Here's a perfectly odd and disturbing cover featuring crash test dummy midwifery. I have no idea what the seat belt is being used for and I'm not sure there is really a need for latex gloves? Happily this is exactly the type of cover befitting of this project.
Onto the music. The album title Brace Yourselfseems to be offering some quiteexplosive but in realityDropping Daylight simplycrank out some fairly decent rock tracks. There are no surprises, it is really just a standard MTV rock sound. There is a welcome change of pace and tone with Answering Our Prayers but overall everything sounds good but slightly unremarkable.
Best Track: Apologies, Blame Me, Answering Our Prayers.
I must admit that I made a mistake when selecting this CD by Hot Rod Circuit for purchase. I thought the cover was a photo of someone sitting on the toilet but it turns out that they're sitting on the lip of a bath. Nevermind, it still fits within my "People Sitting" category. I also selected the album for some of the track titles, namely Radiation Suit and The Night They Blew Up The Moon.
Now for the music. The album kicks off with The Pharmacist, a reasonable cocktail of guitar power-pop, not quite Green Day, it actually reminded me of Busted or McFly. I have to admit that I don't really know how Busted or McFly sound as I've happily erased anything I might have accidentally heard by them from any memory, so I might be wrong. I suppose the solution is to say that it reminded me of McBusted. Move on.
Nature's Mercy carries on in very much the same vein, then so does Radiation Suit. Everything is fairly well done, I can't say it glows but it isn't bad enough to make your hair fall out. That's really how the rest of the album continues, an intermittently shouty male vocal with some guitars powering their way each song, not much variety and nothing to get excited about. Consumed By Laziness is a good example, I kind of liked it but it is just not very original.
The production is fine and it is all slickly done but to me it lacks personality and comes across like power-pop-by-numbers, strange for an act on the B-Unique label.
Top Tracks: Now Or Never, Consumed By Laziness
Verdict:Fail - not atomic. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I cannot remember why I bought this CD, the cover is odd but not exactly something I would consider essential for this project. It is possible I was enticed by the tracks titles Magic Pee, Silly Pepper, About A Gold Fish, Wrong Time Capsule andWeird Boobs?
Musically this is something I might have briefly enjoyed about 20 years ago, the entire album is a collection of cute electro tracks, mainly very simple rhythms with a few bonkers arcade game sounds and "character" vocals. Actually, it is possibly the type of album I might have made 20 years ago on a dull Sunday afternoon - and trust me, that's not a great accolade.
At times mildly amusing, at time highly annoying, it sounds like music made by a non-musician, stuck in a telephone box, using toy instruments. For a while I hated it but I get the odd moment where I find it wonderfully refreshing. It made me want to play my old Harry Hosono records again.
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.
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
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.
I like boxes. I have a tendency to collect them. I even created a wall made from cardboard lids, all rescued from photocopier paper boxes. That explains why I had to buy this album called P.S. I Cuddle A Box.
It wasn't until I received the CD that I realised how slightly disturbing the artwork actually is. In one image a female appears to be pregnant with a box-shaped belly whilst another figure bows at her feet, maybe kissing her feet?
Musically the album is quite simple, the production doesn't really rise much above a soft, understated vocal accompanied by drums, guitar, light keyboards. The Whistling Sounds Of A Falling Projectile sounds like a promising track title, it is a sweet enough without being outstanding.
The entire album seems to pass by without much happening to grab you, nothing really captures the imagination. Everything is slightly too laid back and dreamy, more like vague sketches than completed works. It gets slightly better on repeated listens but needs some stand-out moments to give it some colour and vibrancy. At times it almost sounds like Beck without the humour and know-how.
The artwork holds my attention more than the music. The final track P.S. I Cuddle A Box ends with a repetitive vocal loop, a rather annoying repetitive vocal loop. I just wanted it to end. Pity. I like boxes.
Top Tracks: I Won It Back, The Whistling Sound Of A Falling Projectile
Primarily chosen for the artwork's 1970s shampoo ad retro styling and song titles such as Good Looking Experiment, The Pleasant Blue Sky Radiation Company and Punk Bubble, this is an album of psychedelic rock with the odd brassy moment thrown in. It started quite brightly but the exotic promise of blue skies and sun-kissed skin soon slipped beneath the waters of a muddy pool of over-indulgence. Dangerously edging towards a prog-rock pastiche at times, this is the sound of the gone-flabby Beach Boys reluctantly holidaying with the Bootleg Beatles. In Margate. In February. All nostalgia-themed fake palm trees and watered-down, cosmic cocktails. Probably fine if you are into patched flared jeans, lanky hair and hulihees but not my destination of choice. Not all bad but not enough to retain your attention.
Top Track: Sirocco
Verdict:Fail - not as good as the brochure promised.
Neatly packaged in a gatefold wallet, the artwork reminds me of a business shirt in the process of being ironed. Admittedly, I didn't choose it for the cover artwork but for the electro-promise of the album title Robot Works and the fun-sounding track titles such as Bad Company In A Sauna, Shark vs E-Boat, AnIrrational Fear Of... and Dead Or Not He Was Wearing Sunglasses. That bait proved to be a complete red herring, musically it is indie rock, all angular guitars and semi-shouty vocals. Not even a sniff of an android and no workmanlike synthetic beats. That was a disappointment.
Overall the album is quite well done but after a few tracks it did seem to start sounding like an album that The Automatic might have made post-fame to fulfill a recording contract obligation. There are some good raucous moments but not quite enough variety for my liking, worth a listen though. It does actually grow on you after repeated plays.
Top Tracks: Gambling Or Playing Cards?, An Irrational Fear Of...
