Music Banter - View Single Post - Bitesize: Trollheart's Daily Album Mini-Reviews

Trollheart · 08-15-2012, 05:14 PM

The cover sums up my view of this album

Artiste: Ben Howard
Nationality: British (English)
Album: Every kingdom
Year: 2011
Label: Island
Genre: Folk
Tracks:
Old pine
Diamonds
The wolves
Everything
Only love
The fear
Keep your head up
Black flies
Gracious
Promise
Chronological position: Debut album
Familiarity: Zero
Interesting factoid:
Initial impression: Not terribly impressed. Hard to keep focus.
Best track(s):Keep your head up
Worst track(s):Everything else.
Comments: Folk artists seem to pop up in my record collection every so often. I'm not a big fan of folk, but I just liked the look of the cover on this, so decided to go for it. Was it a good purchase? Acoustic music can be great, especially guitar and piano, but it can wear on you after a while, and a full album of acoustic? I don't know if this will maintain my interest, but let's see. On opening, I'm immediately reminded of, er, Simon and Garfunkel. Does this date the music? Well, it's last year's album, so I would hope not. There's certainly an attempt to make the music eclectic via the use of instruments like accordion, cello and ukulele, most of which are played by India Bourne, and the opener, beginning slow and laidback, later comes to life, bopping along nicely, while there are of course the slower tracks, like Everything and Black flies.

You can certainly hear the influence of Dylan and Mitchell on Ben Howard, with elements of David Gray and John Martyn mixed in there too. Nice sort of military drumbeat to The wolves, quite rocky really, but as the album winds on I'm getting less and less interested. Just too bland, too generic and really coming across as quite boring to me, and we're now halfway through the album. At least The fear gets things moving again, but I'm still not that interested until Keep your head up hits, and then it's a different ballgame. Still, it is a little late in the day to be finding good things about this album, but I'm glad I've been able to find at least one. This track almost makes it worth the price of purchase. Almost. Nice organ, good fast percussion, great beat. Most uptempo track so far.

It all sort of drones on from there though, and in the end I have to say this album bored me to tears, and just did nothing for me; completely empty, not even good music to fall asleep to.
Overall impression: Boring and flat.
Intention: Check carefully before selecting my next foray into the world of folk!

08-15-2012, 05:14 PM	#53 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,996	The cover sums up my view of this album Artiste: Ben Howard Nationality: British (English) Album: Every kingdom Year: 2011 Label: Island Genre: Folk Tracks: Old pine Diamonds The wolves Everything Only love The fear Keep your head up Black flies Gracious Promise Chronological position: Debut album Familiarity: Zero Interesting factoid: Initial impression: Not terribly impressed. Hard to keep focus. Best track(s):Keep your head up Worst track(s):Everything else. Comments: Folk artists seem to pop up in my record collection every so often. I'm not a big fan of folk, but I just liked the look of the cover on this, so decided to go for it. Was it a good purchase? Acoustic music can be great, especially guitar and piano, but it can wear on you after a while, and a full album of acoustic? I don't know if this will maintain my interest, but let's see. On opening, I'm immediately reminded of, er, Simon and Garfunkel. Does this date the music? Well, it's last year's album, so I would hope not. There's certainly an attempt to make the music eclectic via the use of instruments like accordion, cello and ukulele, most of which are played by India Bourne, and the opener, beginning slow and laidback, later comes to life, bopping along nicely, while there are of course the slower tracks, like Everything and Black flies. You can certainly hear the influence of Dylan and Mitchell on Ben Howard, with elements of David Gray and John Martyn mixed in there too. Nice sort of military drumbeat to The wolves, quite rocky really, but as the album winds on I'm getting less and less interested. Just too bland, too generic and really coming across as quite boring to me, and we're now halfway through the album. At least The fear gets things moving again, but I'm still not that interested until Keep your head up hits, and then it's a different ballgame. Still, it is a little late in the day to be finding good things about this album, but I'm glad I've been able to find at least one. This track almost makes it worth the price of purchase. Almost. Nice organ, good fast percussion, great beat. Most uptempo track so far. It all sort of drones on from there though, and in the end I have to say this album bored me to tears, and just did nothing for me; completely empty, not even good music to fall asleep to. Overall impression: Boring and flat. Intention: Check carefully before selecting my next foray into the world of folk! __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018 Last edited by Trollheart; 01-13-2015 at 05:39 AM.