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Old 05-02-2014, 09:12 PM   #14 (permalink)
DriveYourCarDownToTheSea
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Finally I finished Cyclops Reap!



This is even more low-fi than the Temples album. Singer sounds like some combination of George Harrison, Bob Dylan, some more George Harrison and a bit of Tom Petty, depending on the song, and sometimes a vague combination of all four in the same song. Oh, and a lot of the songs sound like Harrison songs, too, maybe with a dab of Dylan thrown in for good measure. Like the Temples album I reviewed above, this would be considered a copy of early psychedelia, circa 1965-66, and with a bit of a folksy edge, rather than 67-68 with all kinds of wild electric sounds. That is, low on the psychedelia scale, but there nonetheless.

Link to songs on Grooveshark are here. Unfortunately, Grooveshark doesn’t have all the songs for some reason, so the ones it doesn’t have, I’ve placed links to Youtube videos for the song in the title of the song (those are the underlines ones).

Chairs in the Dark – Fuzz guitars, simple instrumentation, a little Byrd-esque sounding. Fairly catchy tune, but not a standout, somewhat rapid tempo but nonetheless moody melody. Fuzz guitar punctuates the singing. I’ll give it a 6.5.

Beat – Mellow folk-y tune. Acoustic guitar with some distant electric riffs in the background. Sounds like something Tom Petty might do on an “unplugged” album. Nice but not original. I’ll give it a 7.

Pink Gorilla – More punctuating fuzz guitars, but this has other retro-sounding guitars too. A sign of progress? Not really, similar to the first song. Really, really low-fi stuff here. 6.5.

Trouble Is Trouble Never Seen – Medium-paced song, not loud, not soft, and another dose of low-fi, retro-sounding guitars. At least this had minimal fuzz to it. Not unpleasant, but not anything to write home about. 5.5.

Live on Genevieve – This is George Harrison reincarnated. Voice sounds like Harrison, guitars sound like Harrison, melody sounds like Harrison. But I don’t think Harrison would have made a deliberately lo-fi sound. Three out of four ain’t bad, I suppose. Another 6.5.

To the Boy I Jumped in the Hemlock Alley – Another George Harrison copy, slower-paced however. More acoustic, too. I’m tempted to give it something other than a 6.5 for variety’s sake, but when the song really is about a 6.5, that’s hard to do.

New Edinburgh – Very Byrds-esque. Almost tempted to sing “Turn, turn, turn” somewhere in there. Or maybe “Eight miles high.” At least he’s good at imitating, I’ll give him credit for that. I guess the originality here is make the song a little more chaotic and ragged than the Byrds would ever have done. Song ends messier than it starts. It’s OK, I’ll give it … ta da! … another 6.5!

Make Them Dinner at Our Shoes – This is a bit different, I guess. More like a quieter Byrds song. Nice classical guitar line. And no fuzz guitars! Singing sounds like a combination of Dylan and Petty. Later in the song a passage *really* sounds Dylan-esque. I’m wondering why he didn’t name the song “Clear Open Skies,” but maybe that would be too obvious. I’ll be adventurous and give this a 7.

White Cat – Mellower, but more of the same. It just occurred to me this guy is big on (reasonably nice) instrumental arrangements, but the melodies are rather lacking. I wonder if he doesn’t have a big vocal range. I’ll give it a 6.

Only Man Alive – Here we have a mostly acoustic, folksy ballad. Almost could pass for a Leonard Cohen song, kinda sorta, but more uptempo. I actually kinda like this song, so I’ll give it a 7.5.

Run by the Same – More George Harrison guitars, more or less. With some Tom Petty-esque singing. Decent tune, but like all the others, I feel like I’m listening to someone other than White Fence. Back to the 6.5. Outre has a somewhat different feel, like an ending thought, with a harmonica thrown in for the heck of it. I’ve give it a 6.5 again.

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Final thoughts: Retro is nice and all that, but when you’re not really adding much in the way of originality, it gets kinda “meh.” It almost seems like he’s trying so hard to sound as retro as he possibly can, that he’s neglected the actual art of writing a catchy tune. Most of the songs are listen to-able, which keeps their scores above the “5” mid-mark, but they’re just not memorable at all. And while there’s a bit of variety, there’s still too much sameness among the songs. I’ll give the album overall a 6 rating.
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Last edited by DriveYourCarDownToTheSea; 05-02-2014 at 09:19 PM.
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