Madrugada Madrugada
Got to know Madrugada by the song Hands Up - I Love You, listened to a few more songs and decided this album would be worth getting. This Norwegian band has a very distinct sound, especially because of the striking vocals. On The Nightly Disease these vocals are given a free rein by the open production and the sparse use of instruments. There are no keyboards, no strings or other frills, only a pedal steel here and there. The album has an honest feel to it, it sounds at the same time warm and bleak, straight in your face. Sometimes it sounds a tad too depressed and depressing, and it lacks variety, it is not able to hold my attention all the time. But there are enough higlights to make it worth listening to, like the slow Into Heartbeats with a beautiful steel guitar, the sensual single Hands Up - I Love You, the ferocious Black Mambo with a fantastic bass line, Step Into This Room and Dance for Me with its sober intro, the loud We Are Go with its distored guitars, and the slowly flourishing Only When You're Gone with its superb guitarwork. And I have to mention that the artwork of the CD is beautiful.
Mad Season I was first introduced to the song Wake Up, and was swept away. A slow and haunting song with a beautiful structure, and a distinct 70's and Led Zep feel to it. Layne Staley's voice is strange but beautiful, and his weird accent adds to its beauty. The whole album is a slowly growing gem, very atmospheric, bluesy sometimes, with excellent guitar-playing by Pearl Jam-guitarist Mike McCready. Number one song for me on this album is Long Gone Day with vocals by Mark Lanegan, and a wonderful saxophone. Other favourites are River of Deceit, Lifeless Dead and November Hotel.
A compilation of B-sides, recorded live at the Moore Theatre, Seattle, 29-04-95. I only listened to these live versions after the album itself had sunk in, and I was pleasantly surprised by the quality. Especially All Alone fading into November Hotel is amazing, with McCready's guitar going astray and a wild saxophone. A nice bonus is the cover of Lennon's I Don't Want to Be a Soldier, coming from the Lennon-tribute Working Class Hero.
The Manic Street Preachers Unfortunately, I've never been able to get into the Manic Street Preachers albums. Always loved the singles to pieces (like A Design for Life on this album, or the earlier Motorcycle Emptiness), but a complete album is just too, um, manic for me. James Dean Bradfield has one hell of a voice, the Manics write gorgeous melodies and perform them in an impressive way, but the music just doesn't hit home with me.
Same story as for Everything must go... what I like most about this album are the singles, but the album as a whole doesn't work for me. On a sidenote, I think titles like This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours and If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next are brilliant. And I love the cover art of this album. The only thing left, is the music.
Marillion A maxi-single bought after I had been singing this song for weeks. Not really impressive, extended versions generally are a waste of time, and Lady Nina is not at all as good as Kayleigh.
Johnny Marr + the Healers Massive Attack
My jaw dropped when I listened to this album for the first time, and recognized that stunning song Teardrop. And that was all I needed to fall in love with Mezzanine. The foursome that opens the album is astounding: Angel has Horace Andy on vocals, and the build-op of beats, samples and effects explodes into a climax with raging guitars. Risingson is possibly the best track on the album, dense and dark, with a Velvet Underground sample. Teardrop is a chilling and ethereal song with Liz Fraser on vocals. Inertia Creeps is a rap track filled with fuzzy guitars and Eastern effects. Exchange is featured twice, once as an instrumental, once with vocals by Horace Andy. Dissolved Girl has more great guitars, but depends a bit too much on effects. In Man Next Door you'll hear a The 'drip drip drip drip' Cure sample. The title track and Group Four are a tightknit duo with 3d and Liz Fraser rubbing up against each other. The album ends with the sound of scratching vinyl...
Single with a nice flashy orange sleeve and the Manic Street Preachers version of Inertia Creeps. Not bad, but the mysteriousness, astmosphere, Eastern sounds and rhythm of the original version are completely lost. The Manics suddenly sound like schoolboys when they pop up behind 3d's vocals.
A collection of Massive Attack singles, from the early Unfinished Sympathy (with a name then, due to the outburst of hostility in the Middle East, reduced to Massive) to the 5 singles drawn from Mezzanine. This collection clearly shows that Massive Attack went through an enormous evolution, their early material sounds nothing like the tracks from Mezzanine. Unfinished Sympathy was a hit, partly because of its videoclip, and has a wonderful part on piano and beautifully arranged violins. Karmacoma is an indication of how this band would sound on Mezzanine.
Matthew Good Band Found out about this band on the internet before the album was released here, then to my surprise heard the single Hello Timebomb on Studio Brussel and decided to get the album. A good album overall from a band and especially a singer with a mission, but that mission doesn't get in the way of the music. It's clear though that the music and musicians still need to mature, sometimes it's a bit too much and especially the voice tends to get on your nerves after hearing the whole album. Standout songs are the aforementioned single Hello Timebomb with its brilliant title and enthusiasm, the very singable rocker Load Me Up and the poignant Jenni's Song.
David McComb Melancholic album from a tragic Australian musician. David McComb founded the Triffids, and after their demise pursuid a solo-career. Love of Will was released in 1993, but never got more than a little bit of airplay here and there. The album has the same quality as the Triffids-releases: timeless, touching melodies with McComb's distinguishable voice. Apart from the single Setting You Free, I Want to Concquer You is a definite highlight. The song Day of My Ascension leaves you behind with a bitter aftertaste, given McComb's death in 1999. He had suffered from poor health, and had undergone heart transplant surgery in 1995. He died on 2 February 1999, a few days after a minor car crash.
Men at Work Men At Work seem to be one of those typical Biggest Hits or Best Of bands: their hits are very enjoyable but don't really urge me to buy one of their regular albums. So this Best of is a good compromise, with all their hits (Down Under, Who Can It Be Now, Overkill...) and a few of their best album tracks. Doesn't end up in the CD-player very often though.
De Mens Very strong debut album of former journalist Frank Vander linden and Michel De Coster. Vander linden proves (once again, he's not the first and won't be the last) that you can rock in Dutch. Dit is mijn huis (This Is My House), Irene and Jeroen Brouwers schrijft een boek (Jeroen Brouwers Writes a Book) are strong singles combining sharp lyrics, Vander linden's rolling R, exciting guitar-playing and a sense of melancholy.
Mercury Rev My appreciation for Mercury Rev grew gradually, and that's the complete opposite of what this album does: it opens with it's masterpiece The Dark Is Rising, a song like a tidal wave with rolling gusts of keyboards and violins, and quiet moments with Jonathan Donahue's peculiar voice. That was also the moment of brilliance during their concert at the Werchter 2002 festival, a concert that in advance had so many pitfalls: Donahue's thin voice, playing during the middle of the day at clear daylight... But it worked out so well, Donahue's voice was so much better than expected, and the music didn't mind the daylight. They brought two additional keyboard players, and The Dark Is Rising got a muscular execution with even more contrasts. Afterwards I watched this on TV too, and even my children enjoyed this, especially Jonathan Donahue's theatrical gestures. But back to All Is Dream, The Dark Is Rising sets the mood for the rest of the album, trippy and dreamy indeed as the title suggests, atmospheric and floating. Sometimes balancing on the dangerous edge (too much, too bombastic, too baroque), but always staying at the right side of that edge. All Is Dream offers quite a bit of variety (as for example the song Lincoln's Eyes does: subdued opening, exploding halfway through, subdued ending), but one consistency is that it always sounds warm, natural and organic. Ranging from light-footed tunes (A Drop in Time) over sweet-sour popsongs (Nite and Fog), from piano songs (Spiders and Flies) over harder rocking songs (Chains) to carefully crafed epics (Hercules, Tides of the Moon), All Is Dream offers it all, and there is not one weak song on the album.
When I bought All Is Dream, it came with an enhanced bonus disc, including live material and the videos of Nite and Fog and The Dark Is Rising, but also part of the Lola da Musica documentary of the Dutch VPRO Television. I had already seen this documentary on TV, taped it, and watched a certain part of it over and over again, because it was so funny and endearing... much to my surprise and delight this particular part of the documentary was also featured on the bonus disc.
Millionaire The Minutemen Now forget Metallica, here's the Minutemen. With a double live album virtually compiled by the fans themselves. The initial pressings of previous album 3-Way Tie for the Last contained a ballot for fans to vote which live songs they wanted for an upcoming three-LP set with 3 halves of studio material and 3 halves of live recordings. The death of D. Boone prevented the Minutemen from making that album, but George Hurley and Mike Watt nevertheless compiled the ballots sent in by the fans and put together this result with studio outtakes, rehearsal tapes, radio broadcasts and audience recordings. The audio quality isn't always that great, but lots of songs on this album prove that the Minutemen was one of the finest *and* underestimated bands of the 80's, and an influence on bands like the Chili Peppers, to name an illustre example.
The Mission A CD Video that came with Dutch rock magazine Oor, long before I had the equipment to play this. Not my favourite band, not my favourite music, even though Wasteland is a good song.
Morphine An exquisite, cohesive, consistent and above all very warm sounding album, the latter because of Mark Sandman's warm voice and Dana Colley's superb baritone sax. This band has a very unusual sound considering the alt-rock circles they're moving in: no guitars; only vocals, 2string slide bass, baritone sax and drums. The result is a very recognizable, warm sound. It's hard to point out highlights, but I'll mention Super Sex (the single that drew my attention to this band), the soft and gentle Whisper, Radar, the kinda funny Sharks (don't let your fingers dangle in the water!) and that other single Honey White. (sidenote: I forgot to insert the adjective 'sexy' in this review...)
Muse
The Mutton Birds A 12-song compilation album released in the U.K. with tracks of debut album The Mutton Birds and Salty, with additional production courtesy of Neil Finn. This compilation already shows what the Mutton Birds have in store, and contains some of their classic songs: the superb Dominion Road, In My Room with strong Byrds-echos, the title track and Anchor Me. Perfect pop songs in the true spirit of The Beatles, Big Star, R.E.M. and Crowded House, to name only a few examples.
Found this album, together with Nature, in a secondhand shop in London. And even though it doesn't beat Rain, Steam & Speed, it's a close call. From opener Straight to Your Head to the last rolls of thunder that close the album after the title track, the album is filled with wonderful, melancholic popsongs with poetic lyrics, jangling guitars, strong hooks and perfect melodies. Though there's not one bad song on this album, my favourites are the perfect opener for this album Straight to Your Head with the wonderful chorus, Ten Feet Tall with its blazing vocals and loud guitars, the perfect pop of Come Around, and my absolute Mutton Birds favourite Envy of Angels... jingling guitars, beautiful steel guitar and cello, soft but fast rhythm, the euphonium so typical for the Mutton Birds, and absolutely stunning lyrics and vocals. This song usually knocks me out completely.
Where else could I have found out about The Mutton Birds than on 'the Tongue', the mailing list related to All Things Finn. And what a discovery! This fifth Mutton Birds album was the first one I heard, and I wasn't disappointed. The album goes back and forth between absolute melancholy and deceptive happy-go-lucky tunes like Pulled Along by Love, Green Lantern and Winning Numbers (On a Belgian Airways plane/Here comes an add for credit cards/Just what language are these happy children singing?/I'm supposed to feel like joining in). The euphonium is very prominent on the pensive ballad The Falls, Jackie's Song is a wonderful acoustic, narrative song. Just like Envy of Angels, this album ends on a very strong note with Ray, another perfect pop song with a stunning bridge. Goosebumps.
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