Just listened to Crystal Nuns Cathedral and it all sounds quite nice but I already donāt remember any of it.
?/10
3 Likes
Glad to see your enthusiasm for the project is undimmed
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I have run out of energy so bad, so glad weāre near the end
Iāll be revitalised when we do Scalping the Guru and King Shit
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me getting the other listening club members through the final albums
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the official THE END IS IN SIGHT post
- Now - La La Land
- June 24 - Welshpool Frillies
- July 1 - Nowhere to Go But Up
- July 8 - Strut of Kings NEW NEW
- July 15 to idk end of the month - Scalping the Guru, Tonics and Twisted Chasers, King Shit, Sunfish Holy Breakfast
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Weāve all done really well. Iām really proud of us.
5 Likes
the best thing iāve done on this site
5 Likes
Very excited about this run, some of their best stuffā¦ and one thing that I find quite annoying! Looking forward to that especially
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other than the ones July 15th onwards, and the new one obvs there are no more albums Iāve not heard!
Even though I will probably only go back semi regularly to a handful of the albums I can already feel a bit of ridiculous sense of achievement, despite having slipped a bit in the last few weeks Iāve actually enjoyed going through them all chronologically. Iād never have stuck to it on my own, so cheers folks!
5 Likes
likewise, no I way I would have either!
I should also add that even when Iāve been fairly unenthusiastic about the second reunion albums, it has still set me down the path of Robert Pollard solo albums and side projects in a way bordering on obsessive. Before this listening club I was a fairly casual listener (only had three GBV box setsā¦), but in the last few months especially Iāve been listening to multiple Pollard albums a day, with only the odd bit of free jazz or electroacoustic improvisation to cleanse my palate. Reckon I might even have listened to two thirds of his total output by now. No Circus Devils yet though.
Anyway, that has meant new favourite albums (and quite a few I only really like) that Iād not have bothered with otherwise! Might post about those in the other thread at some point. Itās genuinely astounding quite how much good music Pollard has made.
5 Likes
Yeah Iāve got a newfound love for Universal Truths, and realised how good Space Gun and Warp and Woof are from reunion 2 - that makes it all worth it, nevermind the fun of the journey and the random masterpiece tracks on average albums
2 Likes
La La Land!
Bobās 680389756th album or something?! Here we go thenā¦
Another Day To Heal jumps right in with crunchy guitars and a good amount of pep. I dig the hook. Itās funny. A bit throwaway. But cool. And it leads excellently into Released Into Dementia. Wow, what a tune. Beautiful lyrics and delivery from Bob. Great instrumentation and lightning-striking guitars from Doug at the end. Again, doesnāt outstay its welcome. And then, bang! Ballroom Etiquette. Another beautiful, lighter track. Again, great hook.
Instinct Dwelling is more late-GBV-by-numbers. You could well imagine this stodgy rocker on Zeppelin Over China. Thankfully it really opens with the choruses and again the hook is a decent enough singalong. Dougās guitarwork is great. And itās less than 3 minutes. No pointless riff-building exploits here. Everything is in service of the tune. Queen Of Spaces changes things up again - bringing some lovely dreamy string-laden vibes. This is a hell of a run for a latter day GBV record. It doesnāt last, though.
Slowly On The Wheel starts pleasantly enough. But it progresses in an utterly aimless way with a heavy bit, a chorus-y bit thatās a bit lame, another chorus-y bit that doesnāt go anywhere, some very diet proggy bits. Itās a massive drop off in quality. Cousin Jackie is catchy at the outset but very underwhelming by the end. And how can it be 4+ minutes?
Wild Kingdom is ominous. But thatās about all itās got going for it. Itās a bit like an average Circus Devils tune with some cool moments. Caution Song is back with something a bit more poppy. And itās quite lovely. Clearly the best tune on this side of the record. But a diamond in the rough. Face Eraser has a bit of energy but is pretty forgettable. Some of the Wire-esque guitar work is cool. But, man, it should be like 1:30. Pockets is one of the more insipid GBV closers, which is also a bit of a shame. But at this point on this LP, youāre left not expecting much.
So yeah, La La Land is a real tale of two halves. The first 5 tunes are excellent. Probably some of the best standalone GBV tunes from the last couple of years. But the latter half really drags it down.
2 Likes
Yeah Cousin Jackie is a frustrating one , that opening is a pretty fun hook/chorus but returns to for only about 5 seconds for the rest of the 4 minutes. In a different era they would have hit they chorus a few times and the song would have been a little 1 min 40 pop gem.
1 Like
Yeahā¦ drop Pockets, trim up Cousin Jackie (and Face Eraser) and stick Slowly On The Wheel as the prog statement closer at the end of the LP and the whole thing would hang a lot better I reckon.
Funny, when I was listening to this album in a distracted kinda way Slowly on the Wheel was one of the songs that stood out to me (in a good way). Relistening to it on its own andā¦ its true that it doesnāt really make much sense as a composition, and I feel like the production is somehow a bit too ācloseā (whatever that means) for the kind of thing it is. But I still think itās as memorable as most of the rest of the stuff on the album.
Edit: Pockets, though, that must be one of the few cases where Pollard manages to drag a decent but not especially interesting song down with the wrong-kind-of-silly lyrics
Fair enough. I guess where SotW has ended up on the record is partly to give the whole thing a bit of breathing space with something a bit more sparse after quite a dense run of ideas in tracks 1-5.
yeah, I can see that.
Reckon part of the reason I end up with these kinds of opinions about GBV songs is because Iām usually listening while Iām working, and Iām fairly good at screening out music while Iām concentrating on something. A song has to be doing quite a lot (good or badā¦) to really get my attention!
The decent-to-good power pop and rock stuff just ends up passing me by. A six minute nonsense prog-lite song on the other handā¦
1 Like
Not so impressed by Its not them tho I liked High in the rain and chain gang island
mum clearly didnāt read my review then
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- Another Day To Heal
- Released Into Dementia
- Ballroom Etiquette
- Instinct Dwelling
- Queen Of Spaces
- Slowly On The Wheel
- Cousin Jackie
- Wild Kingdom
- Caution Song
- Face Eraser
- Pockets
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voters