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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 7, 2021 11:20:11 GMT
James Sullivan - Light Years (2021) - 6 / 10
"Mature" stab from a singer / songwriter going solo from his band (More Kicks).
The slow songs here are nails on chalkboard stuff..... either dull bare bones acoustic sketches or mid-temp dreck with slight electronica flourishes that make this sound modern and when I say modern that's just code for wussyish.
Either more rockers........ or better ballads but as is .......this disappoints despite some flashes of a better record buried here.
More Kicks drummer Kris Hood (aka Kris Kowalski) - also of The Speedways and Los Pepes plays drums on 2 tracks - including (by far) the best (and loudest) one ironically named "Totally Bored" - which suggests he's auditioning to be the new Josh Freeze and play on everything for everybody........how's that next Speedways album coming along buddy - maybe focus on that - ok?......
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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 10, 2021 9:10:23 GMT
The Dream Syndicate - Out of the Grey (1986) box set - "What Can I Say.......Out of the Grey - + Live, Demos & Outtakes" (will be released January 14, 2022) - slightly above 7 / 10
A one album band wonder (yeah, the Velvets-loving first) - but this album (their 3rd) getting the full blown "Dead Man's Pop" expansion is both cool and way too much.
Some of the live stuff makes this more well rounded but it just makes a pretty good record only slightly better ....and Steve Wynn is a talented guy but he's a very anonymous singer when you remove his Lou Reed schtick....
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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 11, 2021 19:11:30 GMT
The Pandoras - I'm Here I'm Gone EP (1983) + Hot Generation/You Don't Satisfy Single (1984) + In And Out of My Life (In a Day)/The Hump Single (1985) - 7 /10
Catch all compiles the non-album tracks around their first 2 albums (1 good, 1 all timer) with some songs later re-recorded for the albums. Not as good as either album overall but solid with one great song not available anywhere else: I'm Here, I'm Gone with Paula Pierce - the blonde below - in ferocious fox form - writing, singing, playing all guitars.
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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 11, 2021 21:45:50 GMT
Gentleman Jesse - Lose Everything (2021) - above 7.5 / 10 - added to favorites of 2021 (#7)
The power pop wunderkind drops a new album out of nowhere - with no hype, no record label - on bandcamp and Youtube only at the moment - his first in almost 10 years (wtf) - after 2 sort of minor classics.
Good career move buddy - missing out on the whole Power Pop revival this last decade and all that - anyway, he's back and he's still got it but he's more mellow now.
10 songs - no duds - he can really write without showing off .........these songs are way more complex than you'd think with descending, intricate melodies and wry lyrics that don't reveal themselves easily about faith, feeling lost or removed from yourself or a mid-life crisis maybe.
Literate, adult, cohesive and unforced - in its own way somewhat small-time masterful..........the male singer-songwriter record of the year.
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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 12, 2021 11:42:59 GMT
The Hawks - Obviously 5 Believers (2021) - ~ 7+ / 10........but a real Rock and Roll discovery... Dave Kusworth (Jacobites) and Stephen Duffy (UK Pop Star and Duran Duran's first singer) formed this band in 1979 - they hung around for 18 months and released a single "Words of Hope" - which is not on this album. They get an official album release (40 years late) of all their other songs - a 10 song demo - some had been bootlegged prior. These guys had a sound that was was all over the place - it's like if Keith Richards formed a band with Morrissey - with an elusive chemistry that covers Light New Wave - borderline Disco actually (Bullfighter), cool Post Punk (A Sense of Ending) and best of all a believable Classic Rock swagger (The original version of The Big Store - later re-done by the Jacobites) but the highlight is this haunting and fragile ballad below - which comes out of nowhere and is unlike anything else they did.
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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 13, 2021 21:20:56 GMT
Warren Zevon - Genius: The Best of Warren Zevon 1976-2002 (2002) - ~ 8.5 / 10
One of many fantastic compilations he has - maybe the best one disc Zevon you can get - and he made some ace studio albums too - it spans his career which had many late highlights also - some of his most affecting work is later.
On the other hand this is missing The Indifference of Heaven - which is on another compilation .......and is a no brainer as one of his very best late career songs.
Ah well........
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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 15, 2021 12:43:00 GMT
Gentleman Jesse - Leaving Atlanta (2012) - above an 8.5 / 10 ......
Drums and back up vocals play the same role as the guitars do - with no showing off - and not missed at all either - these are propulsive tools to push each song forward - it literally increases your pulse rate and you don't see any performance characteristic doing it - it's like a magician's trick.......when can you ever say that about the drums on a recent Rock record?
His new singer-songwriter-y album - "Lose Everything" (2021) - just made it into my top records of the year (# 7, reviewed in this thread) .......but Leaving Atlanta made his whole career....
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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 17, 2021 19:38:05 GMT
The Long Blondes - Someone To Drive You Home - 15th Anniversary Edition (2006 / 2021) - 9+ / 10 - higher? - (Released December 10th, 2021)
Added tracks / B-sides for one of the most exciting UK debuts of the 00s - right up there with Up The Bracket and Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not - but unlike those, the US mostly ignored this on release.
By 2006 the US had lost the connection between Rock music and Pop music - between the guitar and the dancefloor - which is why it's usually up to the British to make albums that are this thrilling while in 'Murrica we sit on our asses, listen to the Foo Fighters and pretend it's way more exciting than it really is.
If you missed it in 2006............don't miss it again.........
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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 19, 2021 11:20:54 GMT
The Long Blondes - "Couples" & Singles (both 2008) - ~ (maybe less) 6.5 / 10 & (at least) 8 / 10
"Couples" -The 2nd album often loses the plot and ditches much of their (earlier, better) New Wave for something closer to the cluttered dance sounds you might hear at a Eurotrash Ibiza discotheque high on coke. Has a few winners but a lot of tentative and directionless noodling too - from a band who were previously lean, focused and specific.
Singles- Compilation of their earliest singles - that at times achieves the same giddy rush of their essential debut (Someone To Drive You Home (2006))........similar in some ways to Turns Into Stone by The Stone Roses: this shows The Long Blondes were - for a brief time - era defining in the UK. Much more than you would think if you only had heard their classic album without this context.
The band broke up on the day "Couples" was released due to a stroke suffered by their main writer - Dorian Cox - at just 27 (he did recover).......Singles was their farewell release.
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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 22, 2021 10:51:19 GMT
The Gin Blossoms - New Miserable Experience (1992) - ~ 7 / 10
The wussy masterpiece (is it?) of 90s Power Pop - stepping into the radio space that Matthew Sweet's "Girlfriend" created - so is this overrated or underrated?
A little of both actually - the songs are sometimes great - can't say that about Matchbox 20 or Third Eye Blind yanno - and so is the surrounding vibe - alcoholism, broken friendships, money vs. integrity - alright! - and recorded at Ardent Studios (home of Big Star - they wish) with John Hampton as engineer (Pleased To Meet Me - they wish).
The high points are too easy to spot and the low points are too mediocre to forgive - everything has been scrubbed and polished so much that personality, contradiction, tears and blood get wiped away too .........there's a better and darker album than this one within this same exact album - something that's like Radio City (they wish) - but this isn't remotely close to that ....
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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 23, 2021 11:05:25 GMT
The Replacements - Closing Time (and many alternate titles) (Bootleg) - Live at Grant Park, Chicago (1991) ............not rated .........but if you get it, you get it ......The Replacements last performance - July 4, 1991 - almost 3 months later Nirvana released Nevermind.......ah.........so close to cashing in yanno? Paul Westerberg utters the word "fnck" multiple times, consecutively within the verse of this song (below) to outfox the censors - this was being broadcast on the radio - which is either very cool and funny or very childish and funny............whatever............but I am pretty much guaranteed to do something really similar with my last MAR post tbh
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Post by themoviesinner on Dec 23, 2021 18:09:52 GMT
Empyrium - Where At Night The Wood Grouse Plays (1999) -- 9/10
This album is spectacular. The atmosphere it creates is impeccable. It's romantic, melancholic and it sounds like something that could have been taken straight out of the 16th century. This is what a great acoustic rock/folk album should sound like, grandiose and elegant not vapid, contrived and whiny. Also at only 32 minutes it's exactly the length it should be and it never has time to become repetitive or tiresome. Highly recommended pacinoyes .
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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 27, 2021 10:51:22 GMT
The Velvet Underground - The Best of The Velvet Underground: Words and Music of Lou Reed ((1966-1970)........(1989)) - ~ 8.5 / 10
One disc intro with some of the greatest Rock music ever made but that misleads you about their artistic impulses - their 2nd album - as sinister and scuzzy a Rock album as you'll ever hear - gets just ONE song here. If you heard this first you may think their last 2 albums are more even-keeled .........or even that their last 2 albums may actually be better than their first two.
They were not.
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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 28, 2021 9:47:03 GMT
The MC5 - The Big Bang! : Best of the MC5 - 1967-1972 - at least 8.5 / 10
21 songs here - that sums them up better than any proper album they made.......which all had some drawback - despite what people say about them now. No other major American band associated with Punk - Pre-Punk or otherwise - gets summed up with a cherry picked compilation when they actually made albums......which makes them work in a different way.
To listen to them now makes them seem more spastic and weirdly quaint too - revolutionaries (sorta), who wanted your dope and to steal your girl and who thought loving Chuch Berry made all 3 by definition equally possible.
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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 28, 2021 19:47:45 GMT
End of 2021 round-up ........I suffer so you don't have to....... : Motorists - Surrounded (2021) - 6 / 10 Indie (Very Late) Post-Punk Jangle debut which must be the next big thing since everybody has this same idea - the title track is the best but.............a more dynamic production could really help here - the songs are tuneful but also flat and undynamic - oh and the singer can't sing..........and not in a good way either Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Barn (2021) - ~ 6 / 10 Pastoral, unmemorable sketches from a living legend - and sure I love him too.......but here..........not so much - this would have been ~ 6 in 1981 too ............and that was FORTY years ago. Matrimony - Kitty Finger (2021 reissue of 1989 release) - 5+ / 10
Tuneless dreck that all has the same prominent bass riff and lyrical ideas. The promotional packet with this CD calls this record a "lost classic" (nope!) of the Riot Grrl movement. Hey - how many other "classic albums" can you name from that "movement"........well there ya go.
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Post by pacinoyes on Dec 30, 2021 9:53:29 GMT
Wet Leg - Wet Leg (will be released April 8, 2022 - Promotional Vinyl Copy) -
Let's say a bit above an 8 so far ......... but personally I love it - almost without reservation either - to an embarrassing degree - and it doesn't even come out for 3 months +
As the album opener says: "I feel like someone has punched me in the gut...........it feels like being in love!" - it provokes big feelings and I'm sure even bigger arguments on intelligence, authenticity, Pop vs. Art and sexism in Rock (if they were guys they'd be The Ramones or Jesus and Mary Chain of simplicity)This introduces / confirms a major new UK star in lead vocalist / guitarist Rhian Teasdale the brunette below- who is part sweet provocateur, part fashion model gal pal ............ and part wholesome / not so wholesome / matter of fact truth teller - occasionally talking, sometimes yelping and often swallowing her own deadpan jokes. Teasdale is absolutely beguiling and her charm goes a looooooooooooooooooong way in making this confection work at all. Not nearly as gimmicky or campy as its Poptastic dance-y singles (previously reviewed in this thread by Wise Old Owl - all 4 on the album) - this isn't a novelty album - it has more up its sleeve in the other tracks and in context. No recent act has been this joyous about language, the meaning or duality of words or phrases (sexually most often, of course) and they love this idea of slipping in odd jagged detours for you to catch - they want you to pour over the lyric sheet - and answer them back, insert and sing back to them in assumed techniques and voices. Like musical cosplay - any of us can pretend to be Wet Leg and play along - but only they are going to actually get rich off of it........ The songs beat choruses into your head but also add little brushstrokes outside of the choruses - vocally Teasdale will flatten words or do the opposite - add syllables as hooks, make those syllables musical in their elongation and there are also lyrical digressions that are not "really" non-sequitur digressions (see "Oh No", below), and deft musical hiccups or quirks - that make songs hold up to repeated plays. It's done as a pure Pop record while seeming to be "like" an Indie Rock record. It has fizzy arrangements with big airy ranges in the production, but without an ounce of overplaying - lean and tight. All while being aggressively I love it / I fncking hate it in design - and crucially this can actually be somewhat heartbreaking too -"Piece of Shit" specifically - an uncomfortable knockout buried deep in the tracklist that they didn't even need to include at all - but that improves the album immensely - and that The Regrettes specifically will kick themselves for not writing - when it seems to write itself and just pour out of Teasdale. It beats them at their own game ........in less than 3 minutes. Sometimes using a New Wave pointillism ( Strokes meets Yeah Yeah Yeahs) in the (yet another) winner "Angelica" and sometimes using big punched up vocals to put a twist on a droning, humming rhythm (also by inserting a breakdown and wild scream (I told you they had detours)) - on the made to be played live future favorite "Ur Mum" (as in "I feel sorry........ for your mum"). Everything is razor sharp and not cluttered - the songs feel like they've always existed but sound fresh - and more vital for how they are smartly sequenced in the tracklist too. There are echoes of Pixies and Sonic Youth but Wet Leg (the duo / band) play it so detached and so Pop it's like if those bands only played "No. 13 Baby" over and over and over - with a spoonful of ABBA mixed in - there are many other reference points (a little of mid-tempo first album Courtney Barnett) but the cool Rock influences sound like the side dish not the full meal itself. Wet Leg (the album) has an almost uncanny/ annoying precision to it - it's hard to believe this doesn't just flat out stop at 9 or 10 songs for fear of screwing it up (there's 12) - it's that carefully and shrewdly calibrated. Even the weaker songs seem like purposeful production tricks to have those recede and elevate the bigger songs. It's hard to play this without trying to outguess it or think it's outfoxing you or being that paranoid about it as product...........which gets us to the already iconic - in my house anyway - promo album cover: This cover (below) - which they flat out need to keep for the actual release - is as weirdly obvious yet mysterious as the music within: a somewhat recognizable photo .......... but not really clear - their backs are turned - so is it connected, youthful, secret............. or a secret being kept FROM you? Is it sisterhood? Sexual? A joke? They're also really clever and offhand in how they make modern random sense with combinations of words and phrases (and feelings and products). In "Oh No" (below) this free association occurs - which could be about this record's place on the Pop Culture landscape one day: "You're so woke, Diet Coke, I feel gross. Oh, no. I went home, all alone. I checked my phone .................and now I'm inside it!"
This vocal performance - from a Stepford Wives robot voice to a revved up musical giddiness - a disparate technique Teasdale uses (almost overuses) often - you get the impression they have dozens and dozens of these catchy songs ..........I'm not so sure about that .... but for now though let's say....... Gonna be really tough for them to follow-up this album ........gonna be really tough for me to keep this album off my best of 2022 albums list ..........will be (officially) released: April 8, 2022......
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Post by themoviesinner on Dec 30, 2021 10:02:51 GMT
Summoning - With Doom We Come (2018) -- 8.5/10You always know what to expect with Summoning. Their musical aesthetic is unique and they haven't changed it much at all throughout the years, so you're either on board with it or you're not. I'm definitely a big fan of their music and this album is no exception. It is great, with sweeping epic melodies and a grandiose, enchanting atmosphere, although the production is kind of muddled and brings the experience down a bit. Also, Summoning are mostly known for their epic, symphonic tracks (and Silvertine is one of the most epic songs of the last decade or so), but their gloomier, more melancholic tracks are the highlights in this.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jan 1, 2022 21:43:48 GMT
Matt Speedway (Matt Julian of The Speedways) - Only Trouble Is, Gee Whiz - 5 song demo (Released December 31, 2021) - 7 + / 10Leader, songwriter, vocalist of the worlds best current band - give or take the next Fontaines DC record - drops a 5 song solo demo (wtf?) recorded alone on a Casio and guitar in the last couple months. Not sure what this is - but we may see these pop up and fleshed out on The Speedways next record.....if not this is just a goofy lark but the songs are actually kind of .........weirdly effective in a sad song synth-pop way or if they had a full band they could really be something...... an interesting, very welcome and encouraging surprise..... Track 4 is the real stand-out here "I Used To" - the most "Speedways ready" in sound and production ........ the 5th track is a low-fi cover of the KISS "classic" Beth.....no Youtube links........ but full bandcamp link below mattspeedway.bandcamp.com/releases
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Post by themoviesinner on Jan 2, 2022 17:47:04 GMT
Orphaned Land - The Never Ending Way Of ORWarriOR (2010) -- 5.5/10I'm a big fan of the band's 2004 album Mabool, which is definitely one of the pinnacles of progressive rock/metal and this was their follow-up. It is a very frustrating album, which has some really great moments, but also verges far too frequently into what most prog detractors accuse the genre of, which is many awkward and generally pointless musical transitions and a lot (and when I say a lot I mean A LOT) of self-indulgent guitar noodling. Which is a shame really because this album also has some fantastic moments in this. But it's incoherent as hell as most of the tracks might feature some really nice melodies or catchy moments, but those are lost among two or three minutes of bullshit. Anyway, the best tracks on this are definitely the shorter ones as they generally are the more coherent. But the album does reward us with a total gem of a song in New Jerusalem, which is among my favorite songs ever and it's a shame it's buried in an album which is mostly pretentious and superfluous.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jan 3, 2022 2:27:41 GMT
Big Thief - Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You (will be released February 11, 2022) - ~ 7 / 10
Not without their charms (Ok - Adrianne Lenke's mostly) but this is sort of like if The Band pushed Dylan aside on The Basement Tapes. What do you mean "they did a little, didn't they pacinoyes?"
No, I mean it's sort of like if Emmylou Harris and Gram Parsons made The Basement Tapes and I only slightly like each of them yanno?..........
No, wait it's like 1985 REM decided to make The Basement Tapes with Natalie Merchant singing and I straight up hate one of them ...........(and it's not REM) ..........
What was my point?
Oh, right ...........I mean it sounds good in abstract theory - but real life messes you up - and while Lenke is a force of songwriting and leadership - irl I'd never play this much - and neither will the people that rave it .......... and they'll fall over themselves raving it...........
But...........this is 20 songs - twenty - heck even that title is too long - and not that many songs stuck with me........I did like how songs are colored and fleshed out with instrumentation and space.......so enjoy it........it's laid back and lovely at times and to my ears a little dull too............and i'mmina let you finish as long as you don't call it the Double Nickels On The Dime of The New Americana ........or tell me that you enjoy this more than The Exbats "Now Where Were We" which is warmer, funnier, covers some of this roots spirit but is unabashadley poppier and has the gall to actually be entertaining while it's at it.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jan 4, 2022 9:10:58 GMT
The Lorrainas - Party 'Till It's Dark (Expanded Reissue) - (December 24th, 2021) ...........(2005-2008)) - 7 I guess / 10 .....wish it was a little shorterNow see, I like these girls. 4 girls, 1 guy (drummer) - they were like a tougher (?) though less lovable (?) version of The Donnas. They do a song for a Johnny Thunders-type guy ("Johnny") - who they size up as a "clone" (that they'll always love!) while copying JT's greatest misses and name drop (and rhyme) Richard Hell and Marky Bell (Ramone) in the superb "Tricky" ..........about their cheating ways, because well.......it's complicated......also the way they sing the word "girl" (as in "someone else's / just another") is pretty awesome .... This takes their 1 original album, adds 4 non-LP songs and changes the title - Geoff Palmer remastered this reissue (um - when, in his spare time?) - now in its full drunken and horny glory.......hits the bullseye for the first 7 songs, not so much for the last 7......
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Post by pacinoyes on Jan 5, 2022 9:38:49 GMT
Material Issue - Freak City Soundtrack (1994) - around an 8 / 10
What 90s trio made 3 albums and then had their career end suddenly when their leader committed suicide in 1994?
Right ........ Material Issue (um)
Our would be saviors were 0 for 2 - on hit or miss albums - when they made this - their 3rd....... their Mona Lisa ........or their version of Cheap Trick's In Color at least .........there's almost all good songs this time - with several better than just good - and the whole thing could have been played on the radio......."could have been" I said.
A record that still sounds incredibly fresh and timeless right now when a lot of what came out in 1994 has aged about as well as your old gym socks.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jan 6, 2022 21:14:19 GMT
The Groove Farm -
Plug (1989) - 7 + / 10 Only The Most Ignorant Gutless Sheep-Brained Poltroon Can Deny Them Now EP - (1987) 7 + + / 10
Horribly named but extremely likable (for a time) British band who basically just threw songs onto albums and EPs without any thought or plan - just taking whatever stuck and not caring about their career (it worked, they didn't have a big one). Some of these sound like first draft song ideas - someone came up with a title or line - the band downstrokes fast as they can around that title and records it as is.
They loved Pop and Noise - and mixed them to often messy effect - songs cut out and give way to feedback, buzzing and tape hiss - but when they work you wonder why there's not more bands who tried this approach.
Works better in small doses .......underrated
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Post by pacinoyes on Jan 7, 2022 8:25:14 GMT
Arctic Monkeys - Suck It And See (2011) - 6 / 10 .........
This was album #3 after their first 2 - which were, by any reasonable standard among the best Rock records of their respective years.
Here they slip up but also grow a bit - overwritten lyrically and underwritten musically with monster guitar riffs doing too much work..........this shows a new found love for 70s hard rock and main man Alex Turner seems a lot less clever this time out - and much more self-conscious.
But it makes you think there's more to the band than just high energy post-punk rave ups - and a lot of the better songs here would later pay off for them - live and on (the mostly excellent) album #5 where they'd tweak this new formula........a transitional record in a good sense .......you strangely feel like they "needed" to make it......... exactly when they did make it.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jan 8, 2022 9:05:03 GMT
The Clean - Boodle, Boodle, Boodle - 5 song EP (1981) - ~ 9 / 10
One of those short, perfect examples of "Indie" - before that term became a joke - about how something could sound rough and tumble - and not easy to be copied either - without sounding "heavy" in any way.
Part of the approach was to play with tempo - "Thumbs Off" is one of their great early songs and it's both too fast and too slow within seconds and the drums push it forward and pull it back ....... that's exactly why it works.........it doesn't get slow until after you have heard the chorus - this is the kind of loose, spontaneous approach that tends to get lost by success and money - recording a demo and then re-shaping, and editing it over and over to the most boring, beige tempo possible.
I still remember the first time I heard this song - and The Clean - and I heard them a looooooooong time ago - you can't say that about much music because we've been trained to respond to repetition.....the audience has become - in effect - the demo itself - The Clean just cut out that whole shitty process.
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