What albums did you listen to today?...continued

Colouratura | Unfamiliar Skies
Owen Maercks | Kinds of Blue
Owen Marecks | Teenage Sex Therapist
The Stranglers | The Meninblack
Tangerine Dream | Exit
Tangerine Dream | Hyperborea
Weird Paul Petroskey | As Heard in my Dreams

Edited by HolyMoly - September 27 2019 at 21:37

Fugazi | In on the Kill Taker
Jean-Michel Jarre | Equinoxe
iNFiNiEN | How to Accept
Hinn Islenski Thursaflokkur | Thursabit
Chris Corsano & Bill Orcutt | Brace Up!
Weird Paul Petroskey | Lit AF

Finnforest wrote: ^ Gino Vannelli!  That sounds like something I need to check out

Gino’s great. Excellent singer and sophisticated music. “Brother to Brother” is a mother of an album, and all the surrounding albums (not too early, not too late) are all entertaining and worthwhile.

Devadip Carlos Santana | Oneness
Quiet Sun | Mainstream
Buzzcocks | Another Kind of Tension
The Ex | Turn
Wings | Wild Life
Gino Vannelli | Gist of the Gemini
Frank Zappa | The Grand Wazoo
Phil Judd | Love is a Moron
Alice Cooper | Hey Stoopid

Plus continuing the Robin Trower thing:

Robin Trower | Victims of the Fury — 1980 brings Trower back closer to hard rock. “Jack & Jill” is a kickbutt opener, and even the moody title track (in Trower’s world, the title track of any album must be moody and heavy - it will draw attention due to its titular status) is o cool burner, a fantastic tune that sticks in your head. A fine album, and the blues are even back.

Robin Trower, Jack Bruce, Bill Lordan | BLT — Trower broke ways with Jim Dewar, and formed a supergroup with Jack Bruce. Being a Jack Bruce fanatic, I know this album VERY well. And it’s really good! Side 1 has a great pace to it: “Into Money” sets up the uptempo riff rocking, “What it Is” brings midtempo funk, “Won’t Let You Down” is a lovely ballad, “No Island Lost” is a rockin rewrite of “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)”.... ok, it’s a good album.

Robin Trower, Jack Bruce, Bill Lordan | Truce — the follow-up, and not as good. A bit more 80s sounding but not too much. Just sounds like they didn’t have as many ideas. It’s only 33 minutes, and one of the best tracks (“Shadows Touching”) is pretty clearly a Jack Bruce solo track in all but name.

Robin Trower | Back it Up — further in the 80s and holding his own quite well. Some of the songs are iffy, but you also get “Islands”, a really cool instrumental, and “Benny Dancer”, his longest track yet, an atmospheric masterpiece out of nowhere - straight out of the Electric Ladyland bag of tricks. A career highlight, this song. The final blues number “Settling the Score” ends things on a high note. Not bad.

Edited by HolyMoly - September 25 2019 at 19:47

^ Cool, glad you liked Julia! That chorus during "Sea Calls Me Home" gets stuck in my head for hours afterwards..."I can't swim, IT'S LUCIDITY, so clear"

The Zombies | The Decca Stereo Anthology
Kevin Dunn | Songs 1979-1985
Rush | Clockwork Angels Tour (disc 1)

And then I ventured out on my own 70s rock artist binge. I’ve had most of these albums for a while and am sorta familiar with most of them (in part, anyway), but this was my first consecutive listen to all six all the way thru:

Robin Trower | Twice Removed from Yesterday: better than I remembered. He was trying out his new band here and there are some hits and misses. Oddly, “Daydream”, the album’s most famous track, was one of my least favorites. It just seemed to walk in place for too long without much resolution. “Hannah” was a nice surprise, with a real nasty guitar riff for such a slow song. “I Can’t Stand It” was unusually raucous and hard for Trower too, and the title track actually had Robin singing the intro to a pretty unusual tune (shades of Procol Harum). Speaking of vocals, Jim Dewar already proves to be an excellent singer (and bassist) throughout, and he would only get better.

Robin Trower | Bridge of Sighs : His best known album, and for good reason. Within the first few seconds of “Day of the Eagle” it knocks you on your ass with hard-hitting riffs that surpass anything on the debut. The title track perfects the vibe that “Daydream” was going for, with a perfect guitar tone that floats ominously over the somber arrangement. Pretty much every track is hot, even the mellow tracks are slow burners: “In This Place” and “About to Begin” make excellent use of space in the arrangement and are evocative as heck. And “Too Rolling Stoned” one of his best known numbers, has an extended guitar solo at the end that has become legendary. Great classic rock that’s aged well.

Robin Trower | For Earth Below : more of the same, with a couple of tentative steps sideways. About half the tracks blatantly recycle riffs (e.g. “It’s Only Money” = “Bridge of Sighs Pt. 2 with a couple of “Daydream” chord changes thrown in) but then you’ve got “Shame the Devil” which brings a new swagger to the table, and “Confessin’ Midnight” which takes the same swagger in a funkier direction. And “Alethea” makes nice use of the Purple Haze riff.Overall though, treading water a bit.

Robin Trower | Long Misty Days : an attempt to expand the sound a bit into soulful territory, marred only by a few underwritten tracks. The title track, occupying the #2 slot and intended to be another heavy slow piece like “Daydream”, “Bridge of Sighs”, and “It’s Only Money” before it, is actually a really cool progression of that style, with some new tricks that really reflect well on the album as a whole. So even though closing tune “Messin’ the Blues” is just a single funky riff repeated over and over for 4 minutes, it’s produced in a way that highlights Dewar’s increasingly masterful vocals and the kick of the rhythm section so I don’t mind. Add the hard rockin’ funky riffing of “Caledonia” and this feels more satisfying than its predecessor album.

Robin Trower | In City Dreams: Nice idea, but underproduced and thin. For this they seemed to want to make a mellow, atmospheric album (a make-out album, perhaps?), but only a few of the songs have much atmosphere. Even the standout “Bluebird”, with a fantastic vocal melody that could have been on Forever Changes (by Love), sounds like it could have benefited from a little more in its arrangement. Great track anyway. “Smile” is nice too, and the title track (with acoustic guitar!) sounds pretty neat for the first couple minutes, yet it drags on for five, ending the album on a ehh note. The opening track vamps uncertainly for nearly 3 minutes before the vocals come in, giving the impression that Dewar was taking too long in the bathroom. Hedging his bets, he stuck a (live?) recording of blues standard “Farther On Up the Road”, which doesn’t fit either. Not a bad album, but it should have been better.

Robin Trower | Caravan to Midnight : this one gets it right. Best album since Bridge of Sighs, easily. Another shot at a more commercial sound for the late 70s, and it takes the more soulful sounds (no blues here anymore) and beefs them up with top-rate production. When opening track “My Love (Burning Love)” kicks in, you know we’re back in kickass mode, and then the first guitar solo of the album is SUCH a rush after the snoozy feel of the last album. The 2nd song (title track) puts yet another new spin on the obligatory “moody, heavy slow song” archetype with a dark, percussive backing track that evokes a creepy saunter through the jungle at night (a bit of Santana influence?). Side 2 is packed with 5 winners: the impassioned anger of “Fool”, the seductive soul of “It’s for You”, the creepy melancholy of “Birthday Boy” (which reminds me of “Cousin Kevin”, of all things), the joyous party rock of “King of the Dance”, and the closing ballad “Sail On”, which resembles a tune from In City Dreams, but with guitar hooks and a fuller arrangement. Love this album

Edited by HolyMoly - September 23 2019 at 21:22

Meltdowner wrote: HolyMoly wrote: John Coltrane | Meditations — a rare jazz spin from me. Have this on LP and felt like hearing it again. I still can’t get excited about jazz, and it frustrates me.  What about live Jazz? I don't listen much at home but I really enjoy a good concert. Curiously, when I listen the same band at home it's never nearly as good, it fails to capture the essence of the performance.  HolyMoly wrote: Tangerine Dream | Tyranny of Beauty One of their better 90's releases, which doesn't mean much anyway

re: Jazz, I agree, it is much better to watch live. Seeing the ensemble play off each other (rather than just hearing it), and seeing the soloists’ body language adds a lot.

Re: TD. This is my first 90s TD album, so that’s good to know. I’ll try not to expect as much from the others.