Grand Assault's Music > Music reviews by Grand Assault

So you fink you're 'ard do ya?

Posted : 3 months, 3 weeks ago on 31 July 2009 02:59 (A review of Ultravisitor)

This album is, without question, Tom Jenkinson's finest. Ultravisitor was my gateway into the world of Squarepusher, but it's a whole lot more than just a crash course into his music. The album begins with a handful of 'smart' electro songs that lure you into a false sense of security, before the middle section of the album smashes your ears to pieces. The final third of this album returns to the more intelligent tracks that are easier to listen to and give you time to recover from the noise in the middle.

There's not much of the funk that graces his previous albums here, instead he has strung together an album full of glitchy electro melodies, and some of his tracks are amongst the greatest electro tracks I've ever heard. Songs like Ultravisitor and Tetra-Sync are simply fantastic tracks that would unabashedly find themselves amongst my favourites of all time. It's just music I could never get bored of listening to.

I couldn't give it the full 10/10 because of some of the tracks in the middle, they're just abrasive noise numbers that are not at all up my street. I wish that section was more user friendly! I might even have recommended the album to friends then. When you compare Squarepusher's latest two albums to this, they pale into insignificance. It seems Ultravisitor was the zenith of his creative genius.

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Spectacular pop music.

Posted : 9 months, 4 weeks ago on 26 January 2009 06:13 (A review of Oracular Spectacular)

Oracular Spectacular has to be regarded of one of the greatest albums of 2008. This is the first full length studio offering from Brooklyn-based indie band MGMT. This 2008 release contains ten tracks, several tracks of which are lifted from the 2005 Time to Pretend EP. The album versions of these tracks were modernised and reproduced to achieve a more energetic and flowing sound - much to the chagrin of some of their fan base.

MGMT (Formerly The Management) burst onto the scene almost purely because of the radio-friendly nature of some of the songs on the album. Tracks like Time to Pretend, Kids and Electric Feel were not only international radio successes, but also ensured that MGMT became the most listened to artist of 2008 on the online music documenting site Last.fm. Personally, I still find these three songs just as infectious as I did first time around and could never get tired of them. They're the strongest aspect of Oracular Spectacular.

Their sound has been described as 'the brit-pop version of Muse' in the musical press, but a combination of outlandish videos and bohemian live performances have seen them labelled more regularly as a 'psychedelic pop' band. If MGMT can ever overcome the stigma of having achieved the NME Best Album of 2008 award, then who knows what they could achieve in the coming years. Bring on the anthems!

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Down and out

Posted : 10 months ago on 24 January 2009 06:23 (A review of The Outsider)

As a DJ Shadow fan I was literally salivating over the prospect of another release from the Californian mixmeister. When approaching the release of The Outsider I was already so desperate that I'd downloaded a pre-release leak of the album and almost instantly regretted it. I thought that, as some form of musical protection, the leak was filled with dummy tracks that resembled nothing of what was to come with the official release. I deleted the leaked version and waited until a few days after The Outsider had hit the shelves before I went back to the internet to claim yet another free copy.

Imagine my horror when the tracks were the same as the leak. I even tried a few more sources to quadruple check that I really was listening to a DJ Shadow record - a fear that was finally confirmed when a house mate purchased the hard copy. It was a chronic disappointment.

The Outsider begins with an 'intro' track that is typically Shadow. It's energetic and bombastic and it gears you up for a sublime listening experience. But then it all goes wrong. Shadow has clearly been influenced by the local rap music artists near his home town and as a result, they feature prominently on the recording. I'd heard rumours that this album was going to be 'mostly rap' but I didn't care. I'm not someone who hates rap music just because it's rap music, and I expected to be fully re-educated in the genre by the samples that Shadow would pick for his third studio release. However, the final product is truly abysmal. The rap is extremely weak, diluted and completely uninteresting to listen to. A real disappointment.

Shadow defended The Outsider by saying that he never intended to remake Endtroducing over and over again. Fair enough, but as a fan I didn't expect that either. You don't work that hard to stay in the same place, but he has a distinctive sound. His personal studio albums and countless collaborations all bring intelligent samples and slamming beats to the table. In The Outsider these trademarks are almost completely absent and his signature mixing drowned out by some street-urchin throwing slang over a poppy backbeat. It's almost as if he has tired of using samples and paying royalties to the original artist and decided to produce some third-rate local rap musicians just to haul in some money for himself. I don't think people expected a re-release of Endtroducing, but they did expect a DJ Shadow record.

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Another non-stop powermix!

Posted : 10 months ago on 24 January 2009 05:44 (A review of The 4-Track Era: Volume 1)

The 4-Track Era: Volume 1 is an enlightening listening experience of the highest order. I'm not sure what the origins are of these releases, but what I do know is that hardcopies are extremely difficult to find. I wouldn't expect to see it in a music shop any time soon because it's such a limited release. After a quick search on eBay I see that copies of Volume 1 alone (I think there are three volumes) are going for between £25-60 already. In fact, the 4-Track bundle doesn't even have a wikipedia page yet. But fear not Shadow fans, this is what internet piracy is for.

I haven't read much into the history of these 4-Track era releases, so my assumptions are based purely on some of the voice recordings contained within the album. Essentially, this CD is comprised of two 40-minute seamless sessions performed by DJ Shadow on KMEL Radio. The recordings are from 1991 when Shadow was 19 years old and are built up from painstakingly prepared samples and hiphop breakbeats. Shadow is renowned nowadays for for building memorable melodies out of snippets of other people's songs, but this huge mix was crafted almost five years before the release of Endtroducing - an album which propelled him to critical acclaim.

I can only imagine how difficult it must've been to record and remix his samples with the equipment at his disposal in '91, but what is perhaps more impressive that he was given the opportunity to broadcast music from such a fledgling genre on national radio. There are samples here that you will recognise and others you wont, but he doesn't depend on mashing as many popular tunes together as he can (a la Girl Talk) in a short space of time. He builds a massive composition that continually evolves and changes direction to become a work of art on its own.

I never called myself a fan of hiphop music (although I'm a massive DJ Shadow fan), but that may be because I never really knew what it was. If there is hiphop music out there that sounds as immediately satisfying as this, then I'm truly converted.

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The family business

Posted : 10 months, 3 weeks ago on 1 January 2009 10:36 (A review of Akron/Family)

I picked up Akron/Family on a whim whilst searching around for anything remotely 'folky and weird'. That was about a year ago now, and I remember the album being an instant hit. I had it on repeat a fair few times back then and regarded it as a solid album. It's only recently that I've given it more patience though and listened to it more intently, rather than relegating it to a background accompaniment.

The album begins as an incredibly serene and laid back piece of music and maintains the theme throughout. The opening tracks amble along at a very relaxed pace and each of the first four songs would make an excellent ambient soundtrack on their own, even without the vocals. The vocals themselves are something that I guess you either love or hate. At times they are noticeably whiny or too high pitched, other times they are completely essential and emotional, but overall they don't grate on me at all. I've heard some other Akron/Family songs and this album seems a lot less spontaneous and energetic than some later recordings, but that's not necessarily a bad thing!

The band members are multi-instrumentalists, so expect a mixture of sounds ranging from gently strummed guitars to 80s sounding keyboards and swirling electro noise. I do have a favourite song on the album - Running, Returning, which just stuck out as much more 'wholesome' and upbeat than the rest of the album, but I feel bad about picking out a single track because the entire record is a listening experience in itself. I think it's fair to say that Akron/Family has grown on me over time as well, even though I appreciated it from the very beginning.

In fact, as I sit here in bed at 4:30am, basking in the glare of my laptop screen, I think I've just fallen in love with the album all over again.

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Looks like Beirut in here...

Posted : 1 year, 1 month ago on 29 September 2008 05:57 (A review of The Flying Club Cup)

I tend to throw this word around a lot, but Beirut and this album are just sublime. I can not believe how young and talented one guy can be. The entire band play just about every instrument under the sun and the final result is something that resembles an Eastern Bloc carnival. Brass ensembles and traditional Balkan instruments provide the soundtrack to romantic evening strolls through the friendly French suburbs in The Flying Club Cup. It's definitely a more upbeat and relaxed album than it's predecessor. It often makes me wish I wasn't such a bitter and resentful person and instead the kind of guy who got to experience the festivities that seem to entwine casually with the life of Zach Condon.

This is something amazingly different yet completely solid on my media player. I've never had so much respect or admiration for a band! It's what music should be, he has an amazing voice and an immense talent for writing fantastic songs. His love affair with south eastern Europe and the Mediterranean translates into thoroughly enjoyable music.


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Pulp Hits review

Posted : 1 year, 7 months ago on 25 April 2008 05:55 (A review of Pulp Hits)

This album will do nicely in anyone's collection. There was a lot of column inches dedicated to the banal rivalry between Blur and Oasis during the late 90's with their own brands of inane 'Brit-Pop', but for me, Pulp always had the edge with this genre. Sure, Oasis and Blur produced one-off albums that were filled with highly enjoyable pop-tracks, but Pulp had more of a longevity about them. You may also notice that they have since retired gracefully, rather than drag out their smidgeon of musical talent over an entire decade.

Furthermore, Pulp weren't relying on some media-orchestrated hate frenzy between one band and their rivals to sell records. Having said all of this, I only gave this album a generous 6 out of 10, which probably speaks volumes about what I think of the Brit-pop era in general.

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Antidotes (2CD) review

Posted : 1 year, 7 months ago on 19 April 2008 07:07 (A review of Antidotes (2CD))

Indie darlings, Foals, release their much anticipated debut album after what seems like an age of putting out demos and playing live gigs across the country. Formed of former members of the mighty, yet almost completely unknown, Edmund Fitzgerald, I was expecting a sound reminiscent of the heavy, gloomy math rock that the former band pioneered. That isn't the case however, as the music on offer here is far more accessible and poppy than I anticipated.

That's not to say it's a bad album. It took me a few listens to begin to appreciate it on the whole, but stand out tracks like Cassius and Balloons were instant hits. In essence, they've put out a bunch of bite sized experimental pop-songs. I really think they could've made more use of their instruments throughout the entire album as the breakdowns in songs such as Heavy Water are amazing and show what talent they have as instrumentalists. The vocals on the other hand are hit and miss, seemingly effective on the songs made for single release, but being too unimpressive for other songs where I wish they'd just let the instruments do the talking.

I think the next album will be make or break time for the band, they can either go a bit more leftfield and knock out some amazing tracks, or they could continue with another album like this and not reach their full potential as a band.

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Travesty.

Posted : 1 year, 8 months ago on 24 March 2008 08:27 (A review of Scouting for Girls)

This is not only one of the WORST albums of recent times, but clearly also one of the WORST bands to secure a record deal so far in the 21st century. The word 'worst' is perhaps overused in reviews, but I want to emphasise it here, I'm not lying when I say that this is the worst album I've heard this century.

I have a reputation for having a pretentious music taste, but I still keep up with the flood of generic indie bands that graces the radio in Britain. 'Scouting for girls' are the only one I can ever remember inciting feelings of raw rage and anger because of their lacklustre sound and completely bland and uninspired lyrics. Even my dad, a Phil Collins fan, pointed this out. Let's take a look at how he came to the conclusion by analysing the lyrics to their last two singles:

Song: She's so lovely
Lyrics: "She's so lovely
She's so lovely
She's so lovely
She's so lovely
She's so lovely
She's so lovely
She's so lovely
She's so loverrrly"

Song: Elvis Aint Dead
Lyrics: "Elvis isn't dead
Elvis isn't dead
Elvis isn't dead, coz I heard him on the radio
Elvis isn't dead
Elvis isn't dead
Elvis isn't dead, coz I heard him on the Radio.

I mean I know it's easter and all but I have to take his name in vain - Jesus Christ. If you really like this band and if you've ever made a conscious effort to listen to (or even BUY!!) one of their albums/songs, then you are a horrible horrible person and an insult to the entire sense of hearing. In fact you're probably deaf and your ears are rotten nubs of dead flesh.

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Bless you

Posted : 1 year, 8 months ago on 18 March 2008 02:14 (A review of F#A# ∞)

Despite there only being three songs on the entire album, this CD still manages to clock up over an hours worth of listening time, and what an hour it is. I had something of a musical epiphany when I first heard The Dead Flag blues, I knew I had to explore the genre and the band as much as I possibly could, just in case there were other instances of such rare musical perfection as this that I didn't know about. Three years later and my search is still going strong and I have reaped the rewards of some marvellous music.

Back to this album. It starts with a tremendous song that dredges through the deepest mires of depression in a post-apocalyptic world. It has to be heard to be believed. A dour monologue is read over strings that slowly build into a tragic and melancholic rhythm that pretty much offers no hope to the listener. It then dies down and almost begins a completely different song which is initially peppered with despair but eventually achieves the unthinkable by ending on a high and hopeful note. It's just a tour de force of emotion!

The latter songs on the album are similarly impressive, but do not focus so much on hopelessness, instead just amazing soundscapes and instrumentation that slowly build into rewarding crescendos of blissful noise. The whole album is perfect.

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