Reviews discussion

Ambient Hurricanes wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: Snow Dog wrote: On the strength of Geoff's review I am listening to Bath. Even in the first track I would consider it more than one star. What a remarkable album. Maybe 3 stars on first listen and I reckon I could give more. Haha, see, I said my negative review would probably generate more interest in the album.  Still, the album gives me the heebie jeebies. What about the acoustic tracks, did you dislike those too, or did they just add to the whole schizophrenic/bipolar vibe of the album?

I dunno - it's hard to put my finger on it exactly.  There were times when I was listening to a passage and I thought I'd like the album more if the whole thing were like that, but even then I felt like there was something...off...something strange about it.  And it could've been that the rest of the album was coloring my opinion of those sections, or maybe some of the things I'd read about the band and the idea behind the album were crawling into my assessment of it.

I may not have liked the album, but it's definitely one I will talk about for years to come.  There are albums I like much more that I've never talked to my music buddies about, but I have told them about this one - so that much can be said for it.  To me, though, the experience was kind of similar (loose analogy here - don't read too much into this) to watching The Fourth Kind: anyone seen that movie?  What it did, it did very well.  And I told people - lots of people - about it.  But MAN it creeped me out, and I don't EVER want to watch it again.  And everyone I told about it, I'd give them a disclaimer - something to the effect of "if you want to really be scared and creeped out, watch this movie.  But DON'T watch it alone!  And DON'T watch it if you're sleeping alone tonight either!"  Again, loose analogy, but maybe you can see what I'm saying.  I'm saying in a way I enjoyed the experience - like, to me, it seems like the worst reaction a band/album can get from me is apathy: don't like it, don't hate it.  Because even music I hate, it's almost like there's a certain level of enjoyment I get from hating it.  Kind of (VERY LOOSE ANALOGY COMING) like the auditions of the American Idol type shows, when they get someone terrible auditioning - I LOVE to watch those people!  You may know that I've gone to Prog Power on repeated occasions - well, one year there was a band whose name will be omitted in order to protect the innocent, and they were sooooo cliche'd.  And me and my buddies to this day still tell stories about how awful we thought they were, and we get so much enjoyment out of this.  We'll go look up videos of this band together so we can laugh about the experience again.  And there were so many people there that seemed to think this group was the greatest thing to happen to music...EVER.  I'd totally give a 1 star to an album by this band which shall remain nameless, but in a way I got a great deal of entertainment out of them, and I'd also say that what they did took more skill than many things I might give higher ratings to.  But they were just so cliche'd and...cheesy!  Which might be what people love about them?  These are all loose analogies to my feelings about motW, but maybe the combination of all of them together gives you a better picture of how I felt about them?  I mean, I thought motW was very strange: maybe that's what the fans love about them? 

Any of what I just said make any sense?  I was kind of rambling, I know.

On the strength of Geoff's review I am listening to Bath. Even in the first track I would consider it more than one star. What a remarkable album. Maybe 3 stars on first listen and I reckon I could give more.

AtomicCrimsonRush wrote: Ok i am preparing myself for the old adage - one mans trash is another an treasure - but when it comes to music I think its important to judge the music on its own merits

Oh, I fully agree, and this is a lesson I am trying to learn as I review more and more as well.  You can see the results of me applying this lesson in my review of the Seid album, which I probably would've dismissed a couple years ago, and now had a pretty positive reaction to even though I'd say it's not really my "thing."  For my motW review, I did write the last paragraph as a sort of "disclaimer" to leave it open to people to make their own decision, and my point in this paragraph was to try to say that positive and negative reactions are valid.  I considered going a bit higher in my rating, but to be perfectly honest the album was kind of a "run away!" reaction for me.  I mean, I actually started by listening to two songs and thinking "MAN, this is weird..." and I didn't listen to the rest for a few weeks because I was so creeped out by it, at which point I determined I HAD to finish it just for the sake of finishing and being able to say something about it.  I wonder how many other people are out there like me who tried out motW and immediately felt something strange was going on there and never listened to a whole album?

good 1

oh the irony of a Marillion fan calling Spock's Beard  cheesy.

Epignosis wrote: Say Warthur: Got anything to say about the music itself?  Rather than how they wanted to space the album for vinyl?  I'd rather see a review about the music rather than who had the best "comeback" album (whatever that means, especially since Echolyn were not on break). Ooh, I don't know guys. For some reason echolyn's reunion album leaves me rather cold. For starters, the division of the physical product into two CDs when the running time could easily fit onto one seems an odd decision to me. Cynics might accuse the band of wanting to sell the album for the price of a 2CD set but only providing 1CD of music, but given that you can listen to the whole thing on Bandcamp for free if you're frugally minded I think that they deserve the benefit of the doubt on that front. I suspect it's more that they want the CD experience to be, on a tactile level, comparable to the LP experience, and to create a definite break midway through the album. I do have to wonder about that. It seems to me like the action of a band who aren't wholly convince their new opus can hold the listener's attention for a full 71 minutes... in which case why not edit it down? The fact is, there's a few too many diversions into flabby, cheesy, Spock's Beardy filler for my tastes here. In the end, it's nice to have them back but I think Anglagard have the better comeback album of 2012. http://www.progarchives.com/Review.asp?id=790079

Yep, something of a digression I fear as Warthur's reviews are usually pithy, succinct and informative. I've sent him a PM stressing the requirement to justify an opinion with some sort of description of why the music just don't stack up for this listener.

^Yes, and having a go at SB in the same review turns me right off.