Fair enough, I lie in wait for his review...

I'm just making a post to bump this thread back up after some damn spammer necrobumped a whole lot of threads and pushed everything else to page 2.

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Title: City of Caterpillar
Artist: City of Caterpillar
Genre: Hardcore/Emo
Artist Reaction: Never ‘eard of ‘em
Genre Reaction: Not two of my favourite genres, now...
Familiarity: Zero
Suggested by: Mondo Bungle

And You’re Wondering How a Top Floor Could Replace Heaven: Starts off slow then the guitars and drumming pound in (and I mean pound). Could do without the screeching but I’ve heard worse from vocalists. A lot of energy and to be fair for an eight-and-a-half minute song it went by pretty fast. No it didn’t; for some reason I thought we were on the second track. Anyway the instrumental breaks are really good, a kind of building melody. Quite restrained really, compared to the rest of the track, and it ends really well. Guitar gets almost a mandolin-like feel. Despite the vocals I liked that. Almost a kind of blackgaze? No? Sod ya then. Good though.

A Heart Filled Reaction to Dissatisfaction: This is shorter, by about six minutes. Really like this. Great kind of building melody in it. Vocals are of course terrible.

Minute-Hour-Day-Week-Month-Year (The Faith’s in My Chest): Love the intro to this. Very introspective guitar (yes, I’m back and so is that word! Deal with it!), slow and laconic with sussurating drums, tinkling piano too and a kind of wailing guitar/feedback thing. Have to say, I really love this. Now as long as they don’t ruin it by bringing in vocals. Like two tracks in one, in the middle it speeds right up and, yeah, there they are, the vocals. Oh well. I even like the heavier, more angry guitar here and it develops into something really special. Almost a Tony Banks thing there at the end on what sounds like (but surely is not) harpsichord. Meanwhile, I just ignore yer man: let him shout and roar to his heart’s content. He’ll sleep tonight.

Fucking Hero: Very powerful, punchy guitar and thundering drums, with himself raoring himself hoarse again, but overall very listenable. Is he singing (!) the lyric to Lennon’s song?? :yikes:

When Was the Last Time We Painted Over the Blood on the Walls: Very atmospheric and kind of spooky, horror vibe to this, with a really mad frenetic guitar banging through most of it. Cool. Gets very introspective (there it is again: I got ground to make up) in the middle section and it’s again a really slick little instrumental break before His Screamingness comes back in to kick everything around. Doesn’t ruin it though. Not quite.

A Little Change Could Go a Long Ways: Another (no I won’t do it, not three times in the one piece) gentle and relaxed start, but it’s another nine-minuter so expect some scratchy vocals. Superb buildup on the guitars, starting slow then speeding up to almost breakneck pace, and you know, when the vocal comes in it’s really not too bad. Great track. Again, nine minutes jut flew by.

Maybe They’ll Gnaw Right Through: After a chaotic opening and a tantrum from our singing guy, it settles down into a kind of cold almost industrial vibe, quite threatening in its way. It then picks up again and gets pretty frenetic and really finishes well.


Conclusion: One thing you can say about Mondo is that he has an almost intuitive understanding of where your limits are, musically. Comes with being a gifted musician I guess. Most people would have heard this and said “TH will hate this”. But he knew I’d be able to look past the vocals to find the beauty and majesty in the music. And I have. Great pick, Mondo.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/8S...000000e729ffff

So, Love or Hate? Have to say, overall I Love this.

the buildup for A Little Change Could Go a Long Ways is always a game changer

I already loved it before that, though. Great album.

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Title: The Queen is Dead
Artist: The Smiths
Genre: Indie Rock/Indie Pop/Post Punk
Artist Reaction: No fan of the Smith, I!
Genre Reaction: Not a fan of any of the three
Familiarity: I’ve actually heard this album before. See here
Suggested by: Batty

It was nearly three years ago, so perhaps it will be interesting to see how, if at all, my reaction to the album has changed, especially given my inclusion of their lead singer in my Hate List.

The Queen is Dead: Good rocky opening, great guitar work as ever from Johnny Marr, but I’ve never liked, and probably never will like, Morrisey’s moaning, droning vocal. Song has a lot of energy, though I could do without the English sing-song before it.
Frankly Mr. Shankly: Got a kind of Beatles feel to it, bit annoying really. Not a patch on the opener and the guitar work is minimal. Meh.
I Know It’s Over: One of no doubt many maudlin ballads, whining about life as Morrissey does so well. Bit of a bluesy feel to it. Great bass line. God though his voice! When he sings “Mother I can feel the soil pouring over my head” I wish it was.
Never Had No One Ever: Another slow one, but with punchier guitar this time. Drone, drone, drone.
Cemetery Gates: Much better. Uptempo, happy guitar in almost a Greek style or something. Reminds me slightly of Deacon Blue. Maybe.
Bigmouth Strikes Again: Keeping things moving with an acerbic tune that rocks nicely. Even his vocal isn’t bad on this one. Marr really gets the chance to shine, and shine he does.
The Boy with the Thorn in His Side: Decent enough but I kind of missed anything interesting about it as it played, so it, you know, couldn’t have been that interesting.
Vicar in a Tutu: Fast rockabilly style beat on this. I see on the first listen I didn’t like it, and included it in my “least favourite tracks”. It’s not a favourite now, but I think I like it more. It certainly has heart and energy, and Morrissey doesn’t seem to whine on it, which is good (and unusual). Mind you, add in a fiddle and you’ve basically got The Bluebells’ “Young at Heart”!
There Is a Light That Never Goes Out: Good melody and rhythm, love the strings in this, really adds something. Arranged by the multi-talented Mr, Marr. Overall a very catchy song. Like it.
Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others: This is uptempo too, but though it attempts to either poke gentle fun at shall we say oversized women, or sympathise or de-stigmatise them, it doesn’t really work for me and it just sounds a bit crass. Melodically and rhythmically it’s pretty cool.


Conclusion: I certainly wouldn’t say I hate this album, but as before, it hasn’t made me want to go searching out the Smiths discography. I believe I can live quite well without their music in my life, thanks very much. It also hasn’t removed Morrissey from my Hate List: he’s staying there. Whether or not his solo material will change my mind about him after I’ve heard it is another thing. But as far as this album goes, mostly it’s his annoying voice that stops me giving it a higher rating.

So, Love or Hate? Given my reduction to only four options, I’d have to rate this as a Meh. It’s not a strong meh, but it’s still a meh.

I used to not like his voice but now I think he makes other singers look like morons who can't fit thesaurus words into their lyrics without sounding awkward.

How dare you not think that Frankly Mr. Shankly isn't the worst track on there.

Agreed. How can anyone not bop to that track?

Not saying I don't bop to it but it's easily the weakest on the album, plus I like Vicar slightly more bc of the melodies