Album Title: Aerial
Artist: Kate Bush
Nationality: British
Year: 2005
Subgenre: Prog related
Player(s): Kate Bush (Vocals, Piano, Keyboards), Dan McIntosh (Guitars), Gary Brooker (Hammond), Peter Erskine/Steve Elliot/Pete Sanger (Drums), Eberhard Weber/John Giblin/Del Palmer (Bass), Rolf Harris (Didgeridoo and male vocal on “The painters link”), Chris Hall (Accordion)
Familiarity: None, never heard of Kate Bush
Favourite track(s): Aerial
Why? Nothing really stood out, it was all very similar, but I remember the instrumental break in "Aerial" the most (probably because it started to touch on some guitar styles I like in the rhythm and lead near the end of the song
Least favourite track(s): most of them
Why? For the same reason that there was no favorite
Any preconceptions prior to listening, whether good or bad? Nope!
Factoids you'd like to share? N/A
End impression: I didn't especially like it.
Comments: It seemed like I was hearing the same exact phrasing in her vocals over and over and the consistently with which she used rest notes was predictable. She rarely left the high register she was on. It really felt like was listening to the same long song and there was nothing that stood out about it. The vocals tended to drone on a bit sometimes. The keys were similar. They kind of always did the same little phrasings, wandering around the tonal centers with no poignant structure or emphasis. If it wasn't the keys, it was the low attack synths.
The whole album seemed to always be meandering around without a point or descriptive musical phrasing. The only time I remember it picking up is the title track at the end. She kind of reveals the potential for a bluesy/country voice... and then she goes a little avante guarde with the the birds and the laughing... but there's still a lot of the meandering, wandering droning vocals that I've grown tired of throughout the album.
The video are weird and interesting and distract from the banality of the music.
Rating 2.5