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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