Trollheart

Who tipped you off? It's so easy to write multiple album reviews when you have eight legs you know...

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Anteater

Album Title: Erpland
Artiste: Ozric Tentacles
Nationality: English
Year: 1990
Subgenre: Space Rock, Instrumental
Player(s): Ed Wynne (Guitar, Synths, Production), John Egan (Flute), Roly Wynne (Bass), Paul Hankin (Percussion), Mervin Pepler (Drums), Steve Everett (Sampling) and Marcus Carcus (World music stuffz)
Familiarity: One of my favorite bands of all time.
Favourite track(s): Eternal Wheel, A Gift Of Wings
Why? Atmospherics galore, plus all those sumptuous synth textures and trippy jammin' chord progressions.
Least favourite track(s): They're all good!
Any preconceptions prior to listening, whether good or bad? I've been familiar with these guys pretty much forever, but back when I was first getting into the band I was expecting hard psychedelia or something.
Factoids you'd like to share? They're one of the most successful "indie" bands of all time, having sold millions of records without the help of a major label.
End impression: An absolute classic. All of the Ozrics stuff up until the late 90's is perfect, and this one's a belter for sure.
Comments: Some people say that once you've heard one Ozrics album you've pretty much heard them all, but that's not really fair: nobody sounded like them from the time they were founded in the mid 80's and up until 1995's Become The Other, I would have told you they were the best instrumental jam band of all time. Anyway, there's a rather novel/unique synthesis of sounds and ideas on these early albums. No other outfit has ever had a foot in rave culture, old school psych/space rock stuff and progressive rock simultaneously, and nobody has since either. They've got elements of House, Reggae and even New Age all over their stuff too, but there's still enough blinding axework from Ed Wynne to win over even the grumpiest proghead. Erpland isn't the best Ozrics record (that award goes to Jurassic Shift or maybe their debut Pungent Effulgent) but some of their best cuts are here for sure. Plus all their early album covers...man, they're just awesome.

Rating: 5 Partly because the album is really good, but also because nobody sounded like the Ozrics from '85-'95 either.

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Urban Hat€monger ?

Album Title: Erpland
Artist: Ozric Tentacles
Nationality: English
Year: 1990
Subgenre: Neo Hippies
Player(s): Some crusty looking people with instruments
Familiarity: Seen lots of smelly people with dreadlocks wearing their shirts at festivals
Favourite track(s): The title track
Why? It seemed to stand out a bit more from the rest of them
Least favourite track(s): Sunscape
Any preconceptions prior to listening, whether good or bad? I was expecting the kind of alternative / traveller type of band that seemed to be quite popular in the UK in the late 80s early 90s. Kind of like 70s hippy culture meets 80s acid house culture. I was expecting them to sound similar to late 80s Hawkwind when they started experimenting with electronica and found parallels with the acid house movement only with more of a new age / organic vibe.
Factoids you'd like to share? I've been aware of this bands existence since at least 1988/89 but never heard a single song by them.
End impression: Thank God that's over

Comments: I wanted to like this. I was under the impression this was supposed to be a band who mixed & matched all sorts of genres together. The truth is that it's diluted down so much it just becomes bland and uninteresting, basically it's just background muzak.

For one thing this album sounds far too clean, especially the awfully clean sounding guitars that sound like 80s Pink Floyd at their worst. Added to that you have these awful parping synths over pretty much every song. This album says it came out in 1990 but it sounds like it was recorded in 1985. A track like Sunscape actually sounded promising at first with it's acoustic guitar & flute, I thought I'd be in for a nice folky song to really change up the album from what I'd heard up till that point, but then the synths and the electric guitars came in and ruined the song by making it sound like every other song on the album.

There are a couple of songs with some middle eastern flavour to them but they're done in a really uninteresting ways, also I'm pretty sure about 3 songs alone on this album rip off the beginning of Future Days by Can with the flowing water bit, or maybe it was the same song because after a while they all seemed to merge together and I've no idea when one started and one finished.

I refuse to call this space rock because I heard no such thing on this album, also I was expecting a few interesting rhythms given that they apparently have middle eastern and dance music ties, but nothing interesting emerged from that either and the less said about the reggae stuff the better, that was just embarrassing to listen to.

I had high hopes I'd enjoy this, even despite the length. 73 minutes is a struggle for a band I do enjoy, let alone one I've never heard before.
All I can say about this is it sounds like long boring drawn out Dad Rock, which is a description I never thought I would give when I approached it. I wouldn't recommend this album to someone going to a rave or a rock festival, I'd recommend this to my Dad to put alongside his Chris Rea & Mark Knopfler albums.

I mentioned the word 'Organic' when I said what I thought this album would sound like, this album sounds about as organic as a tupperwear lunch box.

Rating: 0.5

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Anteater

You either like the sound of the synths or you don't. From my perspective, they work brilliantly in the context of their overall sound. That's going to determine the ratings of anyone else who reviews this too.

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Trollheart

Album title: Erpland
Artiste: Ozric Tentacles
Nationality: British
Year: 1990
Subgenre: Space/Psychedelic Rock
Player(s): Ed Wynne (Guitars, Synth), Roly Wynne (Bass), Paul Hankin (Percussion), Mervin Pepler (Drums), John Egan (Flute, Voice), Joie Hinton (Synth) (There are some others but these are the main players)
Familiarity: None at all; I've heard of them but never heard any oftheir music. To be honest I thought they were African or Danish or Swiss or something!
Favourite track(s): Maybe “Eternal wheel”. “Crackerblocks” is good too.
Why? Because it showed me from the off that I would probably enjoy this album. And I did. “Crackerblocks” reminds me of Vangelis at his most restrained, also elements of mid-80s Peter Gabriel .
Least favourite track(s): “Iscence”
Why? I just don't like reggae that much and this has reggae stamped all over it. It's not a bad track by any means, but compared to the rest here it's easily for me the weakest.
Any preconceptions prior to listening, whether good or bad? No.
Factoids you'd like to share? Not me, but does anyone know what “Erpland” means?
End impression: Excellent instrumental prog, kept me interested all the way through. Though whether I'd listen to another twenty albums like this I couldn't say.
Comments: I knew of Ozric Tentacles, but only by name. Still, Ant vouched for them so that was a plus. From the opener I liked this; the sort of hypnotic beat and the soft keyboards, then the pulsing bass comes in before the guitar riffs all over the place. I would agree with Urban on one point: much of this does tend to blend together. I don't know that it's that it sounds all the same; it's more for me something I struggle with when listening to instrumental albums. Unless there are tracks that are very, very different it does all tend to fade together and I often find it hard to differentiate between tracks. That said, what I hear is all good, so I certainly don't agree with Urban's assessment of the album.

I like the elements of New Age and also the Arabic influences on some of the tracks, especially “Mysticum Arabicola” and yes, I even like the flutes! See, flutes are fine once an album isn't based entirely around them, Ian Anderson! I can take flutes in small doses, and that's what we get here. Lot of little ethnic sounds too which is nice and gives the album a sense of mystery and exoticism. Is there some jazz fusion in there too? Have to say, I don't hear all that many “parping synths”, but then, if you listen to a prog album in a club dedicated to prog, you're more than likely to hear such an instrument on most if not all albums chosen. There's certainly not as much as there would be on, say, a Geoff Downes solo or ELP album. Lots of geetar to keep it interesting, nice organ too.

But if have to sound a note of disappointment, it's what I'm going to call the Hum Factor. In other words, is there anything on this album that makes me want to hum or sing it later on? Answer is no: this is my third listen to “Erpland” and not only do I not want to hum any of the tracks, i don't think I could if I wanted to. It's not a big deal, but I find an album scores better with me if the Hum Factor is high. For this, I'd only award a Hum Factor of about 2, where 10 would the highest I could rate it. Normally even on an instrumental album I can find a tune, a melody I like, remember and might hum, but nothing stands out to me here. But I do like this album and would probably listen to more. There would be a whole stack of other albums I'd queue up first, though.


Rating: Solid 4.0

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Unknown Soldier

Album title: Erpland
Artiste: Ozric Tentacles
Nationality: British
Year: 1990
Subgenre: Space/Psychedelic Rock
Player(s): Ed Wynne (Guitars, Synth), Roly Wynne (Bass), Paul Hankin (Percussion), Mervin Pepler (Drums), John Egan (Flute, Voice), Joie Hinton (Synth) (There are some others but these are the main players)
Familiarity: Knew the name simply because it sounded interesting, apart from that nothing at all.
Favourite track(s): Nothing overly excited me but I remember I enjoyed "Crackerblocks".
Why? "Crackerblooks" was nicely paced and quite soothing (despite the fact I don't listen to an album to be soothed)
Least favourite track(s):“Iscence” and "Erpland"
Why? "Iscence" too reggae orientated and "Erpland" just seemed too straightforward and uninspiring.
Any preconceptions prior to listening, whether good or bad? None.
Factoids you'd like to share? None this time.
End impression: I'm still undecided over what I feel about 'New Age' material and this album hasn't helped me decide either. The album as a whole is a rich listen of sounds but for me that's about it.
Comments: I know this sounds dense and close minded, but even today I find it hard to get into an instrumental album and this one was no different and considering it ran for 70 plus mins didn't much help either. Also when I think instrumental I think film soundtrack, which doesn't help either. As already stated by Urban I also found the album very clean (not a negative for me) but I wasn't expecting it to be like so. Also agree that all the so-called musical styles had seemingly been put through a blender and the individuality of the musical styles sucked out, to leave a modern new age hippy type album (squeaky clean hippies of course). On the album I hear Vangelis, Jean-Michel Jarre, Tangerine Dream and Gong influences amongst many others and will agree that the guitars are pretty intense at times and probably the best thing about the album. Of the musical styles, I always dig anything that has Middle Eastern tinges but the reggae didn't do anything for me, in fact it never does unless Joe Strummer is singing it. The album should also have been edited and cut to around 40 odd minutes, maybe then I would've given it a higher score.

Would I want to listen to this album again? Not anytime soon but perhaps one day, because I'm sure this and the band's discography probably needs multiple listens to really grasp what's on offer here.

Rating: Sleek and clean but hardly exciting 3.0

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Trollheart

Another interestingly polarising album, if not so much as the last one.
Urban, can you let me know if you intend to be a Standard or Associate Member? Standard have their votes counted but are expected to vote on every album picked, Associates don't have to but their votes are not reckoned into the final tally.

Yes, I know you're in the company of nerds. And proud of it, we are...

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Neapolitan

I'm trudging along with this album, if I write a review, does my rating count?

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Unknown Soldier

Every rating should count. As it is done of average scores and doesn't affect their overall score regardless whether 2 people or 10 people vote.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Anteater

Interesting reviews so far. Like I mentioned, Jurassic Shift probably would have been the ideal draw if we were going to do an Ozrics record (its way leaner than Erpland too), but I'm glad to see something other than complete hatred for their overall sonic approach.

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Anteater's 21 Fav Albums Of 2020

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