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Blow Up Hollywood - The Diaries of Private Henry Hill CD (album) cover

THE DIARIES OF PRIVATE HENRY HILL

Blow Up Hollywood

 

Crossover Prog

3.65 | 8 ratings

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toroddfuglesteg
4 stars This is a concept album about the Iraq war and the ones that never made it back home again. Hence, I find it difficult to review this album because this will never be anywhere near an objective review. Well, no reviews is objective. But as objective as according to PA's guide lines. Please forgive me for my transgression.

The problem too is that the lyrics is far better than the music. The lyrics is naive and bordering to Forrest Gump type of innocence. And that is both factual information and a compliment, btw. Listen to the song WMD and listen to the rest of the album too. To a certain extent, Blow Up Hollywood is here following the path Bruce Springsteen followed back in the 1970s with albums like Born To Run.

Each decades have their own sound. Bruce Springsteens sounded like 1970s with his dense sound. Blow Up Hollywood sound like the noughties with a sound which comes across as a mix of laid back jazz, a bit Pink Floyd, a bit country 'n' western, film music aka Ennio Morricone and west coast rock. Different type of music, different decades. Same experience. Same message.

The music is laid back. The lyrics is everything but laid back. In this context, the music then becomes slightly sinister. Sinister as in a night in Baghdad, when taking incoming fire from RPGs and small arms. Sinister as seeing your best friends being blown up by a suicide bomber. Sinister as facing roadside bombs every day and ever mile. Sinister as being scared 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

When putting the lyrics together with the music, this concept album hits you in the face. And you keep quiet. You start to think. You start to think about coffins draped in the American flag on their way over the oceans in the back of an airplane. The family who receive their loved one in this coffin. The family who finally lays him/her to rest in a remote graveyard in Montana while the rivers makes their way to the ocean.

What an unspeakable tragedy.

And then it dawns on me that although the music is not worth more than three stars, the lyrics and this tragedy makes this a four stars album. This album is meant to make an impact........ and it does.

This my friends is a musical document and not a progressive rock album. This my friend is as strong as music gets.

Gosh !!!!!!

4 stars

toroddfuglesteg | 4/5 |

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