TASTE OF JOY - TRIGGER FABLES (1995)

I promised that I would keep my finger on the pulse of CD cover concepts and this is the third album I have found with "breast cupping". Please understand that I'm not actively seeking them, they just seem to stand out when I'm browsing through endless covers. As you can see this one is slightly overshadowed by a large, pregnant belly, painted with what looks like a depiction of the Earth. I'm assuming this is some sort of Mother Earth symbolism? However, I ignored any misgivings about a possible hippy ambush and made the purchase.

Taste Of Joy are pleasant enough, a fairly straightforward guitar band featuring a female vocalist, their sound sits somewhere between the Bangles, Voice Of The Beehive and the Go-Go's but maybe with a more folky twang. Most tracks are well-crafted and enjoyable without being massively memorable, the type of album that you have on in the background and soon passes by before you've really noticed.

Titles such as Gun Pointed, Hands Are Tied, Loaded and Went To Jail seemed to suggest a lot of weaponry might be involved and possibly even some trailer park revenge crime but that's probably just my warped impression of the American dream. In fact, Hands Are Tied had a pleasant Belly (no pun intended) feel about it, that nice drawling vocal sliding between the guitars. So Long gives a welcome short, stripped-back pause before the slow-burn rocking continues. There's a slight feel of the Beatles on some tracks, an aspect I'm not really keen on.

Top Tracks: Hands Are Tied, Blood Divine.

Verdict: Fail - the wrong type of belly.

STARS - SET YOURSELF ON FIRE (2005)

This is second CD cover I have reviewed which has featured an image of "breast cupping" -  for want of a better description. A strange phenomenon in design which will feature again in my next review, just to prove that I'm paying attention to my own plan to find CD covers with a similar concept.

To me, this cover image looked reasonably militant with a hint of pink revolution and with the Set Yourself On Fire title I could only predict an energetic album full of modern-day punk anger. Track titles such as Your Ex-Lover Is Dead, The Big Fight and Soft Revolution provide further evidence for my theory and it was a good enough assumption to make my purchase.

I was completely wrong. Your Ex-Lover Is Dead opens with the vocal sample "When there's nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire" and with that you expect it to be followed by an explosion of drums and guitars......and noise. But no, it is followed by a gentle orchestral intro building into quite a delicate and thoughtful indie-guitar track, all nicely backed with strings and a knowing sway. As soon as the second track Set Yourself On Fire flickers through the speakers it confirms that have I been duped, this isn't going to be the gritty, raw sound of violent rebellion, it is the dainty sound of art school poets with violins, cellos and glockenspiels.

There's a real charm about the male/female vocals that interchange on the majority of tracks and the lyrics give a glimpse of other people's lives, intimate yet never fully revealed. Tracks such as Celebration Guns and He Lied About Death also provide a worldly commentary about the bigger picture, quietly cutting and eloquent rather than aggressive table-thumping.

The album does have moments of fuzz and fire but it is the stories of relationships and fumblings such as The First Five Times and One More Night which really provide the most fun. Any frenetic moments are well-controlled and the downbeat sections are lovingly crafted and overall there's a terrific blend of indie rock, atmospheric electronics and classy orchestration.

This is not the type of music I usually listen to but I really enjoyed it.

Top Tracks: Your Ex-Lover Is Dead, Ageless Beauty, What I'm Trying To Say, One More Night,

Verdict: Pass - a soft revolution is still a revolution.

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Here are a few tasters from YouTube

AGE OF JETS - GO GO GADGET POP (2004)

I decided to have another pop at a CD with a robotic theme. Quite simple cover artwork but showing multiple robot devices (that's a tick in the robot box) by a band called Age Of Jets (tick in the box for retro) with the title Go Go Gadget Pop (tick in the techy title box). So almost a full house before I had even considered the track titles, they just added to the appeal.

Go Go Gadget Pop starts with the rockingly catchy lo-fi indie meets electro Beast With A Billion Eyes, a song which throws nearly every trick into the mix. It seems to last longer than its 3mins 36seconds, not in a bad way but in a maintains-the-interest good way. For The Love Of An Eskimo melts the diversity for a slightly more ponderous indie ditty, on my first play that's when I began to worry as Fun Führer drops us further into fairly straightforward guitar-based indie. My hopes for robots started to disappear. Cue sad robot eyes. 

However, much to my relief Peter And Sarah and then the explosive RPM pulled the journey back into indie-with-keyboards territory. Robotman instantly hooks you and towards the end launches into an unexpected Stereolab-like moment of joy, there's perfectly enough low-grade circuitry to satisfy my craving for music for automatons. "Listen to the robotman!" indeed.

I'm not sure if I am starting to have a breakdown but, to me, Volvo somehow sounds like Belle & Sebastian recreating a student disco version of Kraftwerk's Autobahn, it is kind of familiar yet slightly warped. The indie-guitar feel returns with Popstars, a sweary and shouty song about copulation Experience Goes A Long Way plus Photos Of Dead Pets. There's a final return to robotworld on Stormtrooper and then the album ends.

Go Go Gadget Pop is a mixed console of indie-pop, I found some of the production a little rough in places but there's enough underlying charm and variety to please the listener. Some decent tunes too. They get a bonus point for releasing this through the wonderfully brilliant Damaged Goods Records.

Top Tracks: Beast With A Billion Eyes, RPM, Robotman

Verdict: Pass - at times they may be dirty little robots, but they're still robots.

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Here is a taster from YouTube:

RUBBER BAND BANJO - SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY (2010)

I was in the mood for something spacey and electronic when I spotted this artwork. The lunar landscape and the scientifically-themed titles such as Bugs & Biofuels, Self-Assembling Virus Spaceship and Human Engineered Pathogen all combined to offer a formula worth investigating. On the negative radar was the possibility of the album featuring banjos.

All I can really conclude is that Synthetic Biology completely fulfilled the brief, an album of well-crafted instrumental electronica. Whilst remaining fairly linear in approach it incorporates enough interesting sounds, rhythms and effects to make it enjoyable throughout.

It isn't out of this world spectacular or highly experimental but it is an atmospheric and sometimes explosive soundscape of technology. Just what the doctor ordered!

Favourite Tracks: Circuit Bender, Bugs & Biofuels, Dark Matter Of The Genome

Verdict: Pass - thankfully, in this space, nobody can hear banjos.

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Here is a sample I found on YouTube:

THE WAXING CAPTORS - PLEASURE! (2010)

When I started this blog it was with the intention of seeking out odd albums with wacky artwork and this album by The Waxing Captors perfectly illustrates the type of release on my radar. Look at the cover, how could I resist it?

The track titles looked reasonably interesting, File Under Rock/Pop and Date With The Normal being the two that stood out initially. I was a touch worried by the title Bringing The Beatles Back To Hamburg, as far as I'm concerned that city has suffered enough.

Bottle In My Hand kicks off the album, the cheese-fest suggested by the cover isn't evident in the music, happily it is guitar-led indie with a slightly unhinged fringe. Bringing The Beatles Back To Hamburg is more like The Hives than the fab four, that feel carries on into the next track Shrinking Telephone.

Sounding uncannily like Franz Ferdinand at times on Constant Sorrow and Real Time, it struck me that the Waxing Captors actually sound like several bands on this album. The fun is that they sound like several bands but always on the cusp of sliding into chaos, however, they somehow pull it around to make some rather catchy tunes. I'm not sure if Date With The Normal is an ode to Daniel Miller but it is a great tune. Pleasure! is an album with short, snappy and enjoyable tracks with enough edge to please me. Nothing like the cover artwork but still a pleasure.

Top Tracks: Constant Sorrow, Date With The Normal, Golden Afternoon, Jaywalkin' Out Your Heart.

Verdict: Pass - the pleasure's all mine.

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From YouTube:

OLD GRANDAD - THE LAST UPPER (1999)

The artwork looked so appalling that I simply had to buy this one. Appalling, not so much because of the (yawn) blasphemous concept for the cover, but the terrible quality of the illustration. Hell, I knew what I was buying into but that was half the fun....or so I thought?

Some of the track titles did offer a small amount of hope. Though, now looking back in hindsight, I was simply adding even more fuel to the fire. It seems Your Guts On Rye was not about the quaint cinque port in East Sussex and Woman Hurt In Bizarre Exorcism wasn't a helpful health and safety message, I'm not sure what Daly City Crackhouse was about, maybe dodgy external wall rendering?

The CD arrived with a sticker proclaiming "a brutal concoction of primal sludge tempered with bursts of speedcore fury" - I was in deeper than I had even realised.

So, musically it is all clank, clank, rattle, rattle, grind, bass, growl, fuzz, scream.....pause....... clank, clank, rattle, rattle, grind, bass, growl, fuzz, scream. There was an awkward and ill-advised "let's be Rage Against The Machine" rap moment but mostly it is the same old formula, including the essential scattering of expletives. Lyrically there's not much to offer either, I was slightly amused by Your Guts On Rye having the words "Second bloody verse, we're having dinner in a hearse, grind up the bloody pulp mess of the heathen scumling f***ing a dead nurse". That gives you an idea of what this album is about. The final track Zero Sky does offer a slightly more gentle and thoughtful ending but then spoils it all with a lazy fade out.

If Old Grandad still exist then they can rest assured that this album is only really suitable for fans of speedcore and from their point of view that's probably a job well done.

Top Tracks: Woman Hurt In Bizarre Exorcism, Relatively Far From The Equator

Verdict: Fail - supports the case for euthanasia

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Taster From YouTube:

LAZY-B - LAZY-B TV (2006)

Vaguely picked for the artwork (i.e. a Peter Murphy-era Maxell advert memory) and the Underwear Goes Inside The Pants and The Manual (Chapter 4) track titles, this Lazy-B album seemed to offer something a little different. However, upon listening, the first couple of tracks soon diminished any promise, instead presenting itself more as a one-trick pony. A rather tired one-trick pony with one wonky leg.

Each track is nothing much more than a sequence of cut-up voice samples and spoken word messages providing facts and information over an uninspiring dance backing. Sort of a disco Baz Luhrmann Everybody's Free To Wear Sunscreen with slightly more emphasis on sexual themes, presumably to make it appear more edgy? Yawn.

It might have made a mildly entertaining three minute single but with each repeat play, an album full of the stuff gets less and less enjoyable. Once you've heard all the titbits, there's just no point in hearing them again. It came with a Limited Edition Bonus DVD, which didn't improve the experience. I should have guessed from the artwork that this album is so tired it needs a chair. The Maxell ad was much more exciting.

Top Track: Are You Qualified?

Verdict: Fail - just plain lazy.

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Here are some examples from YouTube: