137 [AKA: ONE THREE SEVEN]

Late PINK FLOYD influences + RADIOHEAD + some modern "British Moan" rock. Few tracks are rather good if not perfect ("PVS" has awesome Post-Rocky coda), but most of the time album drags without any signs of development. Not recommended, but nice Modern-Prog/Prog-Related CD if you're fan of the genre or abovementioned bands. But bear in mind that on "137" THIEFs are less experimental than RADIOHEAD, less enjoyable than PINK FLOYD and a lot more boring than "British Moan"-era bands.

It is clear from the ratings that PINEAPPLE THIEF aren't for everyone. If you like Alternative rock especially SMASHING PUMPKINS and RADIOHEAD there is a very good chance you will love their music. Add a cup of PORCUPINE TREE and you get an idea of their sound. This is spacey, guitar driven music with mellotron.

"Lay On the Tracks" has such a beautiful intro, it's hard to put into words actually. It has the same effect as "Fake Plastic Trees" I suppose but only for the first minute of this song. "Perpetual Night Shift" opens with a spacey soundscape including a vocal melody. Soft vocals follow with some PORCUPINE TREE like synth sounds as mellotron flows in. Cool guitar solo to end song. "Kid Chameleon" is a good song with brief outbreaks of power. Violin and some good guitar in this one as well. A blistering solo after 5 minutes. "Incubate" is a catchy tune with Billy Corrigan-like vocals. "Doppler" really rocks out pretty good at times, and is dreamy the other times. Nice contrasts. Great drumming too. "Ster" opens with some brief processed vocals that change to normal.This song is ballad-like, at least for this band.

The next three songs are in the wrong order on the back of the cd. Too bad really. Prog Archives has it right. "Release the Tether" is next. With lots of spacey noises and sounds including flute, as a flood of mellotron comes in. Great guitar driven melody before 4 minutes. Next is "How Did We Find Our Way" a beautiful song similar to the intro of "Lay On the Tracks". "137" is pretty good, but gets better late with some nice guitar and a hypnotic rhythm. "Preserve" is another good song once it gets going. Good beat to this one. It ends on a quiet note. "Warm Me" is another catchy tune while "PVS" is my favourite on the record. As Prog-jester points out there is a Post-Rock feel to this song at one point. It opens with a melancholic mood with sad vocals and violin. It gets heavy briefly and again later. Great guitar melody, and then the song stops as violin comes back with guitar and keys. "MD One" is another highlight for me with it's percussion,guitar and vocals.

Another four star album as far as i'm concered. I just don't tire of Bruce's vocals and the beautiful music they create.

Beautifully arranged and performed post/poppish melancholy with fine contrasts between the delicate and intense. Soord's vocals are smooth and dreamy, and if not excellent are certainly enjoyable, while his guitar does an equal amount of leg work in driving home the emotive atmosphere with good riffing throughout and a few eruptive, dynamic solos as well. Keyboard effects and samples round compliment the overall effect, which grows on the listener. Being rather lengthy, "137" has a few fillerish moments, but in my opinion the good far outweighs the bad-- especially with strong songs like "Lay it on the Tracks", "Doppler", the moody instrumental "Release the Tether" and the dynamic "Pvs".

Comparisons to Radiohead/Porcupine Tree are a stretch, but fans from either of those bands will likely find a lot to like in "137", despite it not being quite as creative as either of those two band's releases. Recommended!

Songwriting: 3 Instrumental Performances: 3 Lyrics/Vocals: 4 Style/Emotion/Replay: 4

137 is the second album from alternative rock band Pineapple Thief. It´s an improvement over the somewhat flawed debut which I gave a small 3 star rating. It´s not a bad album but pretty average alternative rock. 137 is a bit more experimental without leaving commercial territory though.

The music can be described as a mix of Radiohead, Porcupine Tree ( Stupid Dream, Lightbulp Sun) and a bit of Smashing Pumpkins. Add some psychadelic instrumental sections with lots of tremolo effects on the guitar and you just about have the music on 137. There is nothing here that offends me but on the other hand there´s only few things that arouse me. First of all the album is way too long with it´s 71:28 minutes. With music that is not more challenging or diverse than this this album overstays it´s welcome with at least 30 minutes. For the real fans of the band this is probably great, but for us who only have a slight interest in the band quantity is not always preferable.

The songs are all good and some of them are even bordering excellent like Lay on the Tracks, Kid Chameleon ( note how the bass changes through the song, just excellent) and the instrumental Ster with nice flute playing. Most songs are not that memorable though and they are too much alike which isn´t helped by the trivial Thom Yorke clone vocals from lead singer Bruce Soord. Why does every british band have vocalists who sound like Thom Yorke ?

The musicianship is excellent and the band seem very thight and well playing. As mentioned I ´m a bit annoyed by the vocal approach but it´s an aquired taste for sure.

The production is excellent. Grand and clear.

137 is a very good album despite the above mentioned flaws and for long I considered giving it 4 stars but after having listened to the album over a long period I still have trouble remembering some of the songs and that´s not good enough IMO. So I´ll end up with 3 star rating and a recommendation to fans of the above mentioned bands and also fans of a band like Muse.

It is obvious that this album sounds as ''déjà vu'' but it is globally not a bad record. If you have ever been delighted with ''Radiohead''', there are some chances that you would appreciate ''137''.

Now, if you're looking for originality and fantasy, you should pass your way, because you won't find so many of these here. Straight-forward pop-rock music: melancholic, sad and maybe somewhat uniform (''Perpetual Night Shift''). These are the ingredients and after some seventy minutes, I have to say that some dull feeling can take place. A long EP would have done the job quite frankly.

Most of the songs have the same look and feel and after such a long treat, I can't say that my first action would be to spin this album again after having listened to it once. Real highlights? Can't find honestly. Just an acceptable rock album.

Two stars.

'Abducting The Unicorn' was received so well that Bruce Soord decided to record another album by his side-project (he is of course a main member of Vulgar Unicorn), and I for one am very glad that he did. There has been a large use of classic keyboards, and this has added to the ambience but this is very much an album that uses influences from the Nineties as opposed to the Seventies. While there are elements from Porcupine Tree and Radiohead, there are also more commercial touches. Imagine if you will a song that takes elements from the above two bands and puts it together with Manic Street Preachers, and you may get some idea of what "Incubate" is like. The song is only 3½ minutes long, get this released as a single, it's great!!

While very much a grower this album also has immediate appeal, and when the band brings Hendrix-style guitar together with Thom Yorke influences on "Doppler" the result is a song that will have many prog fans baying for more. As in Bruce's work with VU this is an album that brings together many different styles in a way that is cognisant of them but also very much in an area of their own.The debut album may have made 137 in the DPRP Chart of 2000 but I am sure that this one will finish far higher.

Originally appeared in Feedback #69, Aug 02

Bruce Soord's second album under the name of The Pineapple Thief, before they really constituted themselves as a band on their third album, offers us a more interesting and homogeneous work than the debut "Abducting the Unicorn"

However, he can be blamed for the shadow of Porcupine Tree and Radiohead being even longer here. Nevertheless, Soord's genius saves him from being a plagiarist with enough ideas to make the result fresh, interesting and diverse enough to support repeated plays.

It's a shame that "137" is such a forgotten piece of work, since songs like Doppler or the one that gives the album its title are compositions to remember. Too bad the number of filler songs doesn't let this "137" reach higher levels, despite being clearly better than its predecessor!

Best Tracks: Kid Chameleon (good work of synthesizers and guitars), Doppler (maybe the best song of the first stage of the group, a preview of what Soord would actually be capable to do in the future) and Pvs (another long track, with great keyboards at the beginning and very good guitars arrangements)

My Rating: ***