2. Godspeed You Black Emperor - Raise Your Skinny Fists Like Antenna To Heaven
3. Naive Ted - The Inevitable Heel Turn
4. Gogol Bordello - Gypsy Underworld Strike
5. Primus - Frizzle Fry
To be absolutely fair, I don't think I was in the mood for some new music this month, and not too much grabbed me in the way the top two did the month previous.
Luke, in a nutshell, is a hippy.
Not the rabid vegan type of hippy, the sound sort.
He does eat meat (good!), and doesn't try to push political beliefs down your throat as fact off the basis of some random survey that appeared on a site of dubious nature that week.
He eats good food, enjoys the bounty that nature has to offer, loves music and revolves his life around that. And streetfighter. At least it appears. Well it seems like it to me.
Laid back is probably not an adequate description, he's as a cool as a cucumber lying on it's back in the snow.
When I first met him he was trying to get off the ground building guitars, and he has made one or two esquisite instruments of which I'm in awe, but I guess that particular venture didn't work out in his favor.
I expected some ecletic technical music, and that's pretty much what I got.
Some of this stuff I think I may have to be stoned, drunk, or both to appreciate, but none the less the month was soldiered through and everything got a reasonable amount of playtime.
TOOL - Lateralus
This is growing on me, it's like jazz. Metal jazz. And prog rock. That is a good thing, quite a good thing.
Favorite track is probably Parabola.
Awful lot of "I can't hear anything, is the thing playing" at the beginning of tracks, I guess it's all about creating that contrast.
I just saw one of their music videos on YouTube, and it's making me think twice about heaping any further praise, but that aside I can definitely see myself listening to this album again.
I get the bad feeling there's some big political or philosphical meaning behind the lyrics, but they were sufficently quiet and mumbly (pretty sure that's not a word but I couldn't be bothered to think of another) that I could quite easily ignore and appreciate the techincality of the music.
Almost like the opposite of Primus.
I suppose this month summed up would be "Thomas didn't like Primus".
Godspeed You Black Emperor - Raise Your Skinny Fists Like Antenna To Heaven
Someone got 10 guys high in a room with a Pink Floyd record for company, and anyone else who dropped by was free to contribute as they saw fit.
Same phrase played over and over for 20 minutes.
It feels like I'm listening to a jam session, sometimes I could be in the mood for that, but I think all good songs should have a structure, one of those components is an ending.
If you're playing the same thing over and over for 20 minutes it can get a wee bit old.
However, in certain scenarios I've found it to work for me.
It excels as background music, as they're playing the same phrase for so long I feel no need to give it full attention, maybe we've found the elevator music of the future?
More than once I found myself driving and getting a little drawn in.
Not all music is going to blow you away the first time you hear it, and Godspeed Yada Yada is definitely in the category of requiring more than one listen to get the feel for it.
That, or a large amount of pot.
It feels like if Pink Floyd decided "Hey, instead of making this really sweet tight 5 minute track and moving into something totally different, let's grind on it for 20 minutes, put in some random old guy talking about ye good old days, and then do a second track. Sure we'll be down the pub for lunch!"
I may revisit this again in the future however, it's just weird that I can't seem to come up with anything to actually recommend it, but I would not dissuade anyone from listening to it and would (probably) not think any less of them for liking it.
Naive Ted - The Inevitable Heel Turn
I'm not sure what to make of this album, there seems to be some decent tracks on it,ut somethings leaves me a little cold, it's almost a bit souless?
I'm not sure that's a fair critque, I think the combination of electronic beats with traditional instruments is throwing me off something wierd.
But hey, it's got the Bullet Club theme, and that single track is possibly the best track of the month.
I'm probably not been sufficiently versed in the subleties of the electronic scene, as everyone I've met who's heard of this album (and I'm pretty sure it was more than two) loves it, and says it was great live.
I would not be adverse to giving Niave Ted a shot if he was playing live, not sure this album captured me to the point of listening again though.
Gogol Bordello - Gypsy Underworld Strike
I said sounds like the Pogues.
Mike said it sounds like Ramones.
Neither of those things are a neccessarily a negative vibe at all.
It does also remind me a lot of what I dislike in Irish folk music - it's like five guys in a pub all fighting with each other for sound.
Yes it's refreshing for a few minutes, but then it just all starts to become noise in slightly different arrangements.
The vocals are pretty much just shouting, which is fine if it's what you're in to, but even the Ramones had a few slow ones in between.
I could really see listening to some tracks in between something else, but an entire album is a little bit much of the same shouty loud acoustic battling between the performers.
On the whole it doesn't feel like anything particularly unique, I've been exposed to a lot of folk rock for geographical reasons and it really all sounds the same, these guys are little different.
Primus - Frizzle Fry
Some people shouldn't sing in public. I think Les Claypool is one of them.
Not matter how much I listen to it, his voices grates on me like few I've experienced before.
There'll be a thundering bass line and intro to a song, my head starts nodding in appreciation, and then he starts to sing.
The example I always think of is "Too Many Puppies".
Dear Lord, there cannot surely be anyone else in that band who could not make a better attempt at vocals, what dirt does he have on them?
I actually really wanted to like this album, and listened to it far too much for my sanity in the hope I could drown out those lyrical attempts.
And understanding English as a mother tongue only worsens the effect, at least if it was in Spanish I'd have little idea as to the gibberish he's spouting.
He's got nothing useful or interesting to say, he doesn't have the tools to do it in a way that doesn't make me want to puncture my eardrums, but by god, that's not gonna stop him trying.
The instrumentation is fantastic, some great rippling riffs between the group, but those sounds that are called vocals....
