The Clash: Give 'Em Enough Rope

Give ‘Em Enough Rope

Best song: Julie’s Been Working For The Drug Squad

Worst song: Stay Free

Overall grade: 4

[author’s note: it’s experiment time! My original reviews were 500-600 words but for a while now they’ve been ~1000, and so I thought I’d have a go at writing something more concise again and see how it works. May or may not become a regular thing, and if anyone has a preference for one writing style over the other, I’ll definitely take that on board.]

After such an acclaimed first effort, the Clash were always going to have some trouble here. With their second album, they strike an awkward-teenager sort of balance between the uncontrollable punk energy of the debut and the genre-boundary-ignoring lasting statement that is London Calling. It works, sometimes, and at other times it can get a little dull. The longer song form that’s found on a lot of songs here can sometimes allow for more development of musical ideas and a chance to showcase other instruments, but at other times is unnecessary and repetitive.

As on their first album, I’d say their most successful songs are the more politically-inclined ones, where Strummer really cares about what he’s singing about, and that’s why my favourites are ‘Julie’s Been Working For The Drug Squad’, the lyrically excellent ‘Safe European Home’, and ‘Tommy Gun’ with its outstanding introduction. Another thing I like about ‘Julie’s’ is the piano part, courtesy of guest musician Allen Lanier, that weaves its way through.

In contrast, I’m not a big fan of ‘Stay Free’, a slower and much more pop-oriented song that feels like it could have been written by pretty much any band. ‘Drug Stabbing Time’ is another song which I’m mostly not a big fan of, except for the awesome saxophone solo which punctuates it.

A song I find particularly interesting is ‘English Civil War’, which is a punk rearrangement of a traditional Irish tune. Joe Strummer had learnt the anti-war song as a schoolboy and came up with the idea of modernising it, which works really well and adds some variety to the album.

It’s definitely possible to notice an improvement in technical skill between the last album and this one, and that has a lot to do with new drummer Topper Headon, who was jazz trained and brings a solid and interesting backing to pretty much every song. In addition, Paul Simonon takes on a more prominent role than he had on the debut, playing some good bass lines on songs like the otherwise-unspectacular ‘Last Gang In Town’.

The other song in the mediocre middle section is ‘Guns on the Roof’, a disappointing use of the riff from the Who’s ‘I Can’t Explain’ that serves to remind you that the original was so much better. But The Clash manage a great comeback at the end of the album. The rocky ‘Cheapskates’ is excellently, passionately sung by Strummer, and anthemic ‘All The Young Punks’ makes a great closer to the album, slower than usual but still interesting, and something of a rallying call to a generation.

Overall, this second album features a fair mix of great writing and uninspired writing, and while the balance shifts enough in the direction of good songs to make it well worth owning, there’s nothing here which I’d describe as criminal to miss out on. It’s never offensively bad but it can walk the fine line between a band having fun and a band existing on automatic.

Pink Floyd: A Momentary Lapse of Reason

A Momentary Lapse of Reason

Best song: Sorrow

Worst song: The Dogs of War

Overall grade: 4

[author’s note: finally reached 100 reviews! Much later than I hoped, but I made it.]

I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while. More often than not, I find that people tend to dismiss this album, and I completely understand why. After Roger Waters had left the band, having almost singlehandedly written the past three albums, people must have been justifiably sceptical about David Gilmour’s ability to keep the band going at such a high level. Add to that the ‘80s curse’ that had set in, bestowing mediocrity and commercialism on once-great bands, and by all rights this album has all the makings of something absolutely terrible. But truth is, I find quite a few of the songs here to be excellent.

David Gilmour did not try to be Roger Waters here. When he decided to make a Pink Floyd album instead of a solo album, he writes Gilmour songs with a few Pink Floyd trademarks thrown in. He didn’t go for concept albums and long epics and darkly abstract lyrics, because he knew his strengths didn’t lie in those areas. Instead, he brought in writing partners where it was necessary and wrote relatable classic pop melodies with interesting twists and occasionally the barest hint of experimentalism.

Some people take issue with this album because it’s almost a Gilmour solo album, which is true. Some people take issue because Gilmour wasn’t an original band member, as he replaced Syd Barrett – also true. But as for the idea that it was too different to their previous work? Well, just look at the difference between ‘The Piper at the Gates of Dawn’ and ‘Animals’. Their two best albums in my opinion, but they couldn’t be more different. Change isn’t always bad, it seems.

The very beginning of the album isn’t so great – ‘Signs Of Life’ is actually very enjoyable when you don’t know Pink Floyd very well, but leaves a bitter taste when you realise quite how much of it is recycled from Floyd songs of past. Similarly, ‘The Dogs of War’ re-uses sound effects, including the barking from ‘Dogs’ and the alarm clocks from ‘Time’. Here, Gilmour tries too hard to be aggressive and dissonant. He doesn’t manage to shock or unnerve his fans, just make them grimace as they reach for the ‘Skip’ button.

The best known song from the album is probably ‘Learning to Fly’, which shows Gilmour and company on top melodic form, coming up with all kinds of irritatingly rhythmic hooks and using Gilmour’s recent foray into owning aeroplanes as a metaphor for moving on from the Waters-led band. Some might say that the new band shouldn’t have focused their new songs on this, but I would say that writing about what’s relevant to them will always make a better song. Plus, the songs would have been accused of being about Waters no matter what. Anyway, it’s an arena rock song with a Pink Floyd twist, and the combination shines.

‘One Slip’ follows a similar formula yet manages to be different at the same time. The opening sounds like the beginning to a vintage video game. Phil Manzanera co-writes, bringing a freshness and a hint of 80s Roxy Music to the songwriting, and while lyrics were never one of Gilmour’s strong points, they’re actually pretty good and very honest here, talking about a failed marriage. Lots of percussion and some spacey instrumental sections stop the song from feeling too generic.

Then comes the beautiful and dreamy ballad ‘On The Turning Away’, which in some ways foreshadows Gilmour’s ‘On An Island’ work. His voice is so light that a sudden wind might sweep it away, and it’s a song that shows so much quiet emotion before letting it all flood out in the guitar solo that dominates the second half.

Following these triumphs, ‘Yet Another Movie’ is an unassuming disappointment. It seems like it’s trying to be interesting, maybe even like it should be interesting, but it doesn’t capture my attention anywhere near long enough for its length, the different parts seem to clash with each other somehow, and the solo here is either squealy or boring. Far more exciting is the impossibly short instrumental that it leads right into, ‘Round And Around’, which is minimal, atmospheric and surprisingly intense, and could have led onto something really awesome.

Another instrumental success is ‘Terminal Frost’. Anything that comes between the two dated, barely musical parts of ‘A New Machine’ is sure to be a success in comparison, but ‘Frost’ particularly so. Here, Pink Floyd experiment with jazzy undertones and the wide range of guest musicians on the song make the musicianship of a much higher quality than on the band’s earlier output. Its structure is excellent, often hinting at becoming something huge and fading back down again before really exploding towards the end.

And the true masterpiece is left for last. I was lucky enough to see the Australian Pink Floyd Show play ‘Sorrow’ live on their most recent tour, and whether live or in the studio, it absolutely stands up to the band’s 70s output. It’s dark, heavy and melodic all at the same time and always manages to make a big impression on me. Some great guitar and bass work (Tony Levin contributes) and incredible, intense momentum make this into a thrilling epic that by itself almost elevates the album to a 5-level. I’ve heard people call it filler, but I can’t see how anyone could not enjoy its wonderful progression and diversity, along with the excellent, involved performances from everyone, creating a memorable finish.

Albums like Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall are justifiably massive because they have the ability to blow peoples’ minds and even change their lives. A Momentary Lapse of Reason is never going to do that. But it paved the way for the band’s last great album, seven years later, as well as containing a fair few songs that, even though they may not fulfil Waters’ criteria, definitely fit mine.

[REQUEST] Carter: 1992 The Love Album

1992 The Love Album

Best song: England

Worst song: 1993

Overall grade: 4

Well, this is something I never thought I’d review. For a long time, everything I’d heard about Carter, including the fact that they called themselves ‘The Unstoppable Sex Machine’ led me to believe that they were immature, full of themselves and not particularly serious. I still partly think that, but at the same time I think they do have a fair amount of talent, often writing inspired lyrics that use humour to give important messages, and occasionally writing decent melodies.

For anyone who’s not aware, Carter USM were a pair of indie musicians known only as Jim Bob and Fruitbat who put out a handful of albums throughout the 90s, and still occasionally tour today. This album was their most successful, containing a Top 10 single and making it to number 1 in the UK charts, but today they’re largely unheard of, and there’s a fair chance I wouldn’t have heard of them if I didn’t know people who were massive fans.

This album opens with an instrumental; an interesting and surprising decision considering Carter’s strengths really do lie in their lyrics. ‘1993’ is unnecessarily bombastic and seems very contrived and artificial, and as an opener it fails to excite me about the album to come. However, in the eight songs that follow, Jim Bob and Fruitbat tackle an interesting range of subject matter that’s either not often covered in songs, or just looked at in a different way

I’m not entirely sure who started the idea of putting the big hit single as track three on an album, or when. I can’t think of many pre-90s examples. Anyway, it applies here with ‘The Only Living Boy in New Cross’, a play on the similarly-titled Paul Simon song. It builds and expands as all good anthems should, moving from the tale of one particular one night stand to reciting an extensive list of people who have died from AIDS.  It’s memorable, effective and hard-hitting right down to the angry finality of ‘Hello, good evening, welcome – and goodbye.’

It’s easily the album’s second best song, beaten out only by the lyrical excellence that is ‘England’. A traditional English folk melody is juxtaposed with a tale that paints a far more bleak view of our country, containing constant references to things which, depressingly enough, seem to represent the English, and an uncountable number of excellent puns, from ‘I was born under a wandering star in the second council house of Virgo’ to ‘My phone number is triple-X directory’. Without paying attention to the lyrics it sounds unobtrusive and a minor side note to the album, especially given its length, but to pass over it would be a huge mistake.

Between these two greats is ‘Suppose You Gave A Funeral and Nobody Came’, a comment on the superficiality of popularity (I can’t say that fast either) that’s set to dance music; which could be a ridiculous combination but actually works, the contrast of subject matter and musical style exactly mirroring the contrast of the popular girl with no real friends. The melody at the end is probably the catchiest moment of the album, too. It doesn’t let itself be overshadowed by the two songs around it, but holds its own nicely, although as the first of two funeral songs, it makes me wonder if this album should be renamed ‘1992 The Death Album’.

The second one, ‘Look Mum, No Hands!’ is the downbeat tale of a funeral of a young boy, but it’s a bit heavyhanded and tries too hard to make its point, and consequently isn’t as successful as those that seem to convey their message effortlessly. It’s not a complete failure – there are a couple of very darkly humourous lines – but it’s not a classic. Similarly, the second half of ‘Is Wrestling Fixed’ tries too hard to be funny, with an endless list of not particularly imaginative questions to which the answer is blatantly ‘yes’, and then the final line, ‘Is wrestling fixed?’ It doesn’t take a genius to work out the intended meaning of that. The first half is excellent, though, far cleverer and makes the song well worth the listen.

Side two doesn’t have any classics, although it does begin with a Spinal Tap quote. ‘Do Re Me So Far So Good’ is the obligatory anti-music-industry song that’s been done a thousand times. It’s enjoyable and well-written enough but placed after three outstanding tracks, will always seem like the slightly less original younger cousin.

An issue I have with a lot of these songs, especially ‘While You Were Out’, lies in the vocals; which are incredibly intense and over-the-top the majority of the time, something which can get incredibly grating. It’s not a bad song but it definitely turns into overload partway through. Jim Bob clearly has the ability to put a lot of emotion and power into his voice, but it would be much more effective if this were saved for the occasional particularly important line, with the others treated more subtly.

‘Skywest And Crooked’ is where the lyrics start to get a bit more abstract, and I like it for the fact that it’s positive but not overwhelmingly so, still remaining grounded, especially with the dark and thought provoking Ian Dury quote at the end. But I can’t say the same for the cover ‘The Impossible Dream’, which is difficult to believe coming from the same guy who’s just sung all these sardonic lyrics, and therefore I don’t really see it as part of the album. It would have been more effective to end with the spoken words of ‘I do not think they were asking why they were dying, but why they had ever lived.’

So, overall, I know that Carter have a very dedicated following and to a certain point, I can see the appeal: behind some uninteresting rhythms and unnecessary swearing they’re intelligent and cynical with a lot of important things to say and no fear of saying them. So they are worthwhile listening, but with too many weaknesses to ever become either essential or frequent listening. For days when you feel particularly disillusioned with society only.

King Crimson: Absent Lovers; Live in Montreal 1984

Absent Lovers

Best song: Indiscipline

Worst song: Sartori in Tangier

Overall grade: 6

Prog live albums are hit and miss. Some bands, like Jethro Tull and ELP, made great ones, while other bands like Genesis and Rush didn’t really add anything to their studio versions. King Crimson, similarly, also made hit and miss live albums. Under ‘miss’, see early release Earthbound as well as ThraKattaK. Under ‘hit’, see this one.

The approach Fripp and company took with this release was not to try to tick off material from all stages of their career, and to focus heavily on the New Wave style material that had characterised their three 80s albums, although there were a couple of interludes to play a song each from ‘Lark’s Tongues’ and ‘Red’. This decision gave the concert a more uninterrupted, cohesive feel, so that it’s very clear that you’re listening to the same band all the way through.

Things are brilliant right from the perfectly-timed, gradual build-up of ‘Entry of the Crims’. Robert Fripp must have spent years and years getting this one right. It was worth it, though; he creeps me out no end on this, the kind of creepy that means you can’t quite tear yourself away. It mostly serves as a very extended build up (read: longer than the song itself) to ‘Lark’s Tongues in Aspic, Part III’ as well as mentally preparing the audience for the onslaught to come.

And when it does, it’s fantastic. ‘Lark’s Tongues’ just blows the original out of the water, and it was already the best song on Three. It’s a lightning-fast instrumental that takes all kinds of side bends and U-turns such that you can never quite keep up with it, and any audience member who wasn’t already fully engrossed would have been forced to sit up and pay attention. ‘Lark’s II’ also has its place on Disc 2 of the record, although personally I would have liked to hear the two songs played back to back, to hear the callbacks between the two juxtaposed against the very different musical styles. Still, both are individually fascinating too.

The other song from the 70s days, ‘Red’, doesn’t stick out as much as it should. Adrian Belew and Tony Levin adding their own twists to the song bring it more up to date with the newer stuff, and the less studio-precise live setting makes the recent material feel more classic, and all in all ‘Red’ blends in pretty well. If ‘Starless’ had been included, I probably would have written it off as something too sacred to be messed with, but although I love the original ‘Red’ I actually equally appreciate this new version, although I still can’t see it as the definitive version of the song.

 The other two 80s albums of King Crimson, Beat and Three of a Perfect Pair, are distinctively average. Very listenable, but without the idiosyncrasies that made Discipline such a success. And yet put in this live context, a lot of them shine just as much as that favourite of mine does. In fact, it makes picking a best song incredibly hard, since there’s the difficulty of whether to pick, say, ‘Indiscipline which was an already amazing song made even better, or something like ‘Industry’ which so wildly improves on its studio version that it takes on a whole other life.

 Interestingly enough, there are no true improvisations here (just extended sections to some songs), which are certainly what Crimson were famous for earlier in their career. I wonder, if I went to a King Crimson show and everything was drawn from pre-written material, would I be disappointed? When the songs are as good as this, it’s hard to say, but I do think that the spontaneous music creation is a big part of the band, and hearing the members play off each other live would definitely be interesting, although as this show was only recorded on one night it would be quite a risk.

I wasn’t a massive fan of ‘Dig Me’ on Three; I see it as a failed experiment, but here, coming in the middle of a section Belew describes as “the weird stuff”, it no longer seems like experimenting for experimenting’s sake and is actually engaging. There’s other good stuff from the same album too: ‘Sleepless’ is literally ruled by Bruford who delivers a stunningly powerful performance, and (as already mentioned) ‘Industry’ which showed serious potential in the studio but only fully comes into its own in the more fleshed-out and atmospheric version we see here.

‘Beat’ is the least represented of the three 80s albums, and while I really enjoy the extended interpretation of ‘Waiting Man’ where all the band members play excellently, my favourite part of ‘Sartori in Tangier’ is the bit where Belew asks the audience if they know any good jokes. Truth be told, nobody plays any worse on this song than anywhere else, but it feels like it was thrown in just to get more representation for the album, and so it feels unnecessary and with so many other good instrumentals on the album, its comparative weaknesses definitely show. Then, lastly, there’s ‘Heartbeat’ which is well placed in the encore for being one of the most conventionally song-orientated and – dare I say it – catchy KC songs ever.

As far as ‘Discipline’ itself goes, its contributions aren’t massively altered – because they don’t need to be - but are just played with more energy, emotion and unpredictability. Doing these detailed songs on a live album requires impeccable production, which is achieved perfectly, especially sticking out on your ‘Indiscipline’ and your ‘Matte Kudasai’.

Overall, I’d have to pick ‘Indiscipline’ as my overall favourite song, simply because I never thought it could be improved upon and yet they still managed. My expectations were so high before hearing it for the first time, but the band exceeded them with their precision playing and involvement in their chillingly slowed-down performance. Yet ‘Thela Hun Ginjeet’ also proves a highlight as Levin takes it and runs with it all over the place, Belew following close behind. And the intense and fast-paced ‘Elephant Talk’ is a perfect grand finale to what must have been a spectacular live show to attend. I can only hope that when the band start playing live again next year, they’re even half as good as this.

All in all, a truly great live album, and one that makes ‘Beat’ and ‘Three of a Perfect Pair’ wholly unnecessary, as you can find everything you need here. It shows no signs of the band getting tired, even though it was the last concert they would play for ten years. Still, I guess it’s not that surprising… after all, Fripp already had experience with going out on a high note.

Sigur Ros Tour 2013

Sigur Rós ‘Kveikur’ Tour 2013

Date: 20 November 2013

Location: Brighton Centre, Brighton

Support: i break horses

Special guests: n/a

The Wednesday just gone, I saw what is most likely to be the last concert I see until mid February. This is still very hard for me to write and I’m not entirely sure that I can survive for that long, so wish me luck. Anyway, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from this one in quite a few ways. I know all of Sigur Rós’ albums, but I didn’t entirely know how the music was going to translate to a live setting. Add to that how they’re always right at the top of those ‘best live acts’ list and I was really quite intrigued about the entire evening.

I was kept in suspense for quite a while. Though doors opened at 6.30pm, the band didn’t come on stage until 9. There was a half-hour set by a support act, though, which I checked out. They were called ‘i break horses’ (no uppercase letters on the sign, anyway) and were a Swedish duo who hid themselves behind a translucent white curtain and played computerised, soundscapey music which was both beautiful and futuristic; a good complement to the headliners. I was particularly interested by the breathy, ethereal vocals they put on top of quite a few of their tracks, and I definitely would investigate further.

I’d thought that the white curtain would have been for them, either because they always used it or so that nobody could properly see the stage until Sigur Rós took the stage, but when they did, they kept it hiding them for the first couple of songs. They began with the new ‘Yfirboro’ and the () song ‘Vaka’, which happens to be one of my favourites, two very light and minimalistic songs, and the whole effect was so tantalising, because you could just about see them moving around and you could hear them playing but at the same time you knew that they were just holding themselves back from being so much more intense.

And then they were. As the second song finished they launched straight into ‘Brennisteinn’, a track for which they pulled out all the stops when it came to power, and as they did so, the curtain dropped to the floor in a perfectly timed movement, revealing the stage and band behind it.

The first thing that struck me was how many of them there were – I counted eleven in total, despite there being only three official band members these days, and even more impressive was that a lot of them played a range of instruments as the concert drew on. The stage was literally packed with equipment and it was really quite surprising they were able to move around. But as well as the instruments, there were a good twenty old fashioned lanterns scattered around the stage, looking exactly like giant candles, creating a great atmosphere, more personal, less artificial and more eye-catching than the huge, brightly coloured swirling lights that changed colour every so often and shone down on everyone from above the stage.

The headline act themselves didn’t play for much more than an hour and a half, but they packed everything they possibly could into that time. There was very little talking and the breaks between songs were short, which meant you never really came back down to reality after all the crazy places the music was taking you. I was impressed that they managed to keep the atmosphere, and the audience’s attention, for pretty much the whole time without a break, whether the focus was on the video screens at the back or the lights at the front or the players themselves.

I thought the mix of albums that songs came from was pretty excellent. I can’t pronounce any of the titles and so couldn’t tell anyone what the songs were, but was able to think to myself ‘Ah, that’s the hoppy song from the tacky album…’ and keep a relatively good idea of what was going on (of course, I’m talking about ‘Hoppipolla’ from Takk…’) They played quite a lot of songs from the new album, as well as a good (and fairly similar) amount of older stuff. This was good for two reasons: firstly, I think the new album is definitely one of their best, and secondly, there was a great balance of moods and styles, between the untarnished magical beauty of their early music and the darker intensity of what they’ve been doing recently. 1997’s ‘Von’ was the only album that didn’t get a look in, and although it would have been nice to tick off all of them, there’s nothing I would have wanted taken out in order to include something from there.

I was disappointed when they left the stage after playing the main set that we hadn’t heard anything at all from ‘Agaetis byrjun’, which has so many great songs on it, but when they returned to play the (first) encore, Jonsi Birgisson quietly stated that they were now going to play something that they hadn’t played live in years, and it turned out to be… the title track from that album! Which is only my favourite from the entire thing. So, that was an incredibly welcome surprise, and to finish off we were treated with a stunning extended rendition of ‘Popplagio’, which I’d probably have to pick as the highlight, obvious choice as it may be, because of how they all so masterfully handled the song’s build up, turning it into a spectacular concert finish.

So overall, it probably wasn’t what I expected, because I expected them to have Something, some sort of strange gimmick that made their concerts different to everyone else’s and that got people to remember them. What I actually got was better. They didn’t do anything flashy, they just played their music the best they possibly could and let it speak for themselves. And for those ninety minutes, it was really easy to forget that you were standing in the middle of a large hall in a conference centre in Brighton. You could just as easily have been in Sigur Rós’ home land of Iceland, lying under an unpolluted night sky, or any number of other beautiful places that I’ve never been to and possibly never will. But for one evening, Sigur Rós made that feel possible. That’s the thing that sets them apart.

After the concert, I walked to the hotel next door and got into bed. It was the shortest journey back from a concert ever.

[REQUEST] Gorgoroth: Antichrist

Antichrist

Best song: …there’s a best song? okay, Gorgoroth

Worst song: Possessed By Satan

Overall grade: 1

[Author’s note: Because everything conspires against this site, my excuse of the week is illness. Also, an apology for what I reviewed here. It was a request. I hope never to be asked to review anything else by the band. >.>]

Gorgoroth are a Norwegian black metal band named after an evil place in Lord of the Rings, which I’ve seen once and don’t entirely remember. They’ve released about nine albums and use, variously, English, Norwegian and Latin words for their song titles. Lots of black metal fans hold the band’s first three albums (of which this is the second) as a defining example of the genre, and truthfully, this album is outstanding in many ways. For example, if it was supposed to be a way of making sure you never got any visitors, it would be excellent. Similarly, it might be good at scaring people into doing whatever you want. It would probably even do nicely as an insect repellent. However, as an album of music, to be listened to, enjoyed and analysed, it falls short in several key ways.

The first problem is, let’s be honest, with the word ‘music’. I imagine ‘Antichrist’ would be highly enjoyable for anyone who really, really can’t stand music. When I listen to it, I feel the need to have the sound turned right down low for fear of being overwhelmed by feelings of despair that anybody could actually make this.

Really, this is more of an EP than an album, since there are only five tracks that are longer than 20 seconds, and the total length is twenty-five minutes. Even if this album did have a strong concept or musical flow, we’re not really given enough time to get into it here. The first twenty seconds are entitled the Norwegian equivalent of ‘A Rank Smell of Christian Blood’, which is probably simultaneously the worst and most offensive song title I’ve ever heard, and this quality is second only to the song itself, which consists solely of distorted animal noises, and is quite plainly the shortest overlong track in existence.

Track two is entitled ‘Mountain Troll’s Revenge’, which could easily be setting us up for an entertainingly cheesy slice of fantasy rock, but it’s not to be. Actually, the riff that’s played at the beginning isn’t all that heavy at all and could almost be catchy, but it’s repeated and sped up to death until you’re so sick of it that even the vocals become preferable. And the vocals would very rarely be preferable, considering they contain no actual melody, and are rasped so much that it’s impossible to make out the lyrics.

The third track (named after the band themselves) actually does have some sort of melody that I can just about hear in the background, but all the weird distortion noises in the front completely drown it out, so you’re always stretching for it and never reaching it, which is highly unsatisfying. As time goes on, the melody comes more into play, and there’s a folk influence hiding in there, which probably makes it the most tolerable of the songs here. ‘Possessed By Satan’ is the worst, though. Allegedly, it has a different vocalist to the previous two, but I wouldn’t have noticed without being told; they sound like generic unclean vocals to me, of the kind that can work well in moderation but that are seriously overused here. It’s serious filler, indistinguishable from the dullest parts of any other song, and has no redeeming features that I can see.

I imagine that if this band were to make a good song, it would be an instrumental, but there’s just not enough variety in ‘Heavens Fall’ to make it so. Extreme heaviness works best, in my opinion, when it’s got something to contrast with, to be heavier than. When it’s all the same, there’s no benchmark and no progression, and the track doesn’t seem to vary its emotions, just staying dark and militaristic and crushing the whole time.

Final track ‘Sorrow’ is slowed down and sounds like a funeral march, like they got really tired after all the fast stuff, the chanting in the background helping with that mood. Much like the last song, there’s a deliberate, controlled beat keeping it together, and, well, often not much else. I don’t know if the drums and guitar actually recorded this whole piece or if they just recorded two bars and copy and  pasted them a hundred times. The worst part is that the guitar player actually seems to have talent. He just doesn’t make the most of it.

There’s also a bonus track! It’s about ten seconds of running water. It’s a grand artistic statement. No, I’m just kidding, it really is nothing but running water.

“Music”, “tunes”, and other air quoted things aside, I guess one of Gorgoroth’s defining characteristics is their subject matter. Now, I respect freedom of speech and therefore, if a band wants to write exclusively about medieval Satanism, they can, even if I personally don’t agree with it at all. However, Gorgoroth do this thing where they refuse to release their song lyrics to the public, and I suspect it has something to do with them not actually being that good. I mean, they’re hardly the first band to make the whole devil-worshipping thing their trademark, and to keep it in any way creative there has to be a certain amount of lyrical talent. I can’t say for sure, but from what I can hear and what I can infer, I’d guess that there is none.

All in all, I couldn’t ever recommend this album to anyone, even if I didn’t like them. The moments of vague pleasantness are so few and far between that they’re probably accidental and what I most enjoy about listening to it is counting the seconds until it ends.

The thing is, black metal is not the type of music I listen to. Some people like it, though. I can understand the face that some people enjoy music that is incredibly heavy, raw and dark, and puts power and intensity above melody – that’s just personal preferences. I can even understand that to some people, the subject matter of the album is interesting. What I can’t get over is the sheer repetitiveness of everything here. Every musical idea contained within could be squashed into the length of a standard single and I wouldn’t feel like I was being deprived of anything: heavy cannot be a substitute for interesting.

Roxy Music: For Your Pleasure

For Your Pleasure

Best song: For Your Pleasure

Worst song: you’re implying that there’s a bad song on this album? there isn’t of course, but let’s say Beauty Queen

Overall grade: 7

It’s been forty years since 1973, and not one of them has come close to topping the number of exciting, innovative, near-perfect albums that were put out that year. Roxy Music trailblazed here, getting their second album out in the first quarter of the year, and actually going above and beyond to put out another one before the year was over. Despite this, there’s nothing at all rushed about any of this work. If anything, it feels more carefully put-together than ever.

‘Roxy Music’ and ‘For Your Pleasure’ are, in my opinion, two halves of the same double album that just happened to be released at different times. ‘Roxy Music’ is the late afternoon and the early evening, where people are poised and careful and there’s an anticipation of what’s to come, and ‘For Your Pleasure’ had moved onto the late night where everything is wilder, sexier and more dangerous. You can even see this just by looking at the album covers, and there’s all kinds of links between the two in song titles and musical ideas as well.

‘Do The Strand’ is an intense and passionate opener that sums up the essence of Roxy Music for me; there’s some great texture in all the instruments and Ferry sounds so involved in his vocal performance. It’s only four minutes long, but has the feel of a much longer song all packed together into a shorter length, and it never takes a moment to find its way – it knows exactly where it’s going and powers through to get there as fast as possible.

Both ‘Beauty Queen’ and ‘Strictly Confidential take things in an entirely different direction, slowing the pace right down and allowing more time to show off the band’s talents. Ferry certainly demonstrates to anyone who didn’t already know his capability of adding copious amounts of emotion into his vocals on ‘Beauty Queen’, a song that some people consider too ‘normal’ – but in actual fact there’s a lot of weird stuff going on in the synth and guitar parts, they’re just not such a blatant part of the song. They are there, though, quietly resisting the vocals’ insistence on becoming a straight up love song. ‘Strictly Confidential’ is a definite highlight on both lyrics and atmosphere, and I love the role the sax plays in this.

If Roxy Music had been going to release a single from this album at the time, then my pick is for ‘Editions of You’, the definitive fusion of pop and art rock, with foot-tapping rhythms, hooks everywhere, amazing solos from pretty much every member of the band. It’s one of those songs that succeeds in being instantly likeable but also has a lot of long-lasting appeal. If it had been released in the 90s, it would probably have its own dance.

But if they were going to release a retrospective single, then what could be more recognisable than ‘In Every Dream Home a Heartache’? I mean, how many songs can you think of that are about inflatable sex dolls? Personally, I can think of two (some people might think that’s two too many) and this is definitely my favourite. It’s almost an inside joke, the way everything seems so cinematic and melodramatic at first even despite the subject matter, and Ferry’s singing this love poem as though he’s entirely serious about it, right up to the ‘I blew up your body…’ line, and then gives up all pretence at the punchline ‘…but you blew my mind’, and then it’s like nobody else can keep a straight face any more as all the instruments cascade in at once. It’s genius.

There’s a dreamlike, surreal quality to the first few minutes of ‘Bogus Man’, which definitely ties into this being a nighttime album: it’s like that feeling when it gets so late that nothing seems real anymore. Its rhythm seems to predate the Talking Heads, who Eno would of course go on to work with, but that’s not the only foreshadowing of Eno’s later work; the hypnotic, repeated phrases are exactly the same principle that he would take to extremes with his ambient work. Then, ‘Grey Lagoons’ is a 50s-style song with an inimitable solo from Phil Manzanera that tends to get overlooked because of its position on the album, but definitely holds its own by rocking out between the two epics of the side.

Course, absolutely everything else is leading up to the pure indulgence of the title track, where the vocals are rich and the piano is lavish and the whole song is a special treat that never really gets moving because it doesn’t need to; it’s perfectly OK with just lazing around and getting the absolute most out of everything it has to offer. Still, it has that unsettling feeling that something’s not quite right beneath the surface, keeping you alert, making every second of the song fascinating. Eno may not have a writing credit but he’s all over this song in the haze of synths coating it and steps forward to take his bow in the experimental section that closes it all out. If such a thing were possible, then I’d say this song knows just how good it is.

Though that may be the culmination of it all, every part of this album is essential, and I wouldn’t want to change a thing about it.

And so ends the altogether too brief period of Eno’s Roxy Music, which can overall only be described as one of the most successful genre mishmashes of all time. Eno would go on to have an incredibly impressive good-to-bad ratio in his string of song-based solo albums as well as invent an entire genre of music before the decade was over. Roxy Music, meanwhile, would stay together with Ferry coming to the front more than ever before, and within months would release the album that most people consider to be their best. Personally, although the first time I heard ‘For Your Pleasure’ was before I heard ‘Stranded’, I was pretty confident even then that they couldn’t release an album greater than this one.