The Mars Volta have reunited, much like At the Drive In did five years ago. However, unlike that reunion, this is a very different version of the band, if there new album is anything to go by. So I was slightly worried about this show. But that proved to be unfounded.
Tag: Art Rock
Rings Around the World (2001) by Super Furry Animals
One of these bands that I’ve heard the name of many times but never really heard. Or maybe it’s just that the name sticks in your head. Either way, I’ve heard of them without ever hearing them, until now.
Hot Shots II (2001) by The Beta Band
Their debut was a surprising delight. I’ve since read that they may have disowned it but I really enjoyed it so I find that a little weird. (It’s been long enough that I don’t remember well enough if it was just too long or if it was too ambitious or too silly. Regardless, despite its …
Crack the Sky (1975)
The narrative about American prog in the ’70s that I grew up on is that American musicians heard British prog and got really excited about it but, without the classical education, they really didn’t know how to do it, save to include some jazz. And then some of them figured out that if they just …
Kings of the Wild Frontier (1980) Adam and the Ants
British new wave is nearly always less musically interesting and risky than American new wave. There are many reasons for that and I’m not going to go into them here. I just wanted to mention it because often a lot what passes for “innovation” in British new wave is attitude.
Jesus Christ Superstar (1970) by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice
I honestly had no idea this was an album first. I think because it has been so successful as a property I just assumed it had to have been a musical. But, instead, it was an album. And, as a result, it got reviewed as an album. (And, hilariously, it was banned in some countries …
Empires and Dance (1980) by Simple Minds
Is “I Travel” the first post punk song this dancey? It sounds like they invented New Order’s sound before New Order got to it. I gotta say I wasn’t expecting that when I put on this record.
The Good Son (1990) by Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds
I love Tender Prey. For me, it’s the culmination of the Seeds through their first era, a powerful combination of punk-influenced music and songwriting well beyond the quality of most punk albums.
Songs for Drella (1990) by Lou Reed and John Cale
I’m not sure why but I find Lou Reed’s memorial lyrics way too explicit for my tastes. He’s so specific that it removes the universal appeal. I don’t normally have a problem with specificity in and of itself, and with Reed’s other lyrics but, for some reason, when it comes to death, that’s how I …
Welcome to My Nightmare (1975) by Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper is one of those performers whose reputation and actual music don’t really mesh, at least in my mind. His music is always tamer than I imagine it, and that’s especially true with this album, in which he goes full Bob Ezrin. (Thanks not only due to Ezrin’s participation, but also due to the …
Desperate Straights (1975) by Slapp Happy and Henry Cow
Slapp Happy is one of those bands I read about a lot and then listened to and was kind of disappointed by. But then I guess I mustered some enthusiasm because my review of another album of theirs is positive. Henry Cow, on the other hand, I used to absolutely love. It’s an odd match, …
Shazam (1970) by The Move
This is a bonkers record which, had I discovered it when I was in my late teens or early 20s, I might be telling you is one of the great unknown masterpieces of the early ’70s. However, time has dulled my tolerance for the “anything goes” approach of this band, especially given how scattershot the …
Real to Real Cacophony (1979) by Simple Minds
How synthpop and the New Romantic movement evolved out of punk via post punk has always been one of the most confusing parts of recent popular music history, at least to me. But it’s records like this, caught somewhere in the middle (of punk and synthpop), that make that whole evolution a little more clear.
Country Life (1974) by Roxy Music
I have approached Roxy Music in a strange way – listened to their second album first, got really into it, and then listened to their last album and didn’t enjoy it. And I’ve jumped around ever since. And because of the way I feel about their earliest and later albums, I’ve approached the ones in …
Sheer Heart Attack (1974) by Queen
This is, by all accounts, the record where Queen really becomes Queen, taking their bizarre (insane, really) hybrid style and finally pairing it with enough quality songs that it no longer seems gimmicky. I’m not sure I entirely agree, but I get why people feel this way.
Worst Case Scenario (1994) by dEUS
dEUS’s debut album is the kind of crazy alternative rock record I wish I had discovered when I was in my teens or 20s. It’s crazy to me that it isn’t better known, given how fun and interesting it is.
The Sensual World (1989) by Kate Bush
Kate Bush, ever the iconoclast, finds a good balance on this record between contemporary art pop – and all of the obsession with technology that entails – and folk music influences. In the vaguest sense this one sort of reminds of Peter Gabriel’s work, only they are incorporating very different forms of folk music and …
Tusk (1979) by Fleetwood Mac
The number of times I’ve heard that Tusk is “experimental” in my life…well, if I had a dollar, I still wouldn’t be able to afford a down-payment on a house in Toronto, or anything, but maybe I could lease a car or something. The problem with pop music fans telling you that some pop album …
Broken English (1979) by Marianne Faithful
Broken English is one of those records I heard so damn much about throughout my life that, by the time I listened to it decades after first hearing about, there was going to be a let down, it was inevitable. With multiple listens, the record is growing on me a bit, but it’s still worth …
Fear (1974) by John Cale
Paris 1919 is my favourite John Cale album but it’s not coincidentally the album of his I’ve heard the most, by far. That seems to be the way with me and Cale’s songs, it takes some time for them to impress themselves upon me, I don’t like his other albums as much not just because …
Crime of the Century (1974) by Supertramp
Before I knew what Prog Rock was, Supertramp was just a band on classic rock radio that I didn’t exactly love. Once I figured out what Prog Rock was, they became this caricature for me – my friends who hated prog hated it because they hated Supertramp but, to me, Supertramp wasn’t prog at all, …
Rock Bottom (1974) by Robert Wyatt
As I write in seemingly half the reviews of albums I write, expectations are a terrible thing. I have heard about Rock Bottom for perhaps as long as I was aware of Wyatt’s existence, which dates back to my first encounter with Soft Machine maybe 20 years ago (or slightly less than that).
Hyaena (1984) by Siouxsie and the Banshees
Reading about this album, it’s absolutely incredible how much ink was spilled over Robert Smith’s involvement. Even though it sounds like the Banshees (much more than the Cure) and even though Smith’s involvement in the songwriting is not explicitly laid out (perhaps because of this), the critics of the time attribute basically everything they like …
The Psychomodo (1974) by Cockney Rebel
I think I got this band confused with a pub rock band. I don’t really know how I did that, but I did. So, as you might imagine, I was in for a surprise.This is extra arty glam rock (or perhaps super glammy art rock, if you prefer) with a fair amount of quirk courtesy …
Street Fighting Years (1989) by Simple Minds
Simple Minds is one of those bands that put out an absolute ton of music but which I was only aware of due to their biggest hit. Until 2018 or 2019 I had never heard a single album of there’s. That one album sounded too much like U2 to me, but mostly because of Kerr. …
Discovery (1979) by Electric Light Orchestra
I don’t know ELO much at all, though I know a lot of Jeff Lynne’s work as a producer (which I hate). I first read about the band in the first music book I ever owned, but I never got around to listening to them in part because when I first consciously encountered their singles …
Queen II (1974)
I think it’s safe to say that there’s no other band that sounds like Queen: hard rock plus operatic vocals plus other weird arty or proggy ideas, in a really accessible package, with occasional diversions into other genres that shouldn’t fit – pick a Queen record and there’s usually at least one of these. I …
Sparkle in the Rain (1984) by Simple Minds
What do you do when you’ve heard one band your whole life and not another, and then you hear the second band and they sound a lot like the first? But, the thing is, the second band was actually first, and really doesn’t sound that much like that first band.
The Red Shoes (1993) by Kate Bush
The first time I listened to it I just couldn’t get over the productive, which sounds so ’80s like any number of early ’90s albums, made by artists or producers who hadn’t yet seen the writing on the wall – that the era of gated drums synthesizers approximating any instrument you could think of was …
Stranded (1973) by Roxy Music
I must say I was pretty damn worried about the first post-Eno Roxy Music album. I have heard later records and, well, I didn’t love them. I don’t love where Ferry took the band. I figured this was the beginning of the end, with the “end” being Ferry the oh so sophisticated synthpop crooner.