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Van Der Graaf Generator - ALT CD (album) cover

ALT

Van Der Graaf Generator

 

Eclectic Prog

2.56 | 284 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

thenightfly
1 stars First, let me say that I'm not a die hard Van der Graaf Generator fan, and have only recently gotten into listening to them. I'm only 19 years old, so I don't know if I'm qualified to review this band, but I'll give it a go. :)

Now, I grew up listening to mostly video game music, which we all know is mostly instrumental and sometimes ambient. Despite a song not having lyrics to sing, it can be proven to be pounded into our memories just as much as a song with a catchy chorus or memorable lyrics. I mean, how many of us remember the Super Mario theme? Anyway, what I'm trying to say here is that a instrumental song can be proven to be just as powerful as a non-instrumental song as long as that instrumental song has a...:

1) Catchy beat / rhythm

2) Doesn't bore us to sleep (though calming songs are fine, what I mean is that the song keeps us entertained throughout)

3) Has interesting and intense instrumental parts

4) ...actually goes somewhere

Okay, now that's out of the way, let's get on with this album!

...man, I guess Van der Graaf Generator doesn't want to follow my steps because this is indeed a poor album. Some would argue that some of these songs go somewhere, but to me, they most definitely don't. All this album is to me is just a bunch of jam sessions and extended reject openings for various Van der Graaf Generator songs. The question I want to ask is, why bother making this? I mean, this album screams pointless. Basically, it's like an Ummagumma tribute, and though Ummagumma was a bad album, this tribute makes us that hate Ummagumma want to play it all day long just to get this crap out've of our heads, which shouldn't be hard, as none of the songs on "ALT" resonate in the brain very long.

Agree or disagree to my review, and if I'm not the only one that feels like this, please reply! :D

thenightfly | 1/5 |

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