Reviews [+]
Soused Soused
Scott Walker + Sunn O)))
(2014)
The opposite of music for pleasure

This Scott Walker is not the current Governor of Wisconsin. Let’s get that out of the way right now. This Scott Walker’s name isn’t even really Scott Walker. Born Noel Scott Engel in Ohio in 1943, Walker assumed his nom de rock when he formed the pop act, the Walker Brothers, in Los Angeles in 1964. The three Walker Brothers weren’t actually brothers, or named Walker, but they were adept at the kind of gloomy string-drenched ballads that had a significant audience in the middle sixties. They found their biggest audience in England, and as the decade wore on Scott went solo, releasing a series of self-titled records that pushed the romantic ballad into odd avant-garde territory. Relying on the sex and death obsessed songs of the French songwriter Jacques Brel, as well as on his own increasingly sophisticated writing, Walker paired his expressive, crooning baritone to lush orchestral music that reflected 20th century classical composers like Stravinsky and Sibelius as much as it did adult pop like what Frank Sinatra, Gene Pitney and others were releasing. Imagine Sinatra doing an album of Tom Waits covers and you have a reasonable, if reductive, idea of what this stuff sounds like. The strangest thing about this strange music was that it sold, his second album actually topped the British charts in 1968, a year that saw “The White Album,” “Bookends,” “John Wesley Harding” among other essential albums. Public taste is fickle though, and soon abandoned Walker, who largely stopped writing music after the failure of “Scott 4”

A cult audience has developed around his early work, and after a few hesitating forays back into the music world, the last decade has seen Walker steadily picking up the pace of his comeback. He’s released four solo albums since 2006, double what he put out between 1975 and 2005. This week sees his newest album, a collaboration with the avant-garde metal band Sunn O))) entitled “Soused,” enter the world.

A respected cult artist who rose to prominence in the 1960s collaborating with a younger metal band--haven’t we heard this story before? No, this isn’t another version of Lou Reed & Metallica’s critically reviled “Lulu.” For one thing, Sunn O))) and Scott Walker have approaches that are largely complementary. While the metal group’s harsh and arrhythmic sound shares nothing with Walker’s sixties work, the sound of Scott Walker post-comeback has been equally discomfitting. Releases like 2006’s “The Drift” found him operatically intoning impressionistic lyrics about Mussolini’s corpse over busy, atonal soundscapes that included elements such as a dead pig being punched and what sounds like a demonic Donald Duck impersonation (and this was on an album with a metacritic score of 85). Sunn O))) actually help strip out much of the clutter from Walker’s recent output, and over the course of its five very long tracks I get the feeling that “Soused” is an album that perfectly realizes the intentions of its creators.

My problem is that those intentions are divorced from nearly everything I find valuable as a listener. Scott Walker’s early work showed an artist capable of transmitting a wide range of emotions--romantic longing, sure, but he also displayed things like loneliness, empathy, disgust, and wonder in musical settings that were different but not shut off from the pleasures things like well-recorded, well-played, and melodically pleasing instruments can offer. Post comeback, though, Walker seems interested only in exploring pain, disease, discomfort, and a general unpleasantness. He has stripped melody nearly entirely from his work, rhythm is used as a shock tactic, and his rich voice is deployed in a highly-mannered style that often seems like a parody of singing rather than the real thing. His recent albums have been very well-reviewed, but I would be shocked if any of the critics actually listen to those albums with any frequency. This stuff is the opposite of music for pleasure, and “Soused” continues the trend.

The album opens with the 9 minute “Brando.” Sunn O))) immediately give the proceedings a more organic sound than I’ve come to expect from Walker, a presumably self-consciously cloying keyboard plays as Walker sings a relatively melodic passage about the Missouri river (Marlon Brando’s hometown was on the banks of the Missouri, so presumably this all somehow relates to the actor), but quickly enough the music resolves into its major theme--a repeated guitar note that beats and oscillates in a way that almost approaches rhythm, with what sound like whip cracks punctuating the music at repeated intervals. “A beating would do me good,” is the phrase that sticks throughout, and the effect is as unsettling as I’m sure was intended. This track, and most of what follows starts to make sense if you try and picture the music as a minimalist score for a horror film. Indeed the long-held minor key notes, the murky, bass-heavy mix, and the jarring jump-scare percussion that punctuates throughout only really make sense if you start to view Walker and Sunn O)))’s work as a spiritual successor to things like the Exorcist soundtrack. Even Walker’s creepy repurposing of lines from children’s songs (check out the Sound of Music reference in “Herod 2014”) is an old horror movie trope. But as someone who actively listens to horror movie scores (the work of John Carpenter and Bernard Herrmann is particularly recommended), even this approach to “Soused” leads to minimal rewards.

By the time closing track “Lullaby,” which is not what you’d want to listen to as you fall asleep, winds up you’ll have spent an exhausting hour in the company of Scott Walker and Sunn O))). There are more unpleasant ways to spend that time, root canals, pig farming, and calling Verizon’s customer support line come to mind, but none of those things have an 85 percent positive rating on metacritic or a feature in this week’s New York Times magazine.

“Soused” is an album intended for a very specialized audience, and for that audience it’s entirely successful, but what most of the glowing reviews it promises to garner will fail to point out is that it has about as much to do with popular music as silent experimental films do with what plays at your local movieplex. --Nicholas S. McGaw

1.50 stars endlessrecords (8 reviews)


After a few bad years, Thurston Moore has "The Best Day."

To a certain segment of the music-listening world, the break-up of Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon’s marriage and the subsequent dissolution of Sonic Youth, the band they led together, was a tragedy. It was like hearing that Santa Claus left Mrs. Claus for a younger elf, or that Bacall never really loved Bogie after all. In a world that doesn’t throw up a lot of examples of great marriages between famous people, Thurston and Kim were the Alt-Rock power couple, combining true love, creative collaboration, and critical acclaim into a heady brew that Joe Nineties Rock Fan could point to as a model for settling down without losing your spark. When they went bust, the online gossip press wanted a villain to blame for the myth-shattering, and when it was revealed that Moore’s extramarital dalliance was largely behind the split, well, they found their villain.

Which is all to say that Thurston Moore’s new solo album, “The Best Day,” could hardly be released under worse circumstances. If Matador Records attached a press release announcing that Thurston Moore hates babies, kittens, and doesn’t believe in global warming to every copy of the album they put out they couldn’t create a more hostile audience than the one they already have on their hands. Which is a shame, because to these ears, Moore’s album is a concise demonstration of most of what made Sonic Youth so great, definitely the best full-length to come out of the SY camp since 2006’s “Rather Ripped,” and maybe the best since nineties high water mark “Washing Machine.”

There’s a lot of misconception about what Sonic Youth sounded like. People tend to focus on things like the feedback and volume and their roots with pioneering hardcore band Black Flag’s SST Records and assume that Sonic Youth was about aggression, punk posturing, and noise. What they fail to see is that, taken on their own terms, Sonic Youth was largely a melodic band. Sure, the tools they were using included feedback, unconventional tunings, and occasionally dissonance, but more often than not, the music is pretty. The feedback isn’t random, it’s positively musical, and for a band that never had a traditionally good singer in it, they came up with more than their fair share of hooky melodies over a 30 year career.

That’s true of “The Best Day” from the first notes of album opener “Speak To The Wild,” a cascading series of guitar harmonics. This is loud, electric music in the classic two guitars, bass and drums lineup. But it’s beautiful music, and the steady beat and spiraling guitars have a placid, calming effect. Here and throughout, Moore’s new group recalls melodic highlights from Sonic Youth’s past, like “The Diamond Sea” or “Sunday,” as well as the band Television, who perfected this style of music on 1977’s “Marquee Moon.”

The 11 minute epic “Forevermore” builds off of a grinding one note bass pattern into the kind of long-form guitar swells I had feared died with Sonic Youth. It’s familiar sure, and you could argue that Moore isn’t really pushing himself, but it’s an inimitable sound that he does better than anyone else in the world, and there’s nothing wrong with releasing music that plays to your strengths. Especially when it sounds as good as this.

Thurston Moore, I’ll argue, is a performer defined by his limitations. The range of things he does well is relatively narrow--for a band constantly called experimental, Sonic Youth settled on a specific sound relatively early in their career (1987’s “Sister” is the watershed), and largely stuck with that sound up until the very end. Moore’s last solo record, “Demolished Thoughts” from 2011, was something of a departure, and it suffered for it. An acoustic, pastoral album with string arrangements, it was likeable song by song but monotonous and forgettable as a whole. The traditionally pretty settings only served to remind the listener that Moore is a limited singer at best. But in front of washes of electric guitar and the reliably inventive drumming of his Sonic Youth bandmate Steve Shelley, Moore’s voice is comfortably in its rightful place. On “The Best Day,” whenever you worry that he’s wearing out his welcome with the two or three note vocal parts, another beautiful passage of interlocking guitars--the real point of the songs--starts up.

At 56 years old, Moore has no right to be this good. At his age, the Rolling Stones were shovelling out mere product like “Voodoo Lounge,” and even Neil Young was making headache inducing mis-steps like 2002’s “Are You Passionate?” (the answer is no, not about that record), but Thurston Moore sounds confident, assured, and as capable as ever of everything we’ve ever liked him for. Now if only the whole world didn’t think he was a jerk. --Nicholas S. McGaw

4.00 stars endlessrecords (8 reviews)


Compré éste CD probablemente hace 5 años, a tal vez 1 dollar, y yo supongo que lo escuche en su totalidad 1 vez al menos, y lo deduzco porque hallo todos los singles de Lenny Kravitz rateados, con singles del disco que ni recordaba, con sus ratings apropiados. En fin, después de escucharlo 1 vez cuando recién lo compré hace varios años, éste CD de Lenny estuvo en la repisa de mis CDs por años y años, y hasta hace 1 año que me traté de deshacer de mi colección de CDs y llevé mis CDs al ZIA Records, éste disco fue rechazado por los empleados de la tienda, so, tuve que regresarme con un bonche de CDs que ya no quería, incluído éste CD de Lenny Kravitz.

No sé la razón del porqué pensaba que éste CD era uno de mis adquisiciones menos preciadas y apreciadas por mí. Todo éste tiempo estuvo en mi colección haciendo espacio de más, y nunca lo volví a escuchar.

Ya que alrededor de 100 CD ninguna tienda me quiso comprar, y decidí en vez de tirarlos a la basura, darles una segunda oportunidad. So, tomé al azar 5 CDs del bonche de CDs no queridos, y éste cd de Lenny salió como 5ta opción. So, después de darle vueltas a éstos 5 cds por meses, por fin, empecé a escuchar uno tras otro. Primero The Cardigans, luego Lifehouse, luego Travis, ayer Sade, y hoy seguía éste disco de Lenny Kravitz.

Me daba un poco de flojera porque sabía que el disco estaba bastante largo y un poco tedioso, pero aún así lo puse en el cd player de mi carro.
Mis comentarios? Pues si... es un disco que si se escucha de principio a fin sin ningún respiro, parece que dura eternidades. Las canciones parecen que están demasiado largas y repetitivas, y no tienen pasajes pegajosos.  Otra cosa que me hizo descubrir es que una canción, por más pensemos que la odiemos, rodeada de puras canciones hipnóticas y sin melodias, dicha canción que antes odiabamos, cobra una nueva vida.

Estoy hablando obviamente de "Fly Away" que después de escucharla 1000 veces al año en la radio, empecé a través de los años a odiarla poco a poco, hasta llegar al punto en que si salía de repente en la radio, prefería cambiar la estación.  Pero mientras escuchaba "5" en el carro, y escuchar una canción interminable tras otra, cuando llegó y empezó "Fly Away" parecía un respiro a aire fresco. Lol. Como si "Fly Away" llegara a rescatar el disco de su sensación sedativa. So, terminé repitiendo "Fly Away" como unas 3 veces, y no sólo eso, sino que la canté en voz alta cada una de las veces que la repetí.

Pero a pesar de todas las cualidades aburridas que el disco parece desprender en la primera escuchada, después de ponerle más atención  a cada una de las canciones individualmente, me doy cuenta de que el disco si tiene cosas a su favor. La primera vez que escuche "Black Velveteen" a pesar de ser una canción Electropop muy movida, por la razón de que se encuentra situada entre dos canciones bastante downtempo, incluso esta canción se me hizo eterna.  

Cuando acabó el disco empecé a escuchar canciones y empezarlas a separar una de otras, y siempre encontré diferencias en todas. Y también encontré bastantes similitudes, pero no en el sentido en que todas las canciones son exactamente iguales... tal vez sónicamente todas las canciones se parezcan bastante, pero no todas tienen la misma instrumentación, y cada una tiene su característica diferente. Cosa que el Lenny Kravitz supongo planeó desde un principio.

Pero Lenny Kravitz no es de esos songwriters que escribe grandes canciones pegajosas y buenas al mismo tiempo. Lenny es más acerca del vibe de una canción. Del mood, del feeling. De hacer jams, y extender las ideas de un riff a una canción completa, y trabajar las melodías arriba de los jams de la banda (digo, por banda me refiero a él sólo). En vez de crear una melodía buena y catchy y de ahi construir la canción alrededor, él creo que lo hacer al revés, por eso la mayoría de sus canciones no son pegajosas, y son dificiles de digerir tal vez.

Pero si repites el disco, y buscas por más, usualmente lo encuentras, y éste es el caso de "5".

Cuando salió en 1998, realmente no fue un hitazo right away... Tardó casi un año en convertirse en un éxito, y eso fue hasta que "Fly Away" fue lanzada como el cuarto sencillo.  No me resulta sorpresa que se haya convertido en un éxito mundial, porque después de escuchar "5" en repetidas ocasiones ésta mañana, solamente llego a la conclusión de que la mejor canción en el disco es "Fly Away", y a pesar de que se convirtió en un éxito rotundo, y tal vez de tanto que la escuchamos, nos empezó a enfadar y hasta cierto punto a descartar, cuando la escucho en el contexto de "5", "Fly Away" es la razón que éste disco se mantiene vivo. Si no fuera por esta canción, básicamente la carrera de Lenny Kravitz se hubiera acabado con éste disco... No solamente mantiene vivo el disco, también hizo maravillas por la carrera de Lenny.

La segunda mejor canción es tal vez "Black Velveteen", pero de nuevo, es la segunda canción más pegajosa. Tal vez si escuchara el disco 20 veces más, las canciones más oscuras y menos comerciales se convertirían en mis favoritas. Y aunque ésta mañana pensé que al disco le faltaba muchísima energía, ahorita que lo escucho, lo encuentro bastante balanceado. Solamente se tiene que escuchar varias veces.

Tal vez no sea el disco que le iba a garantizar a Lenny Kravitz el más grande éxito de su carrera, pero al menos la mantuvo viva para que la gente se interesara en él a principios de los 2000.  No creo que "5" sea su mejor disco... pero hasta eso que yo considero a Lenny Kravitz como un artista que en ocasiones lanza grandes canciones, y sus discos siempre carecen de algo, o tienen demasiado de otra cosa... Y eso nunca le ha permitido a Lenny tener un disco definitivo de donde se desprendan 4, 5 o más éxitos. Aunque éste disco, de alguna manera, es el más parecido a ello, siendo que se lanzaron 7 sencillos del mismo, sólamente "Fly Away" se convirtió en un éxito. Los demás singles se quedaron en el camino o no figuraron.  La mejor canción parece ser "Fly Away", seguida de "Black Velveteen", pero si tienen la intención de escuchar éste disco, tal vez deberían ponerle atención a "I Belong to You", "Thinking of You", o "Can We Find A Reason?".

Ya después de escuchar todas las canciones varias veces, ya al menos las puedo reconocer una de otras. Tal vez eso es lo que necesitaba hacer en cuánto éste disco, porque la primera vez que lo escuché en mi carro ésta mañana, el disco parecía interminable. Pero ahorita lo estoy escuchando de nuevo, y ya voy en la mitad. No está tan malo y aburrido como pensaba. So... Creo que si le van a dar una oportunidad a éste disco, deberían de darle una escuchada extra, y tal vez encuentren diferentes cosas la segunda vez que no encontraron en la primera.

3.50 stars JJ_Amavizca (80 reviews)


Notes

Between the “sophomore slump” (which I hasten to modify with quotation marks because his debut wasn’t exactly that much better as people would have you believe) of My Point of View and Empyrean Isles (his best album), Herbie Hancock released one Inventions & Dimensions, a complete oddity in his early discography that's been overshadowed and kind of forgotten about. To wit: both The New Rolling Stone Album Guide and Wilson & Alroy’s Record Reviews places this as his lowest rated album until 1974’s Thrust and 1972’s Crossings respectively, (a laughable assessment, by the way). Elsewhere, Blue Note’s Herbie Hancock compilation, Cantaloupe Island, seems to have forgotten about this album’s existence (a laughable compilation, by the way).

But again, a complete oddity. For one thing, Hancock does away with the excess players of My Point of View, assembling a quartet of himself, Paul Chambers (bass), Willie Bobo (drums) and Osvaldo “Chihuahua” Martinez (percussion); in other words, this is just him and a rhythm section, no horns, no saxophones. Moreover, all but one of these songs are completely improvised on the spot (Herbie had written the chords of “Mimosa” and c’est tout).

Some fairly obvious problems. The album can be criticized for a lack of variety, especially with regards to the first three songs; "Mimosa" has a deeper drum sound and "Jack Rabbit" is the most spirited song of the bunch. Meanwhile, Hancock will have access to better rhythm players as his career heads in that direction: the three of them are mostly providing pavement or making momentum; Paul Chambers is especially guilty of this on “Triangle” as compared to his popping contribution on "Succotash" or his nimbleness on "Jack Rabbit." Moreover, since it’s mostly improvised, the album sometimes demonstrates Herbie Hancock’s go(o)d(li)ness behind the piano but, at other times, demonstrates his tendency to wander without direction. It’s all too easy to imagine how much better the album would have been with a little more preplanning: there’s a full minute on “Triangle” from about 4:20 to 5:20 where Herbie Hancock settles on various fragments of a melody while he figures out where to go next; thank God for Martinez for joining in to push things along.

That being said, there are some very noteworthy solos to be found that are, at once, imaginative and economical. Take, for instance, the one from around 7:20 to 8:20 on “Triangle,” where Herbie Hancock trills between two notes with one hand for the entire duration and goes to town with the other, moving along the full length of the piano and playing around with time by slowing down before ultimately going at full speed. Elsewhere, “Jack Rabbit” has a lovely section from 1:45 to about 2:13 which begins with lovely left-to-right rolls before trilling his way down the piano and arpeggiating back up. But the best cut is opener “Succotash,” where everyone comes together for the entire track and where Herbie Hancock demonstrates the most melodic improvisations on the album, and is it just me, or does the solo at the 1:39 mark look ahead to the solo in Sextant’s “Hidden Shadows?”

The last thing I want to say: Herbie Hancock released two of his best albums, Empyrean Isles and Head Hunters in 1964 and 1973, respectively. During those same years, he managed to release a second album with an entirely different aesthetic – Inventions & Dimensions in 1964 and Sextant in 1973 – because the man was, as they say, on fire. Also, all of them comes complete with great covers, though the lack of shadow on this Nolan-esque one irks me.

B+

3.50 stars marsbars (682 reviews)


Intenso, inteligente y excelente

Opeth es una de esas bandas que, en buen castizo, se puede decir que tuvo 'arrancada de caballo y parada de burro'. Desde 1995 hasta 2005 presentaron nueve discos, generalmente buenos, especialmente sus primeros trabajos, siendo su grabación de 1998 "My Harms, Your Hearse" posiblemente el más importante de su discografía. Luego tuvieron una crisis en 2008 que los llevó a presentar el regular "Watershed", para caer hasta su punto más bajo en 2011, con el mediocre "Heritage".

"Pale Communion" viene a ser el renacer de la banda y a convertirse, desde mi perspectiva en su mejor trabajo hasta el día de hoy y unos de los mejores discos de Progressive / Jazz de 2014. Este es un disco inesperado por parte de los suecos de Opeth y cada vez que lo escucho creo que la mejor forma de definirlo sería decir que suena a Yes, en esteroides. Es sin duda un impacto sensorial Progresivo, del mejor calibre.

En ocho canciones con gran influencia de sonidos tomados del Jazz, el quinteto logra una fuerte transmisión de emociones y colores. "Pale Communion" tiene en general un tono que toma elementos del Acid, particularmente en la rítmica, y crea canciones como la fantástica Eternal Rains Will Come, la cual es un viaje psicodélico lleno de sonidos específicos y reconocibles, luego -manteniendo un tono similar- presenta Cusp Of Eternity, compleja, oscura, cambiante, de grandiosa ejecución instrumental en su guitarra y marcado ritmo.

Luego los casi once minutos de Moon Above, Sun Below, que también crea un fuerte sentido de sonoridad, progresiones rítmicas, voces quedas y suaves que sugieren un ambiente melancólico. Esta canción es una absoluta delicia, que en sus ataques rítmicos se eleva con fuerza, luego de crear un ambiente adormecedor. Me gustó realmente su desarrollo.

Elysian Woes y Goblin derivan un poco demasiado para mi gusto y me parece que no terminan de llegar a algún sitio, aunque puede que ese sea su objeto, el sólo hecho de aturdir un poco en su sonoridad suave para que sirvan de puentes con la segunda parte del disco, la cual comienza con la descomunal River, la mejor canción del disco, con una de las melodías, instrumentación, letra y coro más hermosas que he oído en lo que va de año, muy setentosa y que me obliga a nominarla como Canción del Año de El Lado Oscuro - Metal Crítica, sin desperdicio alguno.

Casi cierran con Voice Of Treason, canción más que bien ejecutada, de ambiente oscuro y que varía el ritmo y tono general del trabajo, con bastante uso de improvisación en la ejecución y de fuerte y compleja melodía, nada sencilla para oidores casuales, lo que la hace de la más interesante, desde el punto de vista de novedad.

Terminan con algo más asequible, Faith In Other, una canción más enfocada en la excelente voz de Mikael Åkerfeldt, muy dentro de los cánones Jazz y Progressive, completa, hermosa, melodiosa e interesante.

Opeth ya casi no usa en este álbum los growls (diría que se oye apenas en algún coro) y las tonalidades pesadas o incluso Death con las que habían matizado el Prog que ejecutaban, eso se ha diluido con el paso del tiempo, sin embargo "Pale Communion" es una ejecución integral y de excelente factura, uno de los mejores discos de Prog del año.

9/10

Originalmente publicado en El Lado Oscuro - Metal Crítica

4.50 stars Meluto (63 reviews)


Yes' second-best live album.

Live albums have fallen out of favour in the past generation, and I think it's for the reason that a recording of a live performance is accepted as never being able to capture the scope and spontaneity as if it were happening in real time. Just as importantly, most bands fail to add something fresh to the music in a live album; as a result, it ends up sounding like their studio work with the added strain of weaker mixing and hazy crowd ambiance.

I do wonder whether Yes really needed another live album. Nonetheless, it's something of a checkpoint for longstanding rock bands to record a performance at the legendary Montreux jazz festival. While Yes made a habit of looking outlandish in their classic live shows, Montreux was known for its stripped down, no-frills stage set. While Live at Montreux 2003 offers little visual indication as to whether Yes toned down their image accordingly, the album largely unfolds almost exactly as you would imagine for a Yes live album. Therein lies the problem of it; whereas Symphonic Live at least had the orchestral angle to differentiate it from albums past, Live at Montreux 2003 has come too  late to the party to offer much worthy of excitement or surprise. It's a two hour-plus (!) performance of most of their best-loved songs. A lot of the set mirrors Yessongs and Yesshows too much to feel fresh at this point, but in this case, the music- as well as a hardy performance from Yes themselves- hold their own.

Although Live at Montreux is probably most notable for its twenty minute rendition of the immortal "Awaken", the spotlight is often fixed on their Fragile material. Barring a few of its solo pieces, Fragile is scattered throughout the set. Even the rare Jon Anderson song "Show Me" (written during the Fragile sessions) is included. "Heart of the Sunrise" and "Roundabout" are given straight-laced treatments here, not unlike the manner they were approached on Yessongs. Although Yes had been using "The Fish" as a way to sneak a bit of "Tempus Fugit" into their set since the '80s (Jon Anderson wouldn't sing anything from Drama), the only other live album of theirs that shows this gem is 9012 Live. Suffice to say, you're far better off hearing it here.

After "And You and I" (which benefits from some surprising harmonica during "The Preacher and the Teacher") the floor is given to Steve Howe, who delivers a gorgeous acoustic renditions of "To Be Over" and "The Clap". While "The Clap" stays true to form (it's a bloody classic of fingerpicking in any case), "To Be Over" is one of the coolest parts of this album; it shows Yes reinventing their music in a new and inviting way. Most of the other songs in Live at Montreux's favour are largely so because they weren't included on live albums past. "Awaken" is the real gem here (sounding as strong live as it does in the studio), and "In The Presence Of" off the latter-era masterpiece Magnification stands as being one of the best epics they've ever done.

There are surprises and fresh encounters on Live at Montreux; the setlist and performances are great, and the re-appearance of Rick Wakeman makes it special for Yes. Did we need another live album with "Siberian Khatru", "And You And I", "Heart of the Sunrise", "Long Distance Runaround", "Roundabout" or "I've Seen All Good People" on it? Probably not. As it stands, Live at Montreux is a fine live album, but I can't see any reason to recommend it over Yessongs. If you've already heard Yessongs however, and want more of the same, Live at Montreux stands as the second best among their live releases.

70/100

3.50 stars ConorFynes (131 reviews)


Change. It sucks, huh? One moment you know something like the back of your hand, and the next moment it's gone. There were a lot of changes happening in Britain during the '60s. Rock 'n' roll was getting heavier... okay, that's the only one that comes to mind. But you get my point, right?

It was a time of great division among British people, probably, I think. While many were in favor of moving ahead, there were a vocal minority of the Brits who had a soft spot in their collective hearts for grass and steam-powered trains and stuff like that. These people were known as Kinks, 'cuz they were kinks in the system, and they all got together in a little support group and made an album known as The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society in a year known as 1968. I think that's how it happened, at least.

Everyone wrote their own track, and they got some dude named Ray to sing all of them. Okay, maybe not, but the varying styles explored on this album suggest that fact. The title track is a jaunty baroque-folk tune; Do You Remember Walter is a fast-paced pop-rocker with great, punchy drums; and Wicked Annabella is a heavy-psych exploration of a haunted house that should appear on any competent Halloween compilation. The Kinks try vaudeville, baroque pop, and blues rock too, and they do 'em all real good. The track sequencing kind of foreshadows '90s-genre-hopping stuff like Mr. Bungle and Ween, which is cool.

As instrumentalists, The Kinks come off as competent enough. I wouldn't call Dave Davies a virtuoso guitarist or anything, although Last of the Steam-Powered Trains is a rave-up worth noting. They do some interesting stuff with sentimental-sounding organs, a whole bunch of different guitar tones, and even some synthesized flute on Phenomenal Cat. I like that one lyrically- something about "the land of idiot boys". The lyrics go all over the place here too (in a good way)- whether you're a steel-driving man, a phenomenal cat, a wicked witch, some guy named Walter, or literally the sky, there's a song here for you. "For me?", you ask.

Yes. And while its inherent British-ness can sometimes be bothersome, Village Green is a fine folk rock album which encapsulates an interesting '60s vibe. Also, it's way better than Rubber Soul, for what it's worth.
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4.50 stars yngmyc (75 reviews)


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Fumble on the Two Yard Line... (November 04)
Torn ApartBastille vs. Grades
Torn Apart (November 30)
Houses of the HolyLed Zeppelin
Houses of the Holy [Deluxe Edition] (October 27)
Pandemonium [yellow vinyl]Cavalera Conspiracy
Pandemonium [yellow vinyl] (October 31)
Fermata SupremeCloud Gavin
Fermata Supreme (October 28)
Christmas ChoirThe Gospellers
Christmas Choir (November 19)
XXLagash
XX (November 03)
IRie fu
I (November 12)
Time for TTime for T
Time for T (October 28)
SoftDan Bodan
Soft (October 28)
Black Gloves EPProfondo Delle Tenebre
Black Gloves EP (October 28)
ShadowMister Lies
Shadow (October 28)
The Song Is My StoryAbdullah Ibrahim
The Song Is My Story (October 24)
I'm in the Nebula NowPinku-Eiga
I'm in the Nebula Now (October 31)
BarnDeers
Barn (November 02)
Black MetalDean Blunt
Black Metal (November 04)
Butterfly EffectShinichi Atobe
Butterfly Effect (October 27)
BlazingGARNiDELiA
Blazing (October 29)
The TrailMiss Kenichi
The Trail (November 11)
CollectedStereo MC's
Collected (October 27)
BlauwgeelAll Shall Be Well (And All Shall Be Well and All Manner of Things Shall Be Well)
Blauwgeel (November 04)
Stereo Star MapsBill Nelson
Stereo Star Maps (November 10)
Live in '84 - Back to the BoneWhitesnake
Live in '84 - Back to the Bone [Deluxe Edition] (November 07)
Highways, Heartaches and Time Well WastedLisa LeBlanc
Highways, Heartaches and Time Well Wasted (November 04)
Makina[makina]
Makina (October 28)
So Long Sun / Love Stands StillCommunions
So Long Sun / Love Stands Still (November 07)
Face to FaceScream Your Name
Face to Face (October 24)
Escape From WitchtropolisEspectrostatic
Escape From Witchtropolis (October 28)
Deathvox EPPaula Temple
Deathvox EP (October 27)
Aztec Chant (Tessela Remix) / End Point (Stenny & Andrea Remix)Pev & Kowton
Aztec Chant (Tessela Remix) / End Point (Stenny & Andrea Remix) (October 28)
Pandemonium [blue vinyl]Cavalera Conspiracy
Pandemonium [blue vinyl] (October 31)
魅力がすごいよゲスの極み乙女。 [Gesu no Kiwami Otome]
魅力がすごいよ (October 29)
2 Minutes to Midnight / Rainbow's GoldIron Maiden
2 Minutes to Midnight / Rainbow's Gold (October 27)
BestSpyair
Best (November 26)
Pridelyrical school
Pride [minan盤] (October 28)
Rasa RasaWollesen / Haffner / Naujo
Rasa Rasa (October 27)
Liber Lvcifer I: Khem SedjetThy Darkened Shade
Liber Lvcifer I: Khem Sedjet (October 31)
The Girl From Detroit CitySuzi Quatro
The Girl From Detroit City (October 27)
A Taste of the LightXthirt13n
A Taste of the Light (October 24)
VampireThe Residents
Vampire (October 30)
The HierophantBurial Hex
The Hierophant (November 18)
Phobos MonolithMare Cognitum
Phobos Monolith (November 03)
Bal maturalnyRozbójnik Alibaba & Jan Borysewicz
Bal maturalny (November 14)
Where in This World (feat. Elektrostaub)Distain!
Where in This World (feat. Elektrostaub) (November 14)
Sum of the PartsGenesis
Sum of the Parts (November 17)
BooDress 2 Kill
Boo (October 26)
Butterfly EffectShinichi Atobe
Butterfly Effect (October 27)
Robo SapienDie Krupps
Robo Sapien (October 31)
Abandon ShipKnife Party
Abandon Ship (October 27)
Pre-BoardingMalkovich [hip-hop]
Pre-Boarding (October 23)
Corridor to the Frozen SkyXecsNoin
Corridor to the Frozen Sky (October 24)
Yume Nikki ReimaginedSilent Cicada
Yume Nikki Reimagined (October 31)
Sun Zoom Spark: 1970 to 1972Captain Beefheart
Sun Zoom Spark: 1970 to 1972 (November 11)
ShanghaiedÅge Sten Nilsen's Ammunition
Shanghaied (November 21)
TellurianSoen
Tellurian (November 04)
Dead Winter SunBorn of Fire
Dead Winter Sun (November 14)
Home for the HolidaysHeart & Friends
Home for the Holidays (November 07)
PrizeFighter: Hit After HitTrisha Yearwood
PrizeFighter: Hit After Hit (November 17)
It's All in Your HeadNegativland
It's All in Your Head (October 28)
Last All Night (Koala)Oliver Heldens
Last All Night (Koala) (November 30)
[untitled]Katie Gately
[untitled] (October 30)
Young Dogs, Old TricksThe Texas Flood
Young Dogs, Old Tricks (November 12)
Death Under RainbowsDan Phelps
Death Under Rainbows (October 28)
CandymanPhilip Glass
Candyman (October 28)
HypnotizedDream Police
Hypnotized (November 11)
T.I.N.A.Fuse ODG
T.I.N.A. (November 02)
StabilizeCourtesy Drop
Stabilize (October 28)
Nueva tierra7 Almas
Nueva tierra (November 14)
Give 2 UHuxley
Give 2 U (November 10)
RestitutionBinary Creed
Restitution (October 26)
1492Corvus Coren
1492 (November 03)
There's a Storm ComingIn Faith
There's a Storm Coming (October 24)
Canciones del desastreJulio y Agosto
Canciones del desastre (October 26)
Muscle MemoryDems
Muscle Memory (November 03)
Earth SickOh Land
Earth Sick (November 10)
Vapor City ArchivesMachinedrum
Vapor City Archives (November 17)
TerralPablo Alborán
Terral (November 11)
Start TalkingBulletrain
Start Talking (October 24)
Live in DublinLeonard Cohen
Live in Dublin (December 02)
21 AgainMouse on Mars
21 Again (October 31)
The Mylene Sheath Label Sampler 2014Various Artists
The Mylene Sheath Label Sampler 2014 (October 31)
Natura MortaAndrea Belfi
Natura Morta (November 07)
ViyAntón García Abril
Viy (November 28)
CitadelNe Obliviscaris
Citadel (November 07)
Harness-minusProsperina
Harness-minus (November 03)
Transmigration of the MagusJohn Zorn
Transmigration of the Magus (October 27)
NezumimochiMerzbow
Nezumimochi (November 10)
Return of the EmpireHorror Vacui
Return of the Empire (October 31)
SongsDeptford Goth
Songs (November 03)
Becoming Who We AreKings Kaleidoscope
Becoming Who We Are (October 28)
CrossfireWhite Widdow
Crossfire (November 26)
Home EverywhereMedicine
Home Everywhere (October 28)
Oil PanicTorgny
Oil Panic (November 08)
The Endless RiverPink Floyd
The Endless River (November 10)
Minutes and Seconds - LiveAlison Moyet
Minutes and Seconds - Live (November 10)
Roller Mobster (GosT Remix)Carpenter Brut
Roller Mobster (GosT Remix) (October 31)
Mysterium Tremendum et FascinansFides Inversa
Mysterium Tremendum et Fascinans (October 31)
First ContactContact
First Contact (October 28)
At War With RealityAt the Gates
At War With Reality (October 27)
SpiritsFrench for Rabbits
Spirits (October 28)
MotionCalvin Harris
Motion (November 03)
MythmakerSkinny Puppy
Mythmaker (November 11)
寄せて上げてLPEnya-Sang
寄せて上げてLP (November 06)
Live in '84 - Back to the BoneWhitesnake
Live in '84 - Back to the Bone (November 07)
SoldiersChaos Divine
Soldiers (October 31)
Forever and EverChandeen
Forever and Ever (November 28)
Otro Comienzoihä
Otro Comienzo (November 08)
The Trooper / Cross-Eyed MaryIron Maiden
The Trooper / Cross-Eyed Mary (October 28)
StorytoneNeil Young
Storytone (November 04)
R.I.S.ELawless
R.I.S.E (November 21)
House Of DripDylan Ross
House Of Drip (October 25)
Trolsk Sortmetall 1993-1997Ulver
Trolsk Sortmetall 1993-1997 (November 17)
2 Minutes to Midnight / Rainbow's GoldIron Maiden
2 Minutes to Midnight / Rainbow's Gold (October 28)
Du hältst nur fest, was brichtFlyktpunkt
Du hältst nur fest, was bricht (November 07)
Fat Kid With a 10 InchSick Thoughts
Fat Kid With a 10 Inch (October 28)
AmericaFirst Aid Kit
America (November 28)
冬が来るSalley
冬が来る (November 12)
Asleep VersionsJon Hopkins
Asleep Versions (November 10)
HowlRed Sky Mary
Howl (October 27)
After the EarthquakeThe Jazz June
After the Earthquake (November 11)
Not StochasticBruce
Not Stochastic (October 27)
Shantae and the Pirate's Curse OSTJake Kaufman
Shantae and the Pirate's Curse OST (October 24)
FogOwlle
Fog (October 27)
Led Zeppelin [IV]Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin [IV] (October 24)
This Is UsAgent Side Grinder
This Is Us (November 26)
Halloween Mix 2014RL Grime
Halloween Mix 2014 (October 30)
Young Soy EPAmsch
Young Soy EP (October 26)
FACT 467Jacques Greene
FACT 467 (October 27)
LunarterialSwallowed
Lunarterial (October 30)
IX...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead
IX (November 10)
+-EPThe Brian Jonestown Massacre
+-EP (November 10)
Night YearsCut Teeth
Night Years (October 28)
13 Cadaverous CutsVarious Artists
13 Cadaverous Cuts (October 31)
9 SongsKashiwa Daisuke
9 Songs (November 01)
The WandererDonna Summer
The Wanderer (December 01)
Dark ValentineInertia
Dark Valentine (November 11)
Sœur CristinaSœur Cristina
Sœur Cristina (November 10)
Power of AnonymitySteffi
Power of Anonymity (November 24)
H.A.T.E. (Hell As The Earth)Priceless
H.A.T.E. (Hell As The Earth) (October 31)
SuperstitionSiouxsie & the Banshees
Superstition (October 27)
Ny / SnöJonathan Johansson
Ny / Snö (October 24)
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