M83 - Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts (2003)

1) Birds; 2) Unrecorded; 3) Run into Flowers; 4) In Church; 5) America; 6) On a White Lake, Near a Green Mountain; 7) Noise; 8) Be Wild; 9) Cyborg; 10) 0078h; 11) Gone; 12) Beauties Can Die

Cold and harsh winter landscapes set to crescendos of discordant guitars and swirling synths. Both an evolution and a sidestep in the wider picture, but also the most atmospheric work from an act famed for it. 

Key tracks: "Unrecorded", "On a White Lake, Near a Green Mountain", "0078h"

The cover for Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts is probably meant to come across serene - a group of children spending time together doing nothing at all like small town kids do, and probably making snow angels on that field. But there's something unsettling about it to me, though. It's weird to say this from an image but it looks almost too quiet, like everything has paused to an unnatural still around the frame of the picture and you have this disquieting feeling that there's something creeping in the background, right out of sight and there's something stranger about those kids who've fallen on the ground. And the music associated with that cover probably has a lot to do with that 

Dead Cities etc is musically anything but serene - it's loud, sometimes close to even harshly so. It's primarily because of the guitars and how they are wielded throughout the twelve songs. M83's debut was an atmospheric electronic album with an edge, but for the second album the still-duo have started utilising guitars as a core element of their sound, but abstaining from treating them as a melodic instrument. Dead Cities is full of jagged, distorted guitar walls, mixed high above the other elements: fuzzy synthesizers which sound like they're defying their date of obsoletion, loud crashing drums, almost-industrial sound effects - all sounds that have a similar hard hit. It's similar to how guitars are used in shoegaze, which Dead Cities takes some influence from, but in this case the effect is as if the guitarist had hit the wrong pedal and gone for sharp distortion over echoing reverb. If you can call guitars stabbing, it's the perfect way to describe them here. Just their tone enough is to make the album sound slightly ominous: there's something in them that twitches the reflex to run and never look back no matter what you hear right behind you.

 
Besides shoegaze, post-rock tends to get thrown around a lot as a descriptor for Dead Cities and though it's not a perfect comparison, they both share the same emphasis on dynamics. Most of the songs here are centered around vivid shifts in scope and size in the sound: from how "Unrecorded" melts away its loud alternative rock guitars for its synth-filled second half, the looming organ of "Church" flicking into the high-speed chaos in "America", the constantly growing "On a White Lake, Near a Green Mountain" that sticks to its basic loop but keeps building it louder and more crushingly towering. Vocals aren't really a thing yet for M83 and they barely feature here apart from a few brief and usually wordless appearances and some sample work, and so many of these strictly instrumental works have a cinematic quality to how they build themselves, with a vivid scene set to each song that you can comfortably envision with your imagination, simply on the evocative strength of the music. A cheekier way to describe it would be that it's the crescendos of post-rock with all the minutes of predecessing noodling chopped out; though together these 12 songs do form a greater whole even if it rarely segues from one song to another.

Even though it's only the second M83 album, in retrospect it's already a peculiar detour in the otherwise fairly linear evolution of M83 and it does tie itself together to the main timeline by its emphasis on big, epic moments that M83 are so fond of, but there's little of the euphoria or exhuberance that they normally bring to the table. Only "0078h" sounds genuinely upbeat, with its sampled and cut vocals bouncing around brightly across the atypically positive backdrop: it's a genuinely welcome breather after the dramatic multi-song mountain before it that it gleefully rides down from. Dead Cities isn't a dark record but it's a cold one - something out of a dark winter night, where it's forebodingly quiet and pervasively cold in a way that gets to your bones. The sharp sounds flare up a constant sense of unease, and the contrast between the violent metal cutter guitars and the deeply immersive analog synth sounds is wonderful, and my favourite songs here are the ones where M83 really emphasise that juxtaposition: "Unrecorded" was the first M83 song I heard and it was absolutely arresting from the very first moment, and the switch from its intense first half to the contemplative, stargazing second part never sounds any less inspired, while "On a White Lake, Near a Green Mountain" is an exercise in pinpointing a particularly striking mood and then digging deeper and deeper into it with each loop of swirling synthesizers and textural guitar chords. And while it is a slightly different take on the usual M83 traits, there's still overlap: "Run into Flowers" is a look forwards towards Before the Dawn Heals Us, "Gone" gives the great final scene crescendos they're famous for and "Beauties Can Die" is the traditional gentle near-ambient closer, and this time it's also the one song on the record where all discordant elements are gone and what's left are simply the twinkling melodies gently falling from the sky like a peaceful if wistful snowfall.

Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts is a great record. It's arguably the most atmospheric M83 have ever been - including the albums that directly leaned towards ambient or movie scores - and if the mood they've picked is the unnerving first 40 minutes of a thriller film right before things begin to escalate, then so be it and they've pulled it off excellently. Throughout it's a captivating, entrancing record, and it really highlights just how great Gonzalez and (on this record) Nicolas Fromageau are at creating stories out of just music because it's those visual images, a lot of which are hard to jot down in writing without coming across a little too self-indulgent, that come to my mind first and foremost when I think of the record. It's a strange, barren record that's continents away from the verdant summers of their biggest albums and while I prefer some of those overall, there's a kind of wizardry here they've not touched since. There's a world within these songs that I'm cautious to explore, but which I'm absolutely compelled to.

Rating: 8/10

Sonic Team - Sonic Adventure 2 Multi-Dimensional Original Soundtrack (2001)

CD1: 1) SA2 ...Main Riff for Sonic Adventure 2; 2) Event: Let's Make It!; 3) Escape From the City ...for City Escape; 4) The Mad Convoy Race ...for City Escape; 5) That's the Way I Like It ...for Metal Harbor; 6) Can't Stop, So What!? ...for Metal Harbor; 7) Won't Stop, Just Go! ...for Green Forest; 8) Keys the Ruin ...for Pyramid Cave; 9) Unstable World ...for Crazy Gadget; 10) Highway in the Sky ...for Final Rush; 11) Boss: -GUN- Mobile; 12) Advertise: SA2 ...in the Groove; 13) Event: Strategy: 14) This Way Out ...for Prison Lane; 15) Rumbling HWY ...for Mission Street; 16) Chasing Drive ...for Kart; 17) Down in the Base ...for Hidden Base; 18) On the Edge ...for Eternal Engine; 19) Advertise: SA2 ver. B; 20) Kick the Rock! ...for Wild Canyon; 21) A Ghost's Pumpkin Soup ...for Pumpkin Hill; 22) Dive into the Mellow ...for Aquatic Mine; 23) Deeper ...for Death Chamber; 24) Space Trip Steps ...for Meteor Herd; 25) Boss: Masters of the Desert: 26) Event: Reunion; 27) Advertise: Prof. Omochao; 28) Chao Race Extended Mix (Chao's Doki-Doki Banana Chips Run Mix); 29) Chao Garden Extended Mix (Chao's Wack-Wack Up & Down the Ground Mix)
CD2: 1) Vengeance Is Mine ...for Radical Highway; 2) Rhythm and Balance ...for White Jungle; 3) Mr. Unsmiley ...for Sky Rail; 4) The Supernatural ...for Final Chase; 5) For True Story ...for Sonic vs. Shadow; 6) Event: Conquest; 7) Hey You! It's Time to Speed Up Again!!!; 8) Still Invincible ...No Fear!; 9) Advertise: Rhythmic Passage; 10) Boss: Suitable Opponent; 11) Remember Me? M.F.M. ...for Iron Gate; 12) Way to the Base ...for Sand Ocean; 13) Trespasser ...for Lost Colony; 14) Crush 'Em All ...for Weapons Bed; 15) Soarin' Over the Space ...for Cosmic Wall; 16) Event: 3 Black Noises (Revival... Chaos Control... Reflection...); 17) Advertise: SA2 ver. C; 18) Event: Sonic vs. Shadow; 19) Bright Sound ...for Dry Lagoon; 20) Lovely Gate 3 ...for Egg Quarters; 21) I'm a Spy ...for Security Hall; 22) 34N, 12E ...for Mad Space; 23) Event: The Base; 24) Boss: Shut Up Faker!; 25) Scramble for the Core ...for Cannon's Core; 26) Cooperation ...for Cannon's Core; 27) Deep Inside Of... for Cannon's Core; 28) Supporting Me ...for Biolizard; 29) Event: Madness; 30) Event: The Last Scene; 31) Live & Learn ...Main Theme of Sonic Adventure 2

An ambitious, expansive and epic attempt to create something spectacular for Sonic the Hedgehog's first big anniversary ends up becoming the series' highest benchmark of quality.

Key tracks: "Escape from the City", "Kick the Rock!", "Live and Learn"

I've long cultivated an analogy of Sonic the Hedgehog soundtracks as a band discography for my own fun, and continuing on that theme, Sonic Adventure 2 is the sprawling, multi-disc epic created by a band that's high and lofty with ambition, unafraid to tackle any obstacle and wanting to expand their sound in every single direction. That's right - in the world of Sonic music this is the Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, the Sandinista, the White Album.

1998's Sonic Adventure brought Sonic to the 3D world, and in the process introduced and in some places codified many of the trademark elements now associated with the series. One of those was the music. The infectiously melodic sound of the original 2D games was obviously restricted by the hardware of its time, which towards the late 90s and the adoption of CDs as the primary format for games was no longer an issue, and so a reinvention was not only possible but in many ways necessary. Spearheaded by Jun Senoue, who had taken the step to become the primary musical coordinator for the series and who boasted some serious guitar chops of his own, the soundtrack for Sonic Adventure had a decent amount of variety as the music team took every advantage of the new sound possibilities, but above all it was tied together by Senoue's energetic and dynamic guitar-lead rock approach. The melodies were still present and in the forefront, but through Sonic Adventure, the entire series became synonymous with the revved-up riffs and solos that Senoue cast over the high-speed action, backed by his incredibly virtuosic band.

The release of Sonic Adventure 2 was the key event for Sonic's 10th anniversary celebrations, and the aim for the game was to make into the kind of an Event that an anniversary milestone should be. Thus, the plot increased the stakes and injected a fair bit of before unseen dramatic flair to the series, the level set pieces became more bombastic in an endless internal contest to one-up the previous level, and Senoue's soundtrack team were driven to be more ambitious to match the increasingly epic nature of the game. The main goal was to keep increasing the variety. While Sonic Adventure already featured multiple playable characters each with their own levels, the songs that played during the stages remained the same depending on the area. For Sonic Adventure 2, the decision was made for each character to bear their unique musical flair that would tie together their levels while making the journey of each hero (or anti-hero) stand apart from the others. The other big addition was the increased presence of actual vocals accompanying the music. The first game had already featured vocal themes for all the characters and so Sonic Adventure 2 kept up that tradition, but in addition the soundtrack team began to utilise vocals throughout the actual stage songs, leading to several stages having their own unique sung lyrics accompanying the songs. As a soundtrack it was bigger, bolder and more expansive than the already ambitious Sonic Adventure score - in every way possible they could think of.

The core of the Sonic Adventure 2 soundtrack is still close to the sound that Sonic Adventure introduced, so the familiar guitar-lead anthems are present throughout across the two discs, but there's now the added twist of each character having a signature sound that breaks the soundtrack into neat little stylistic sections. For half the characters, the songs are rooted in the core sound but with different emphasis points and variations for each one. Sonic's stage songs are appropriately closest to the signature sound and they're among most unabashedly energetic of the set, with a peppy rock attitude speeding through Senoue's guitar wails. They're the closest representation of the series' newly adopted main style and in doing so end up being the most instantly hit-like (if you can describe video game songs as such), and in particular the first stage song, "Escape from the City" has deservedly become an iconic piece of the series' history: it's a snappy pop-punk anthem with free-spirited vocals and some of the most infectious melodies of the whole series, combined with an outrageously feel-good chorus. Tails' and Eggman's stages skirt around the same direction as Sonic's, but Tails' sections slightly nudge the guitars to the side from way of bright keyboard melodies, while Eggman's part of the soundtrack makes the riffs crunchier and rhythms more appropriately mechanical. The quality keeps consistently high throughout, and in fact while Sonic's songs might be punchier, Eggman and particularly Tails' score are full of delightful arrangement details and hidden mini melodies underneath the big ones. They never stop sounding fresh, which is definitely a boon when you're repeating the same levels over and over again in search of the elusive A-rank completions.

The broader divergences come with the other three characters. Shadow the Hedgehog is a creature on a roaring rampage of revenge for most of his story, and so his stages take a darker atmosphere while the genre shifts into a mixture of drum 'n' bass, jungle and techno, aggressive hyper-active beats keeping the adrenaline flowing, with the heavily filtered vocals that are barely legible giving the songs an intense, brooding feel. Rouge's jazz pop grooves are the complete opposite, with bright acoustic guitars, horns and rhythmic wordless vocals dum-dum-duming across breezy, light-as-air melodies. And then there's Knuckles. In Sonic Adventure, Knuckles' character theme beared a big rap influence and for the sequel the sound team drilled down on this, with all of his stage songs showing off a hip hop vibe and coming with full rap verses, with barely any instrumental time in-between. They are also incredible. Knuckles' stage songs are among the most fun in the entire game - utterly and completely cheesy of course, because when you have lines like "echi-don-a, that's what I'm representin'" or "the great emerald's power allows me to feel" it's unavoidable, but they are delivered with perfection. Hunnid-P has a great, charismatic flow, the production is top-notch with a suave jazz-rap groove vibe, and there's hooks for days. "Kick the Rock!" is just as iconic as "Escape from the City", "A Ghost's Pumpkin Soup" should be a regular part of everyone's Halloween playlist, "Dive into the Mellow" defines chill-hop, and "Space Trip Steps" soars and floats appropriately. The downtempo "Deeper" isn't quite as flashy as the rest, but the sudden monologue where Hunnid-P out of nowhere enacts a dialogue between Sonic and Knuckles all in same breathless voice tone (and which never appears in the game, it's a soundtrack-only inclusion) is a moment of baffling creative madness that becomes the de facto highlight of the song.

 
In-between these, there's a scattered number of various cutscene scores (Event), menu music (Advertise), boss themes (Boss), minigame medleys and other miscellanea, all of which display a similar genre-fluid freedom. The only thing slightly less than exciting than the stunningly consistent rest of the collection is the orchestral suite "3 Black Noises" which by its very nature stands out and halts the flow, and the two Chao Garden (think of a tamagotchi side game that could very well be a game unto its own) medleys which are charming but, in lack of a better word, a little 'kiddy' at times; the Chao Garden mix has some nice background moodscapes, but the Chao Race medley can be a little too saccharine and like out of a pre-schooler show. Still, from a completionist point of view it's good they're here and at least they're at the end of the disc, where they won't break the flow inadvertently. The boss themes are great throughout, and the melancholy but defiant and determined "Supporting Me" is de facto one of the definitive songs of the soundtrack, and even the cutscene tracks get their chance to shine with the heroic introduction scene of "Let's Make It!" which interpolates Sonic's character theme (not present on this soundtrack set), and especially the bittersweetly beautiful ending theme "The Last Scene" being particularly great. And of course, there's "Live and Learn", the main theme of the game. "Live and Learn" is quite certainly the apex point for Crush 40, the Sonic Team house band who frequently perform the main themes for the games, as well as the series' overall greatest theme song, to the point that you could at this stage call it the main theme of the entire franchise - it's an iconic song and an absolutely top-notch anthem, full of great riffs, great passionate hard rock vocals (not normally my cup of tea but Johnny Gioeli gets my points), a fantastic middle-eight and a final chorus that kicks up the gear all the way to eleven as the final send off.

You take all that and combine that together, and you can make a very real and very strong case that the soundtrack for Sonic Adventure 2 is quite possibly the greatest of all Sonic the Hedgehog soundtracks. Given the overall rock solid quality control across the decades that the series has held onto in its music, even whenever the games may not have been all that, that's a pretty high and mighty claim. It boils down to how this acts like the perfect sweet spot for the franchise's music. The style that the Blue Blur is most associated with - the wildhearted rock anthems - is polished to perfection here to the degree that it's these songs that define the sound, and it's thanks to this soundtrack that these aesthetics have become such a defining aspect of Sonic the Hedgehog. On top of that, the sound team took that boost of ambition and inspiration and rode it towards places they maybe couldn't the last time, adapting that polish and aesthetic towards entirely new ideas, casting the series' musical net wider almost overnight. Combine that with some incredibly strong songs, many of which feel like they could have even had a life outside video games if they were nudged towards that direction, and you get a soundtrack that is as aweworthy as it is expansive. It is exactly like those colossal multi-disc rock albums listed before - a triumph of ambition and inspiration from musicians who wanted to reach the next level.

But if we want to really crack open why this is getting the rare full score out of me, we need to dig a little deeper.

If the fact that I've already written so, so many paragraphs within this review alone about Sonic the Hedgehog music didn't tip you off, once upon a time I was a dedicated, full-time Sonic the Hedgehog fan. I was the kind of person who signed up to several forums dedicated to the series, became a regular contributor and a semi-known name across most of them, who would listen to the various soundtracks on repeat on a near-daily basis and who would play these games regularly over and over again - especially Sonic Adventure 2 or rather the SA2: Battle version on the GameCube. My formative years of being on the internet revolved around this franchise, and I felt a genuine community spirit with it: I'd idly spend late night hours just browsing pages of topics of like-minded people discussing various minutae, shared the excitement and joy whenever something new was announced or discovered, and some of the people I met through that eventually became friends who I still hang out with regularly in the real world. All of that was a long lifetime ago, but it's left a permanent imprint on me and as an obvious result, the series will always have a place in my heart even if I've more or less left the fandom behind as an active member - I still play the games, buy the soundtrack CDs and collect the odd piece of merchandise that ticks my boxes where and when I feel the need to. And out of all the great music in the entire franchise, it's the soundtrack to Sonic Adventure 2 that to me most represents that period of my life and the sort-of special part the series has held for me during parts of it: it was Sonic Adventure 2 that effectively pulled me down through the rabbit hole, I spent genuinely countless hours playing it through those years, and the physical version of this soundtrack was the first of its kind I ever purchased and thus became even more special as I could play these songs out loud through my CD player (and I am glad I did spend my pocket money on it - this goes for well over £200 in Discogs now).

We music fans, by default, have special records that we cling to because they're attached to parts of our life that made us who we were: albums where we get emotional just by hearing certain melodies because they take us back to years ago when we heard them brand new, where we know each lyric by heart like they reflect the secrets of the universe for our ears only, and through which we relive all those emotions over and over again while we dive into the sounds that are so familiar that they're where we feel most comfortable. This collection of songs here is from a cheesy video game starring a bunch of Saturday morning cartoons, but it has that exact same effect for me as any of those other, more "serious" albums I hold on particularly personally resonant pedestals; even when the melodies come with mental images of bouncing around blocky graphics or the lyrics I know by heart are along the lines of "Got places to go, gotta follow my rainbow" or "Don't call me Knuckles, gimme your props". Sonic Adventure 2 is my favourite Sonic game and among my top video games of all time, this soundtrack is by far my number one game soundtrack of all time, and both of those factoids represent much more to me than those phrases can convey.

I took part in a small Sonic convention in the UK once, that had somehow managed to nab Johnny Gioeli and Jun Senoue as guests of honour. As part of their appearance, they performed a live concert as the official final event of the convention. If "Live and Learn" hadn't already become a classic part of Sonic history, it certainly became such through the experience of hearing a big room full of fans belting out its chorus in unison with the duo. It's one of those moments in time I'll never forget, and nearly every song out of the sixty here has vivid memories just as strong as that, even if tied to smaller moments across the few years of my life where these songs were genuinely relevant for me. Those may have just been particularly geeky early teenage years, but I have nothing but wonderful memories of that period in time, and this album is time machine that takes me back to them.

Rating: 10/10

American Music Club - California (1988)

 

1) Firefly; 2) Somewhere; 3) Laughingstock; 4) Lonely; 5) Pale Skinny Girl; 6) Blue and Grey Shirt; 7) Bad Liquor; 8) Now You're Defeated; 9) Jenny; 10) Western Sky; 11) Highway 5; 12) Last Harbor

Dry and desolate sign of things to come, more than a record that would fully support itself.

Key tracks: "Firefly", "Laughingstock", "Western Sky"

Normally when you namedrop California, you try to evoke something sunny, luxurious and Hollywood-gorgeous. When American Music Club evoke the state's name, they're still as grayscale and miserable as ever, downing another drink in some dingy corner bar as the night starts creeping towards dawn. But then, they were a Californian band - they probably know better.

American Music Club albums are relatively scarce in Europe (I actually bought this in California, and in the band's native San Francisco to boot), so my experience on their initial years is still quite limited and I might end up revising this review one day in the distant future. But I don't think it's been entirely coincidental that it's hard to find this group on this side of the bond. Theirs is a really apt name because they - and particularly Eitzel, lyrically - draw a lot of influence from America socially and geographically; I've been reading other people's thoughts on California while trying to organise my own thoughts for this review and the common thread I spotted through all the positive reviews is how closely the music is threaded to a certain kind of American being, that you almost have to have that cultural experience to really unearth its secrets. All AMC albums pirouette around this but California goes as far naming itself so directly, and even if the songs aren't explicitly about the state, they tie themselves to a very particular kind of inhabited context, and Eitzel isn't too bothered about trying to make his own voice more universal. Not to beat around the bush but California leaves me a little distant and I am genuinely wondering if that extra lived-in context is what I'm lacking - reading the lyrics and listening to the music I get the picture, but I don't get it.

 
But from what I've experienced from American Music Club, there's probably a more rational explanation for my opinion too. The rough idea is that you can somewhat split the American Music Club chronology to three eras: the classic 90s album trilogy, the 80s period that served as the build-up to it, and the reunion years long after. And from that, you can figure out where I stand with California. Apart from the odds-and-sods collection United Kingdom, California is the band's last album of the 1980s and so things have more or less clicked into place by this stage but we're still a step or two away from the albums that drew me into the band. They're leaning a little closer to americana than alternative at this stage, but otherwise this isn't far from what Everclear or Mercury would showcase and the right elements are all present: Eitzel's charisma is undeniable, the omnipresent melancholy is gripping, you've got the few lively rock numbers to break up the pace, and the subtle and dry textural work that's synonymous with this band is accounted for - particularly with Bruce Kaphan's gorgeous slide guitars that adorn so many songs on the record and are always a highlight whenever they appear.

But California is just a shy step away from being in the same tier as the aforementioned next couple of albums. The majority of the songs here are teetering on the edge of great, and would just need a little bit of a push to get over that edge: "Somewhere" is the archetypical AMC early-album rocker but one that's still finding its feet, "Western Sky" is almost achingly beautiful, "Now You're Defeated" seems to get cut off a minute away from reaching its peak, and so forth. You can hear the potential and it's clear the band could go all the way with a little more push, but they're still a tad short of either experience or confidence. There isn't anything genuinely weak here either: "Bad Liquor" comes close because while it's one of the album's few jolts of energy, it comes across like a borderline parodic song by a fictitious band from a TV sketch (and Eitzel's bad guy act with the "what are you doing here, bitch" is so ill-fitting), and that's not an AMC tract I particularly care for. On the flipside there's a few times where the band reach something excellent, like when "Laughingstock" switches gears after its fake ending and becomes genuinely excellent, or just the entirety of the sweetly jangling and pretty "Firefly" which is arguably the best song here. 

While you could argue that it peaks early, the further California descends into its second half where its wallowing becomes slower and slower, the more absorbing it becomes. It vibes better with the band's strengths and the barebones acoustic number "Jenny", the ghostly "Highway 5" and barren "Last Harbor" make for an effective ending. It's a dry and desolate record, and its closing steps drill that point across, whereas the first half is maybe more instant. I feel like I've not paid enough credit to California's strengths where they are due because if you do give it time and patience, it does leave an impact - but I'm always left at an arm's distance from the songs and they still slip out of mind too much, even while the record is on. Maybe it's because I'm not geographically equipped to handle the album, maybe it's because I'm still waiting for the band to assemble the puzzle now that they've found where the pieces go. But I find myself thinking about the other records whenever I listen to this one, and I find myself listening to a decently good album that mostly just reminds me why I really like the later ones.

Rating: 6/10

Kent - Verkligen (1996)

1) Avtryck; 2) Kräm (Så närä får ingen gå); 3) Gravitation; 4) Istället för ljud; 5) 10 minuter (För mig själv); 6) En timme en minut; 7) Indianer; 8) Halka; 9) Thinner; 10) Vi kan väl vänta tils imorgon

Kent discover how to write great songs on the next step of their steady climb to success.

Key tracks: "Avtryck", "Kräm (Så närä får ingen gå)", "En timme en minut"

Talking about the first set of Kent albums isn’t particularly thrilling, simply because they’re such a steady evolution of the same set of ideas, improving incrementally. The self-titled debut record a year before had a good sound but the band were still inexperienced and hadn’t quite discovered their own voice or a consistent songwriting angle. Verkligen is more or less the same as before in its sound, but Kent have now learned how to write the occasional cracking tune.

That’s a bit of a glib statement admittedly, because despite the loss of rhythm guitarist Martin Roos and the temporary quartet line-up, Kent sound bigger and dare I say more ambitious on Verkligen. The sound and the band's playing are a lot more dynamic and multi-dimensional than on the debut, leading to a more varied set of songs - including the band’s first epic extended jams which would become a traditional appearance on their albums afterwards (“En timme en minut” more honestly by way of a rock-out finale, “Vi kan väl väntä tils imorgon” with a fake-out ending). There’s more additional instrumentation beyond the guitar-bass-drums core of the band, and “Avtryck” starting the album by quickly drowning its opening guitar riff with a string section is almost certainly an intentional message from the band indicating that they’re thinking bigger now. Kent haven’t strayed too far from the gloriously mid-90s britrocking debut, but they’ve built upon it: growth, not change.

 

By far the biggest difference between one year earlier and now is that Kent have come up with some really good songs under their wing this time. "Kräm (Så närä får ingen gå)" most obviously, starting the band's climb in popularity and it does absolutely sound like a hit single would: punchy and straight to the point, hooks for days and gloriously nineties guitar walls. If "Avtryck" signalled the band was aiming for a wider scale, "Kräm" is the proof that they've started to discover additional dimensions in their actual songwriting, even if the song itself is a relatively straightforward rocker. But compare absolutely anything on the debut to "Kräm" and it's clear the band's approach to melody, dynamics and flow of the song are on an entirely different level from before - and while it may not be so immortal when compared against the wider discography, it's still a great song that gives out a rush of wild energy whenever it plays. Its big anthem hooks are exciting in an almost primal way, hitting that feel-good spot in your brain; and it sounds like a band hungry for world domination, semi-accidentally stumbling onto the launch codes to do so.

 

Verkligen is generally at its best when it keeps the energy high. "10 minuter (För mig själv)" is basically a "Kräm" reprise but little more leaning towards its relentless energy, "Avtryck" grows subtly in its urgency and its strength as it marches along (and as an opener it's a great starting bang for the record), and the punctuating guitar licks of "Halka" are ridiculous enough to work as genuinely fun hooks (a more cynical mind would say they're repeating the trick from "Stenbrott" off the previous record, but it's done better here). "En timme en minut" is the clear overall highlight, as Kent take their first step towards their big centrepiece songs. Its eight minutes of dynamically building, sustained rock-out are absolutely great, with different arrangement details during the long instrumental sections emerging and disappearing from way of others in a fashion that stops it from being monotonous. The band's performance - and Berg's vocals especially - sounds far more grown up and focused than the rest of the record, with an ear for production and arrangement that shows their growing desire to enrichen their own soundworld in service of their songs. Kent are still taking gentle steps towards being a great band throughout Verkligen, and "En timme en minut" is their first unequivocally great song and the album's real key track  - a sign of things to come

 

It's where the band retract back to that mid-90s slow and moody guitar angst where Verkligen shows most obviously that it's not too far from the debut. The more meandering songs are more about their mood and sound than genuinely memorable songwriting, and like on the debut it's a case of too many things being cut from the same cloth that's starting to wear thin. Thus, while e.g. "Istället för ljud" and "Gravitation" are enjoyable as they pass by on record, their sloggish pace never reaches any heights of real excitement even when broken by the occasional loud power chord chorus, blending together from one forlorn guitar melody to another - and "Indianer" and "Thinner" later on aren't even trying to stand out by the sounds of them. You can hear what Kent are going for with them but these crawling mood cuts aren't where the band's strengths lie at this stage - even though they seem to think otherwise. But credit where credit is due, they've saved the best for the last and the melancholy but bombastic "Vi kan väl vänta tils imorgon" is a really good closer for the album, especially once it lifts off in preparation for its double ending. Lumping it among the slowburners isn't necessarily all that befitting because there's far more life to it than any of the other songs listed in this paragraph, but that's primarily because it does the right thing of not sticking to a slowcore feel as its sole purpose. Just like "En timme en minut" it feels like a culmination of this particular stage of Kent: both songs are where the band find everything clicking in place.

 

But on Verkligen, they're still a work in progress. I started this review by mentioning it's hard to talk about the first three Kent albums independently because they all form one very linear line of development, and Verkligen suffers the most from it because it's less Empire Strikes Back and more Two Towers as the trilogy mid-piece: a story with no clear start or end. It's catching a glimpse of the band at the path to greatness, but still figuring out the right fork in the road to take. While it has its strengths and couple of particular Kent classics, there's very rarely a time where I'd opt for Verkligen over Isola if I'm in the mood of listening to Kent at their most 90s. Everything great that occurs on Verkligen, they'd pull off better elsewhere in the near future - and so Verkligen slipping between the cracks isn't an indictment of its quality as such, but largely due to its place in Kent's development.

Rating: 6/10

Röyksopp - Melody A.M. (2001)

1) So Easy; 2) Eple; 3) Sparks; 4) In Space; 5) Poor Leno; 6) A Higher Place; 7) Röyksopp's Night Out; 8) Remind Me; 9) She's So; 10) 40 Years Back/Come

Nordic cool, chill yet with a lively energy. Defining the turn-of-millennium sound and time warping there over and over again - and there's great songs too.

Key tracks: "Eple", "Sparks", "Poor Leno"

A lushly produced debut album from an European duo circa the turn of the millennium, with one foot firmly in electronic music and the other taking steps towards different horizons, spearheading a trend that was more focused towards the lounges and living rooms than the dancefloors, and who would soundtrack countless "chill mix" compilations. Quick - am I talking about Moon Safari by Air, or Melody A.M. by Röyksopp?

While the two albums are kindred spirits, the big difference between them is where they’re placed in time. Moon Safari, despite its obvious retro affectations, sounds timeless and you can’t nail down its sound to a particular decade as it takes ideas from across decades. Melody A.M. meanwhile is the spirit of the millennium, inextricably linked to the rise of the chill electronic beats that were the hottest thing around, and the Nordic cool often accompanying them as they moved across Europe in particular. If you were around at the time, it’s the kind of record that will always take you back to that period. This was the sound that was playing everywhere around, literally in the case “Eple” which featured in seemingly every single advert break and public space. As a result, all the songs on Melody A.M. act like little time capsules in their own separate ways. “Sparks” is a runaway Moby song from his own millennial peak years, Erlend Øye’s vocals on “Poor Leno” and “Remind Me” echo the brief spotlight that Kings of Convenience had during the same time period, “Röyksopp’s Night Out” is a 1-to-1 readthrough of the club-friendly production fashion of the time, et cetera.

Melody A.M. wouldn't hold up as well as it does if it didn't sound so incredibly fresh though, which is an unbelievable thing for an album that's seemingly so tied to its year of origin. It's the ideas behind the songs that are completely timeless however, and there's nothing better to demonstrate this than the aforementioned “Eple” itself - Röyksopp’s signature song anywhere that isn’t the UK or the US. It’s a song that without fail will always take me back to my school years in the small town I lived in, but listening to it decades later as a grown man in a big city, it hasn’t aged a day: the sound is still fresh like a sharp apple, the synth blip melody is immortal in its instant infectiousness, and its lighter-than-air groove never goes out of fashion. It’s a song that has not just survived its omnipresence of the period, but which sounds like it could take over the world any day now again - and it always brings a genuine smile on my miserable face and warmth in my Northern heart in just how effortlessly gliding it is. It's a little masterpiece that doesn't roll over like a revolution, but plays in perfect harmony no matter the season or the year.

You can more or less lump the rest of the songs in a similar category: great tunes that sound as current now as they have ever been. "Poor Leno" and "Remind Me" are among the most finely arranged synthpop cuts of the 00s, filled with ache and longing over an impeccably cool production job loaded with charming instrumental details; I love the guitar on "Poor Leno" in particular, flicking from chicken-scratch disco to an ethereally floating melody. Øye's subdued vocals too fit so perfectly to the smooth synth backdrop that it's here where he's in his natural element, rather than with acoustic ballads, and the more laidback album version compared to the potentially more familiar single remix demonstrates it the best. "Sparks" is gorgeous and wistful, music for watching the rain cover everything outside the window when you're stuck inside. "So Easy" is amusing as an opener for their first album because it feels like the song that Röyksopp took as their signature sound; it's the song they've tried to recreate the most throughout their career and one of the few songs here that look forward to the rest of the duo's discography, when they'd abandon the more lounge-like aspects of this record. But they never bettered the formula from the ghost-like choirs and steadily swaggering bass of "So Easy".

In fact, the only one I’m not too fond of is “Röyksopp’s Night Out” which is the odd one out in several ways. It seems to be intended to be somewhat of a peak or a waterline for the record - the extended jam that crescendos the steady climb of energy coming towards it and leads into the more laidback last set of songs. But it’s the one song that’s most clearly gone past its use-by date with its reliance on very of-its-time beats and sounds and it stands out in that respect, which I wouldn’t mind so much if the song itself did anything noteworthy during its seven and half minutes. It’s not even the fact that it’s instrumental and so far all the songs I’ve praised bar “Eple” incorporate vocals to varying degrees, because the other instrumental cuts like the blissful “In Space” (one of the most gracefully lovely songs on the record), or the closing duo of the extremely Air-like lounge cut “She’s So” and the ambient closer “40 Years Back/Come” are still strong.

The overall good news therefore is that that even if you can't relate to the very specific memories of some random internet old fart who reviews music, Melody A.M. is still a great record. I'd hesitate to call it essential, even if it somewhat feels like it - it would certainly well deserve a slot in a Nordic-specific edition of the 1,001 Albums You Must Hear book - but if anything, it's perhaps slightly overlooked, certainly further away from its home. It belongs in the hallowed set of records that manage to sound both effortless and relaxing, as well as directly engaging and energetic; one for both ethereal headphone moments and to fire up a room party. It's an album I perhaps struggle to write in any kind of 'objective' sense because how closely it reminds me of where I was when I first became aware of it - but then, no other albums bearing this sound have survived this long. Of all the records that bore this sound in the early 00s, I can't remember any other one as clearly as this, which leaves Melody A.M. a practical example of survival of the fittest - especially once Röyksopp themselves moved on pretty swiftly to different places once they had their doors opened, never repeating this trick again. And I appreciate and acknowledge that I've banged on about the album's place in time to an uncomfortable and practically repetetive degree, but it's literally the primary aspect that hits me the most when I listen to Melody A.M. - and not in a nostalgic sense at all, but like a pure sensory memory, a real metaphysical sense of being there. Music can transport you to different places and while there are so many albums I connect more to on a personal level, Melody A.M. is one of the most vivid time machines I can think of.

Rating: 8/10

Manic Street Preachers - Gold Against the Soul (Deluxe Edition) (2020)

 

CD1: 1) Sleepflower; 2) From Despair to Where: 3) La Tristesse Durera (Scream to a Sigh); 4) Yourself; 5) Life Becoming a Landslide; 6) Drug Drug Druggy; 7) Roses in the Hospital; 8) Nostalgic Pushead; 9) Symphony of Tourette; 10) Gold Against the Soul; Bonus tracks: 11) Donkeys; 12) Comfort Comes; 13) Are Mothers Saints; 14) Patrick Bateman; 15) Hibernation; 16) Us Against You; 17) Charles Windsor; 18) What’s My Name (Live)
CD2: 1) Sleepflower (House in the Woods Demo); 2) From Despair to Where (House in the Woods Demo); 3) La Tristesse Durera (Scream to a Sigh) (House in the Woods Demo); 4) Yourself (Live in Bangkok); 5) Life Becoming a Landslide (House in the Woods Demo); 6) Drug Drug Druggy (House in the Woods Demo); 7) Drug Drug Druggy (Impact Demo); 8) Roses in the Hospital (House in the Woods Demo); 9) Roses in the Hospital (Impact Demo); 10) Nostalgic Pushead (House in the Woods Demo); 11) Symphony of Tourette (House in the Woods Demo); 12) Gold Against the Soul (House in the Woods Demo); 13) Roses in the Hospital (OG Psychovocal Remix); 14) Roses in the Hospital (51 Funk Salute Remix); 15) La Tristesse Durera (Scream to a Sigh) (Chemical Brothers Remix); 16) Roses in the Hospital (Filet-O-Gang Remix); 17) Roses in the Hospital (ECG Remix)

Got the b-sides, got the demos, got everything you could have from this era plus some fancy photos - not much to complain for once. Maybe a little less volume...

Key tracks: "Donkeys", "Are Mothers Saints", "Hibernation"

(This is a review of the deluxe edition of Gold Against the Soul, for the review of the actual album please click here)

Gold Against the Soul is a LOUD and HARD album, with lots of BIG RIFFS and SOARING SOLOS and CRUNCHY BASS and BELLOWING VOCALS. When preparing for the, uh, 27th anniversary reissue of the album (because by this point the Manics team isn't even pretending to have any reason or rhyme to their reissue schedule), this seems to have been the leading thought behind the project because rather than the subtler remaster job favoured for the prior albums, for this one they've turned the volume to the max. The deluxe edition of Gold Against the Soul is loud, so that you barely need to touch the volume knob to get that full-on cranked-to-11 hard rock effect reverberating through your entire apartment. Sure, the album could maybe have used a little bit of a volume boost because as with many early 1990s releases it doesn't have the most volume, but the extreme lengths taken with this reissue are ridiculous. There is a pretty solid remaster job underneath there somewhere too, but it's sometimes hard to appreciate when the music is pummeling out of your speakers.

It's kind of hilariously apt for the album's flirtations with hair metal and 80s hard rock, but it's honestly a little too much. But at least they've not touched the album's tracklist this time.

But the fans are here for the bonuses anyway, and in that regard the band have started to settle well into a standard format of b-sides on one disc, a demo runthrough of the entire record on the next and filling the gaps with miscellaneous material where apt - and it's honestly a good format. The most important part i.e. the b-sides all follow the main album in reverse chronological order, and are a great side companion to the main disc, showing the band trying out some new ideas in this generally transformative era. The melancholy torchlight song "Donkeys" and its wonderfully metallic bass as well as the dark, jagged and anxious proto-The Holy Bible roadsign "Comfort Comes" are the two fan and band favourites, and both are classics. "Are Mothers Saints" and "Hibernation" are my favourites of the lot, with the latter's effortlessly melodic nature coming across practically breezy compared to the heavy-hitting main album, and the latter not only being the era's sole primarily acoustic song and full of a gentler kind of beauty as a result, but it's also a curiously atypical piece of storytelling lyricism from the Manics that even now stands out. "Patrick Bateman" is a ludicruous chugga-chugga metal attempt that marries some genuinely great melodies to ridiculous attention-baiting lyrics ("I fucked God up the ass!"), what sounds like a children's choir backing James and a headbanger finale - it's a ridiculous song, but I love it in all its daftness. The Generation Terrorists -esque "Us Against You" is the obvious runt of the litter and sounds like a left-over from the previous sessions still awkwardly clinging around, and the two covers at the very end are serviceable but not particularly exciting.

Meanwhile the demos are once again interesting in their own way, as earlier Manics demos are wont to be. One of the key recording cues for Gold Against the Soul was emphasising the band's live sound after the clinically produced Generation Terrorists, and so not only are all the demos here full-band run-throughs rather than acoustic James solo spots, but they're all pretty close to their album versions in arrangement. The band arrived to the sessions with a clear idea in their heads, and so there aren't really many surprises in that regard: the biggest difference is with "Gold Against the Soul" having a bit more of an obvious swagger, and the somewhat hilarious Impact Studios demo of "Drug Drug Druggy" with woah-woahs, piano and handclaps in the verses giving it an almost baggy kind of feel (as an aside, the two demo versions of "Drug Drug Druggy" and the alternative tracklist found in the liner notes where it's pushed right near the front of the album give an intriguing perspective on the band obviously thinking this was one of the key tracks of the album, which is a wild idea). But it's the details where the differences lie. There's a lot of alternative lyrics throughout, and while the final album would have some orchestral embellishments and ongoing hammond organs throughout, on the demos James sticks some additional vocal harmonies in their place to some really good results for us fans of both James' vocals and vocal harmonies in general. It's a neat set of demos once more, doing what demos at their best do for the fans - they give some additional insight to the album, even if they're clearly more interesting from a contextual perspective than as something you'd actively want to listen to.

(A special shout-out goes to the demo of "Sleepflower", where the band clearly raided the nearest kitchen for its cooking pot percussion breakdown)

The remixes that take up the final section of the second disc aren't much to write about. The Chemical Brothers remix of "La Tristesse Durera" is a fairly throwaway generic 90s rock band remix, and that's about as much as anyone can say about it. The four "Roses in the Hospital" remixes are a creature onto their own: for some reason a group of remixers all decided that what the song needs is a little bit more funk and groove, and we end up with four nearly-identical remixes heavy on early 90s hip hop beats and funky swagger. They are incredibly dated time capsules, and for that reason alone there's something endearing to them even if they're hardly among the band's best remixes.

The big talking point with this particular re-release was its hard-cover, coffee table book format which gives access to countless high resolution prints of previously unreleased behind-the-scenes photos from the band's court photographer Mitch Ikeda. I'm not entirely sold that they're worth the bother that I can't fit the box in my actual music shelves (it sits all on its own opposite them, in a spare slot in a trusty Ikea Kallax that's the only shelf tall enough to deal with it), but they are a genuinely cool little visual diary of this particular period: not just the recording sessions but the moments in-between and the band's (in)famous first tour in Asia. Listening to the bravado of the album it's easy to forget that these were a group of young friends getting a taste of rock star life, and the casual and candid shots are a great contrast to the posing of the official promo footage. I still would prefer some track-by-tracks and wider written insight, but I'm more positively surprised by the photo-heavy approach for this one than I initially expected to be.

It's definitely an overpriced package (but that's my fault for buying new) and I'd ideally not want to blow my speakers up whenever I play it, but after a lot of trials and tribulations the Manics are finally hitting a comfortable groove with these reissues in their content. For the kind of fan who's even remotely interested by the ins and outs of Manics recording periods, this is absolutely worth it to get the b-sides and to some extent the demos. Gold Against the Soul itself remains one of the band's most underrated records and a flashy re-release isn't going to change the minds of those who aren't already converted, but despite its non-canonical stature this set has been treated with enough care and attention that it makes for a good appendix in a completionist collection - even if, as per usual, there's a caveat or two.

Rating: 8/10

Sufjan Stevens - A Sun Came (2000)

 
1) We Are What You Say; 2) A Winner Needs a Wand; 3) Rake; 4) Siamese Twins; 5) Demetrius; 6) Dumb I Sound; 7) Wordsworth's Ridge; 8) Belly Button; 9) Rice Pudding; 10) A Loverless Bed (Without Remission); 11) Godzuki; 12) Super Sexy Woman; 13) The Oracle Said Wander; 14) Happy Birthday; 15) Jason; 16) Kill; 17) Ya Leil; 18) A Sun Came; 19) Satan's Saxophones; 2004 Reissue Bonus Tracks: 20) Joy! Joy! Joy!; 21) You Are the Rake

Home recordings, silly family fun and somewhere deep within, the promise of a good start. Heavy on the potential, drowned out by its novelties.    

Key tracks: "A Loverless Bed (Without Remission)", "A Sun Came", "Joy! Joy! Joy!" (I know it's a bonus track)

A Sun Came reminds me most of all about the miscellaneous demo collections you end up hearing whenever artists (or their labels) clear their vaults. Miscellaneous home recordings, early releases under different monikers, obscure demo tapes and shelved debuts that were scrapped - some released officially years later, others surviving through leaks, and by and far aimed at and digested by hungry fans who are more interested in their historical context than actual quality. A Sun Came strictly speaking isn’t such a release - it is Sufjan Stevens’ canonical first album and was released properly as such (albeit with limited circulation, and there seems to be some debate whether it was 1999 or 2000). But in spirit, it is absolutely the kind of ragtag release where you get to see glimpses into the early stages of an artist who is on the cusp of something great, but who's still mainly just playing and around recording any possible idea from the comforts of his bedroom.

That’s not to say this doesn’t sound like Sufjan because it absolutely does. His voice is unmistakable and just as magical as it would be later on, and while the recording quality is a little more rudimentary you can already hear him nudging his way into the maximalist territory he’d claim as his own a few years later. But rather than leaning towards the more elaborate and emotional nature of his cornerstone works, the main driving force behind A Sun Came is the unpredictability and, in lack of a better word, whimsy that would eventually lead towards the sudden stylistic switches, the balloon unicorn stage costumes and the Christmas box sets. It’s also curiously his most insular work: it’s an album so littered with in-jokes, historic home recordings of Sufjan and his family members and collaborations with some of them that it feels like you’re missing out on something if you’re not among his confidants. It somewhat goes back to these being home recordings, and in a very literal sense of that as well. It’s like Sufjan’s writing songs for his family and with his family, and that the rest of us get to hear it too is like unintentional happenstance.

As quaint, and in its own way adorable as that sounds, from a purely musical perspective it’s not quite so. A Sun Came is a hodgepodge of a record - as said, its closest resemblance is to compilations of material not originally intended for wider release, and the picture it presents of Sufjan at this stage is someone who's still noodling around with concepts and sounds more than anything else. The vast amount of hushed folk ballads throughout is familiar territory - and the best part of the record - and the noisier excursions to an almost slacker rock like territory are unexpected but intriguing, and both together could make an uneven but promising debut. Where it starts getting into a flimsier territory are the abundance of interludes, skits and scattershot side paths it takes. Among the worst are the spoken word segments consisting of home recordings of li'l Sufjan and his family, which are fairly short but all quite annoying, and the clear novelty filler like the terribly aimless "Rice Pudding" and the absolutely abysmal free jazz dreck of "Satan's Saxophones". Some cuts are more developed but still resemble mere ideas in search of actual songs: "Demetrius" is like three songs playing all at once with no clear winning direction and it becomes a mess, and the aforementioned Middle Eastern excursion "Ya Leil" does in no way support its near six-minute length. I’m not a completely joyless monster and the lo-fi irony-groove of “Super Sexy Woman” is more in line with the off-kilter sense of humour that makes e.g. the Christmas box sets works, but even then it's nearly three minutes long with a joke that lasts for about one. 

 
You strip all the filler out and you are left with a solid (and noticably shorter) debut release by an artist-in-works, but I'd be wrong to say it'd still be a particularly strong record. A lot of what's left is very aesthetically pleasing - you honestly cannot go wrong with the combination of Sufjan and an acoustic guitar, and simply in sonical terms it's thoroughly captivating to listen to. But as songs you'd remember, they don't go that far - though I'm not sure if it's just because all the clutter around them makes it harder for even the good things to stick. It's not to say that it all passes through without attention: the title track is a deadly gorgeous little acoustic melody piece, and "A Winner Needs a Wand" features a richer arrangement that hints towards where Michigan and subsequently the rest of Stevens' career would go towards. I also have a particular affinity towards "Jason" and "A Loverless Bed", which sound like Sufjan's attempts to mingle with the more familiar lo-fi indie rock sound of the day; "A Loverless Bed" in particular sounds so much like a Sparklehorse song it throws you off time and time again. Once again, enjoyable songs - but I'd be forcing myself to come up with anything more of interest to say about them.

The copy I own actually does a practical disfavour to itself by including two bonus tracks at the very end, recorded years later and acting as a gigantic neon arrow pointing towards the brighter future. "Joy! Joy! Joy!" is a quirky synthpop jam that dresses up the original album's erratic sense of humour into a far more fun form (it even has a spoken word segment reminiscent of the main album in the middle, and it works). "You Are the Rake" on the other hand is a 2004 re-recording of "Rake", keeping the original composition's core intact but presenting a more confident performance and arrangement, with a little polish on it and a small choir behind Sufjan. They're the best two songs on A Sun Came, and they're the bonus tracks. Which sounds bad to even say.

But that's just how it is, and the fact that the two bonus tracks are dated later than the rest of the record is more or less why they’re better - because Sufjan got better and he started to focus on creating actual records. I appreciate home demos, silly goof-offs never intended to see the light of day and lo-fi jams from acts I like with a glimmer of intrigue like any fan would, but I don’t generally get a lot of actual musical excitement out of them - and A Sun Came is a collection of such things, even if not openly so. Calling it sloppy or rudimentary in comparison to Sufjan’s later works is beside the point, because apart from the few most obvious throwaways you can definitely hear the intent behind the music and Sufjan’s obviously talented by this point already. From a wider musical perspective his aim’s still a little wobbly though, and as a result the album fires its shots all over the place and you’re left searching around for pieces of shrapnel of something solid. Listening to A Sun Came is akin to browsing through a photo album of childhood photos, with both all the potential and the embarrassments right there on display.

Rating: 5/10

Manic Street Preachers - This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours (20th Anniversary Collector's Edition) (2018)

CD1: 1) The Everlasting; 2) If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next; 3) You Stole the Sun From My Heart; 4) Ready for Drowning; 5) Tsunami; 6) My Little Empire; 7) I'm Not Working; 8) You're Tender and You're Tired; 9) Born a Girl; 10) Be Natural; 11) Black Dog on My Shoulder; 12) Prologue to History; 13) S.Y.M.M. / Nobody Loved You [hidden track]
CD2: 1) The Everlasting (Live Rehearsal Demo); 2) If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next (Dave Bascombe Mix); 3) You Stole the Sun From My Heart (Live Rehearsal Demo); 4) Ready for Drowning (Live Rehearsal Demo); 5) Tsunami (Studio Demo); 6) My Little Empire (Live Rehearsal Demo); 7) I'm Not Working (Home Recording Demo); 8) You're Tender and You're Tired (Studio Demo); 9) Born a Girl (Alternative Version); 10) Be Natural (Live Rehearsal Demo); 11) Black Dog on My Shoulder (Live Rehearsal Demo); 12) Prologue to History (Live Rehearsal Demo); 13) S.Y.M.M. (Studio Demo); 14) Nobody Loved You (Live Rehearsal Demo)
CD3: 1) If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next (Massive Attack Remix); 2) If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next (David Holmes Remix); 3) The Everlasting (Deadly Avenger's Psalm 315 Remix); 4) The Everlasting (Stealth Sonic Orchestra Remix); 5) You Stole the Sun From My Heart (David Holmes Remix); 6) You Stole the Sun From My Heart (Mogwai Remix); 7) Tsunami (Cornelius Remix); 8) Tsunami (Stereolab Remix); 9) Montana/Autumn/78; 10) Black Holes for the Young; 11) Valley Boy; 12) Socialist Serenade; 13) Buildings for Dead People

They’ve messed around with the tracklist again, but otherwise the album gets the re-release it deserves.

Key tracks: Of the bonus material, “Prologue to History”, “Valley Boy”, “If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next (David Holmes Remix)”

(This review is for the 20th anniversary reissue of This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours, for the review of the actual album please click here)

This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours is one of my favourite albums of all time. I absolutely love the albums before it and they all feel personal to me, but this is where it gets really intense in the chronology of the band's discography. Manics' reissue strategy has been haphazard and borderline random in how they choose which albums to re-release in fancy boxes (and what kind of boxes...), and it took This Is My Truth a long and winding road before it got its turn. Five deluxe box sets into the "series" and the album finally got a fancy anniversary set in time for its 20th birthday - and it's the first time where the re-release features an album that I fawn endlessly over and actually want a big fancy box set out of. The good news is that if you love the album like I do and you subscribe to the idea that there's more to these than just getting more money off fans, they really did do it justice for most parts here

But to tackle the controversies first, the Manics have once again messed around with the tracklist with one of their reissues and this time with even less logic behind it than on the Send Away the Tigers reissue. "Prologue to History", the b-side to "If You Tolerate This..." has long since been canonised by the band and the fans as the great lost single that somehow ended up as a b-side: it's a powerful, impassioned tour de force that breaks down the band, Nicky Wire and the world around them piece by piece, set to a thrill ride of a rock backing, with James' most intense guitar-revvings of this particular time period. It was originally left off the album because it would have stuck out like a sore thumb amongst its layered, introspective melodies - a fact which is adequately proven here as for the album's 20th anniversary, it now makes an appearance in the official tracklist. Even more bizarrely, it has replaced the fan favourite "Nobody Loved You", a decision that's one of the least obvious changes to make if you were to touch the original record. While both songs count among the most guitar-heavy cuts of the era, it's not a smooth replacement. "Nobody Loved You" may also be loud and serves as the album's last burst of sound before its somber ending, but it's also an emotional purge much like the rest of the record; the more sardonic "Prologue to History" on the other hand is a really awkward fit musically between the orchestral finale of "Black Dog on My Shoulder" and the ambience of "S.Y.M.M.", and tonally even worse. At least "Nobody Loved You" gets to cameo as the hidden track at the end, rather than being erased from history like "Underdogs" on the Send Away the Tigers reissue, but messing around with established tracklists in such a clumsy fashion really isn't doing wonders with these reissues.

Everything else about this reissue is exactly the kind of treasure chest this record deserves, however.

Disc 2 does the Manics reissue standard of providing various alternative archival recordings of the entire album. For This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours these are actually really interesting, given the album was the first time the Manics truly used the studio environment to its full extent. The demos then give a glimpse to a rawer version of the record, with a sound closer to the preceding Everything Must Go where you can really trace the lineage between the two albums. Most of the demos are "live rehearsal demos" i.e. the band playing it in their practice space, and the songs are played through with less whistles and bells, louder and more prominent guitars and in some cases alternative vocal melodies and arrangements. "The Everlasting" and "Be Natural" are particularly interesting in this regard, appearing in a more dynamic rock anthem form, and "Nobody Loves You" alternates between incredibly sparse verses and apocalyptically crashing choruses. The studio demos are more polished in sound but are just as fascinating, particularly "You're Tender and You're Tired" which has some notable arrangement changes. We also finally get the famous "Tsunami" demo that Wire always referred to as one of his most treasured archive cuts, and while Wire's overhyping of it has also oversold its difference compared to the final version, it does present a more dynamic, rocking version of the song which they've effectively adopted as their live arrangement these days. Finally there's a neat barebones home demo of "I'm Not Working" featuring James experimenting with an electric sitar and some alternative lyrics, proving that even the album's most production-heavy song can work hauntingly with all that left out.

There's also a couple of alternative takes. "If You Tolerate This" was a studio creation to begin with so no demo exists, and so what you get here is an alternative mix. It's mostly the same but a little shorter and snappier, with the only big difference being a repetition of the chorus over the wordless vocals of the outro. It's not a patch on the original but "If You Tolerate This" is still my favourite song of all time and even in this form it's as close to perfect as a song can get. The alternative version of "Born a Girl" is mainly just a rougher take, but it does have a more noticeable rhythm; a metronome (or a programmed snare rim tick) appears a few times to keep count and James sticks to its beat with his guitar and melodies even when it fades away. Neither are mindblowing, but they're different just enough to keep your interest - and together with the particularly intriguing set of demos, it's a set of rough takes that does genuinely act as a small treasure trove for the big fans of the album, showing sides previously unseen.

The third CD is the real treat, though - especially the further five b-sides located at the end of it. "Valley Boy" is a drop-dead gorgeous melancholic anthem with one of James' greatest ever guitar solos, and "Black Holes for the Young" is a suave, organ-lead duet with Sophie-Ellis Bextor that exudes class and elegance atop its swirling melodies - and the two are the closest to their mother album's sonical landspace. "Montana/Autumn/78" is another grade-A rocker that was left out because it just didn't fit sonically with the album but which is a veritable beast far beyond simply a b-side, especially with that pogo-inducing chorus. "Socialist Serenade" and "Buildings for Dead People" take a turn towards more extroverted politics away from the introspective touch of the main album, while also hinting towards the rawer sound of Know Your Enemy: the former drips with sarcastic venom as it brashly stomps around with its looped drums, and the latter is a gritty, distortion-heavy and devilish riff-monster. All five are great and far, far beyond in quality to what you'd expect from album outtakes. Manics had launched onto their golden period, and it affected even the discards.

The long list of remixes wouldn't otherwise be too exciting but this particular era was actually pretty good with them, and among them is the title holder of the best Manics remix i.e. the David Holmes remix of "If You Tolerate This", which turns the song into a ten-minute instrumental, dreamy epic that retains the original version's wistfulness and melancholy but moves it into a more cinematic territory. The Stealth Sonic Orchesta remix of "The Everlasting" is another winner, as the Stealth Sonic Orchesta remixes tend to be in their synth-orchestral ear bliss. The Cornelius remix of "Tsunami", the Deadly Avenger remix of "The Everlasting" (the better out of the two they did, the other which is the only non-inclusion on this reissue) and the David Holmes mix of "You Stole the Sun From My Heart" are also of note, and there isn't a single bad rework amidst these which is a rarity for remix sets.

You may note that the set doesn't include the DVD which the prior reissues have, but I honestly don't miss it either - they were always a neat one-time watch but otherwise left unused, and I'm much happier that we got more audio material in its place. The packaging is is a gorgeous coffee-table sized big book which just about leans on the acceptable side of filling up shelf space - and the grand size makes all the additional photos and artwork within really stand out. If you're into the physical feelies side of these kinds of reissues, then you can't really be disappointed by this, because it simply feels good to hold and own. And given the personal significance of this album to me, it's suitably celebratory. This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours is one of Manics' most significant albums and while they took a long time to get around giving it the reissue treatment, it is absolutely worth it. Even with the tracklist tampering, I'm not hesitant to award it the same points as the original album, because of just how good a fan package this is on top of a still-phenomenal record.

Rating: 10/10

Lady Gaga - The Fame Monster (2009)

 

1) Bad Romance; 2) Alejandro; 3) Monster; 4) Speechless; 5) Dance in the Dark; 6) Telephone (feat. Beyoncé); 7) So Happy I Could Die; 8) Teeth

A reissue bonus disc so strong it broke free and became its own era. This is where Gaga's journey really starts.

Key tracks: "Bad Romance", "Dance in the Dark", "Telephone"

The Fame Monster was originally intended to be - and in some regions packaged as - just a deluxe re-release bonus disc for The Fame, arriving just a little over a year after its parent album, as was the trend in the late 00s music industry. But think about that, really: this was written and recorded during a really short time period (especially considering how much the promotional circuit for The Fame stretched after its success) and it was originally intended just as some token extras to pursue people to buy the album again. But something massive had happened with Lady Gaga within that year and The Fame Monster is far beyond being just an extension of its parent album and in fact, acts more as a re-establishment of who Gaga was. You could consider The Fame Monster as the real debut album by Lady Gaga as we know her now - and the fact that it’s long since broken away from its associations with The Fame and rebranded itself as an independent album further fuels that.

We can probably thank "Bad Romance" for that, which turned out to be the best possible song to relaunch yourself with. The RedOne production style familiar from The Fame is there bridge the gap, but everything else on "Bad Romance" is far more fearless and ambitious than anything available on the debut, and that applies most of all to Gaga herself. She’s gunning down the song with drama and surreality as she switches between voices, tones and languages on the fly, culminating in the middle eight and final chorus where she moves from obsessed to pleading as she belts out the words until they melt together. Bowie had always been her primary inspiration (check out that lightning facepaint all over The Fame) and while musically the two stars are light years apart, her performance here absolutely channels Bowie in its versatility and its mix of humanity and strangeness. She is the monster and “Bad Romance” is where she breaks out of her cage - and it’s a legitimate anthem as a piece of music as well. It’s a thundering pop song that posits itself on top of the world and has every right to be there, and it’s not just Gaga’s signature song but also a wake-up call to everyone who dismissed her after The Fame - a notification that she’s now taking control of where she’s heading.

The Fame Monster is Gaga's re-invention as a creative force after the tameness of The Fame and the thing is, "Bad Romance" isn't even the best thing on it. The most impressive, bombastic event? Absolutely, without a doubt. But she tops it at least twice afterwards, with "Dance in the Dark" and "Telephone". "Dance in the Dark" was never released as a single but it's hard to believe that was the case, given how absolutely essential to the Lady Gaga experience it sounds and how huge it acts - uniting so many of her common threads within one roof in a way that makes it a cornerstone in her discography. It updates and reinterprets the themes of "Just Dance" from The Fame - dance to distract yourself from your existential crisis, and set it a tightly-wound heavy-hitting beat - but it brings out those darker undertones more obviously to the surface and serves them with more grit and edge in the production and with some brilliant melodic hooks. It is, beyond anything, the superlative secret gem of The Fame Monster. Meanwhile "Telephone" is simply a straight-up banger, relentlessly and ruthlessly riding its dancefloor onslaught of a beat, vocal manipulation hooks and frighteningly effective chorus until it leaves you breathless. Beyoncé features but never overshadows, and unlike many big name star collaborations there's some actual chemistry to their vocal interplay, instead of simply riding on the novelty of celebrity billing. If "Bad Romance" is the reinvention and "Dance in the Dark" is the soul of Gaga's new flair, then "Telephone" is her showing that she can still write a straight-up club jam and make it sound as vital as anything else. And I say "at least twice" because I'm also tempted to include "Alejandro" in that top billing, which reinterprets the tropical twangs of 90s europop in Gaga’s own language, and pulls off a surreal kind of sensuality and lushness while its drums shuffle in almost military-like precision.

The other half of The Fame Monster doesn't bring the party down but it's clear they're playing second fiddle to their forerunners, though I say that with zero derision in mind. In particular, I really enjoy "So Happy I Could Die" and its only sin is how it feels a little safe and tame amidst everything else - it's by and far the most 'normal' song on the record and especially within the second half, though as a song alone it's still charming to the point that other pop musicians would fight to death for to have as a single, let alone a deep cut on their deluxe bonus disc. "Monster" meanwhile is the most obvious The Fame carryover, though still miles beyond the majority of the songs on that album, and while I really do dig its vocal effects and the back-and-forth between Gaga and the backing vocals, it's the sort of thing you would expect from a bonus track.

Meanwhile the closers of the two halves represent the furthest Gaga stretches herself stylistically on The Fame Monster, but it might just be a little too far. “Speechless” isn't actually too surprising - it's a big lighters-in-the-air classic rock anthem that she loves to indulge in, with big revving guitars around her piano and bombastic power ballad choruses that would have been right at home in a stadium in the 1980s. It's fine, but the problem with this particular strain of Gaga is that the she's seemingly able to only write one type of song within this style frame and once you've heard the best of its like (i.e. "Yoü and I" off Born This Way), the rest feel like demos on the way. At five minutes, "Speechless" also runs out of things to say well before it ends and through and through, it's the only real dip on the record. That's also partly because I genuinely have no idea what I think of "Teeth". It's a bizarre, ominously foreboding tribal stomp that's carried by a chant loop that cuts abruptly in a way that sounds downright unnerving, and it's  unlike anything else in Gaga’s discography. It's a baffling song, and I absolutely appreciate its inclusion in the sense that if you wanted to show there's more to Gaga than "Poker Face" then this definitely does that, and it takes a certain amount of guts to finish a run of dance pop songs with it. But I'm not sure I actually like it as much as I respect it, as even though it is catchy it's also somewhat aimless. It's like a scare jump - surprising and memorable in its shock value, but doesn't leave a lasting impression beyond that initial surprise. I still forget how it goes after its intro.

The 'problem' with treating The Fame Monster as its own independent beast is how, despite its new ambitions, it does still feel like an assortment of songs rather than a specific entity - experiments for Gaga to carve her own path, under the veil of its parent album. Even that wouldn't necessarily be as noticeable if it wasn't for its length, which is both The Fame Monster's curse and blessing. While it has some chinks in its armour it's still an exhilarating ride of one-ups and twists one after another, but in the small company it keeps, each time it stumbles it has all the more impact. Not to besmirch it too much - The Fame Monster is a great condensed entryway into the Gagaverse and everything she would go on to do has a line leading up to it from somewhere within these eight songs. Keep in mind that this is strong enough to effectively obliterate The Fame in its wake as Gaga's real beginnings - but maybe if it had been built from the ground up as a full album, we could be talking about a true classic.

Rating: 8/10

Manic Street Preachers - Send Away the Tigers (10 Year Collector's Edition) (2017)

 

CD1: 1) Send Away the Tigers; 2) Welcome to the Dead Zone; 3) Your Love Alone Is Not Enough; 4) Indian Summer; 5) The Second Great Depression; 6) Rendition; 7) Autumnsong; 8) I'm Just a Patsy; 9) Imperial Bodybags; 10) Winterlovers; 11) Working Class Hero; Bonus tracks: 12) Send Away the Tigers (Faster Studios Demo); 13) Underdogs (Faster Studios Demo); 14) Your Love Alone Is Not Enough (Demo - 60's Jangle); 15) Indian Summer (Cassette Home Acoustic Demo); 16) The Second Great Depression (Faster Studios Demo); 17) Rendition (Cassette Home Acoustic Demo); 18) Autumnsong (Faster Studios Demo); 19) I'm Just a Patsy (Cassette Home Acoustic Demo); 20) Imperial Bodybags (Faster Studios Demo); 21) Winterlovers (Faster Studios Demo)
CD2: 1) Leviathan; 2) Umbrella; 3) Ghost of Christmas; 4) Boxes & Lists; 5) Love Letter to the Future; 6) Little Girl Lost; 7) Fearless Punk Ballad; 8) Your Love Alone Is Not Enough (Nina Solo Acoustic); 9) Red Sleeping Beauty; 10) The Long Goodbye; 11) Morning Comrades; 12) 1404; 15) The Vorticists; 16) Autumnsong (Acoustic Version); 17) Anorexic Rodin; 18) Heyday of the Blood; 19) Lady Lazarus; 20) You Know It's Going to Hurt

B-side manna for the collectors, but they retrospectively mess up the actual album even more than during the original release. 

Key tracks: Of the bonus material, "Welcome to the Dead Zone", "Boxes & Lists", "Anorexic Rodin"

(this is a review of the 10th anniversary reissue of Send Away the Tigers. For the actual album review, please click here).

In case anyone’s keeping tally, the Manic Street Preachers reissue series has been... erratic in its schedule. Rather than sticking to a chronological order, the band’s deluxe re-releases have followed a somewhat more random pattern, finding an anniversary year as and when it suits them. There is some logic to it: the critical favourite The Holy Bible got its turn first, then the popular classic Everything Must Go. Rather than make the logical and chronological step to re-release the international hit This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours next, the more cult-favoured debut Generation Terrorists got its turn first - but then, it’s also the one Manics album that actually needed a genuine remaster. Everyone was expecting This Is My Truth to get its due next but suffice to say it was a bit of a whiplash when out of nowhere, the 10th anniversary edition of Send Away the Tigers got announced.

Which speaks a lot about the band’s opinion on the album’s importance to them. Following a couple of intentionally less crowd-pleasing records, Send Away the Tigers was their first taste of mainstream success in several years and gave them their last genuine hit with “Your Love Alone Is Not Enough”. It did spawn a new generation of fans and the band consider it a motivational booster, but I don’t think anyone was clamouring for a celebratory reissue for it over some of the historic albums. And that’s without the personal bias, i.e. that Send Away the Tigers was more or less the band’s nadir and giving it the big box treatment over the actually great records is akin to putting makeup on a pig and trying to prop it up as your hot new date.

Which brings us to the most controversial aspect of this reissue. One of the bigger flaws of Send Away the Tigers is the obvious laziness that’s all over the record, from songwriting to production. “Underdogs”, the album’s unofficial lead single, became the poster boy for this at the time of its release: intended as a tribute to the fans, the fanbase was less than thrilled to have a hackneyed old man punk cut directed at them, calling them freaks, dodgily insisting that “people like you need to fuck people like me” and having a copy/paste edit so bad it became infamous. And so, on the tenth anniversary reissue, it’s just gone. Off the track list. There’s no mention of it in the liner notes and the promo material made little to no mention of its absence, like it had never existed. It has been replaced by the b-side “Welcome to the Dead Zone” and had they made an argument that ‘this is how the album was originally intended’ it may have flied, but “Underdogs” isn’t even included in the bonus material. A demo of it exists in the original’s place in the demo section of the record, and that’s it.

I’m not a big fan of “Underdogs” either, but there’s still something awkward about tampering with the tracklist of the original record to this extent. You can understand why the band would want to pretend it doesn’t exist, but it’s replaced one disingenuous problem on the album with another. It doesn’t help that, true to the album, even the switch-up has been lazy. “Welcome to the Dead Zone” is a great song and actually one of the best songs of this entire era, a starry-eyed mid-tempo anthem with a glimmer in its eyes and more heart than most songs on the album itself - but it’s not track 2. Swapping the songs one-to-one has been the easy way out but the album basically grinds to a halt right off the start because the flow is so, so bad now - a shining example of why sequencing does matter. So not only is there the problem that the reissue effectively blocks you from listening to the album as it was actually released, but the substitute version that’s given is too clunky to work as a listening experience as well.

At least the bonus material is good. The obligatory album demos offer little of interest beyond the mysterious “Underdogs” suddenly making an appearance (for what it’s worth, it sounds identical to the original version, just a little scruffier and without the edit blunder), and are mostly either slightly less produced versions of the album takes or James’ acoustic versions. The only item of major interest is the “60’s jangle” version of “Your Love Alone Is Not Enough” which actually works well as an alternative version of the song and in some ways, is more interesting than the album version. The real treat is the second disc, which gathers together b-sides and non-album material from this period. Even though I'm lukewarm about the album, the single bonus tracks for this period somehow managed to keep up with the band's usual standards in most parts and you could have made a much, much stronger album if some of these had been included. Of particular interest are "Boxes & Lists" which does the whole 'back to rock' shtick of the main album with actual conviction, the impassionate and almost angrily wistful "Anorexic Rodin", the atmospheric acoustic piece "Morning Comrades" and the "Disarm"-esque bombast of "Fearless Punk Ballad". The two instrumentals "The Vorticists" and "You Know It's Going to Hurt" showcase the band's growing fascination with wordless songs and how much their treatment of such has changed, the former coming in with some particularly jaunty angular guitars and the latter acting almost like a try-out at post rock. There's also the novelties of the band's cover of Rihanna's "Umbrella" (actually rather good and excellently Manics-ified) and their suitably cheesy Christmas song "Ghost of Christmas" (now a regular jaunt in my Christmas playlists), and the charity compilation cut "Leviathan" which dates a few years before the actual record but which signalled the return to guitars, and which has the stems of a really good song but which ends way too quickly.

Elsewhere, there’s also a DVD that features interviews, music videos, performances, behind the scenes footage and the other usual material, as well as the band’s 2007 Glastonbury show. I had somewhat tuned out of the band around this time and none of the live footage from this period particularly excites me as a result, but in terms of amount of material it’s a solid offering. The packaging has changed from the thick boxes of the previous reissues to a thin book format that's akin to the standard deluxe versions they've been releasing alongside their later studio albums, and the larger format is mainly used to present the original lyric sheets in the liner notes - as per usual, the new liner notes place more emphasis on visuals than any text beyond the obligatory introduction essay. It’s not as flashy as the previous re-releases just because it’s so like the band’s normal deluxe releases but that’s not really a criticism per se (apart from how this began the band’s decision to change the physical format for the reissues each time, ensuring none of them fit next to each other in one’s shelf) and in terms of bonus material, this is exactly what I personally seek out from a reissue - i.e. b-sides, accompanying additional studio material and if possible, some demos (even if they're not that interesting here). Which means that I do actually rate this a few notches higher than the original release - and why wouldn't I, because so much of the additional studio material beats what's on the album? The album itself is in a worse shape than ever ironically enough thanks to the sudden tracklist twists, but given it never needed a remaster to begin with, it ends up being almost like an afterthought on its own anniversary release. This is a completionist's dream for b-sides and so disc 2 will be a great addition to any Manics collection. Or your self-made digital rip compilation which throws away the superfluous acoustic versions (literally just the original album vocal and guitar tracks but with most other layers muted) and adds in "Welcome to the Dead Zone". Send Away the Tigers isn’t an album I particularly enjoy and I’m one of the people who think this was perhaps an unnecessary release at its point in time, but beyond that this is nonetheless a really good reissue.

Rating: 7/10