibe. As we head towards the last third of the album I have to say it's a decent rock effort, but I don't see anything too fantastic about it. I'd probably listen to it again, but unless something really good happens in the next three tracks, I wouldn't be in too much of a hurry.

Well, White water song is almost heavy metal, frenetic and close to dissonant at times, but with a good strong vocal, then Bell X1 slow everything down with what sounds like an accordion melody line to take us into In every sunflower --- actually, it could be oileann pipes or something similar. Course, it could also be a sound programmed into a synth, but it sounds quite organic and is pretty effective. It's a nice song, as is the closer, the cleverly-titled I'll see your heart and I'll raise you mine.

A good, solid album with some great tracks, certainly, but nothing that makes me jump up and shout “Go buy this album now!” Though if you do, you'll probably not be disappointed.
Overall impression: Good album, not a great album.
Intention: Maybe check out another of theirs.

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Another prog revelation


Artiste:Knight Area
Nationality: Dutch
Album: Realm of shadows
Year: 2009
Label: The Lasers Edge
Genre: Progressive rock
Tracks:
Ethereal
Antagony
Two of a kind
Momentum
Awakening
Dark souls
Realm of shadows
A million lives
Occlusion
Chronological position: Third album
Familiarity: Zero
Initial impression: Er, Genesis?
Best track(s):A million lives
Worst track(s): None
Comments: There's no avoiding the obvious influence of one of the biggest prog-rock bands of the seventies and eighties on Dutch proggers Knight Area, as the opening keyboard chords from Ethereal, the first track on this, their third album, show without question. Even the piano, when the keys fade down a little, is pure classic Tony Banks circa “Wind and wuthering” or even “Duke”. But let it not be thought that Knight Area are just a clone or rip-off of Genesis, far from it. They have their own sound, but it is highly coloured by Genesis's impact on the early progressive rock scene. Let's be honest though: it's not only the music that's influenced, as part of the lyric to Ethereal goes ”Nobody knows my name/ For nobody would understand/That you kill what you fear”... sound familiar?

They really up the ante though, changing it all around for the second track, which powers along almost in a progressive metal vein, though again I do find something familiar about it, and this does seem to dog these Netherlands rockers a little; they come across as a bit derivative. Still, if so they do it well and don't come across as deliberately copying anyone; I think it's just their reverence for certain prog rock giants bleeds into their music and leeches off a little of the originality that I would prefer be there. Again, Awakening is a great little instrumental, but borrows its piano melody almost completely from the opening to Marillion's Fugazi...

For all that though, Knight Area can be original when they try, or want to, as tracks like Dark souls and A million lives show, the former delivering a big, heavy, dramatic opus with some fine strong vocals while the latter is a poppier, more upbeat, almost AOR song somewhat in the style of Asia, but not so much that you'd notice. Unfortunately (well, not unfortunately, as I love Genesis) the influence of the masters creeps back in and spreads all over the title track, which is not to say it's bad, as it most certainly is not, but those Banksesque keyboards, particularly the electric piano, can sound like no-one else, and bring the two “W” words up once again.

The album finishes well on a real power progressive rock epic, over eleven minutes of it, in which Knight Area lay down their own claim to originality and manage to stand a little apart from the plethora of prog rock bands out there at the moment. Now, if only they could ditch the cloying Genesis slant on their music, stamp their own individuality on their songs, they could really be a force to be reckoned with.
Overall impression: A little less Genesis clonification (not fair, I know) and this band could be really great. As it is, they need to really establish their own identity as yet.
Intention: Keep an eye on them, to see if this happens over the course of their next few albums

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