Kirahvi nimeltä Tuike - Lehtipeitteen suojelijat (2010)

1) Lennon; 2) Vartija; 3) Kaikki pienet koirat; 4) KKAR; 5) Aleksanteri; 6) Tulikettu; 7) Askeleet rannalta; 8) Hurma; 9) Yö laulaa; 10) Vaapukkamehulaulu

Your favourite cartoon themes formed a band. Just as fun as it sounds.

Key tracks: "Lennon", "Kaikki pienet koirat", "Tulikettu"

If kick-ass cartoon theme tunes (think classic 80s US titles, or vintage anime) formed a band, you’d probably get Kirahvi nimeltä Tuike.

The fact that this concoction is a thing that a group of people decided to make their thing is a tad preposterous on its own, but the sheer conviction that Kirahvi nimeltä Tuike has for it is unbelievable. The music on Lehtipeitteen suojelijat is a rainbow explosion of glimmering keyboards and video game synths, the most obvious tie to any ‘real world’ music are hints towards the grand Nordic prog-pop traditions, and the lyrics are prosaic narrations about brave young heroes and their animal companions (or animal heroes) delivered in a verbose, storyteller-like fashion that’s not too far away from the kind of nutshell premise-laying so many animations start with. The band are called “A Giraffe Named Twinkle”, for crying out loud. But there’s no tongues lodged in cheeks, no wink and a nod that would hint at some sort of self-aware ridiculousness or trendy irony behind the scenes. Instead, the songs are delivered determinedly straight-faced. The themes are so over the top when in contrast to so much of other music out there but KTN’s unwavering belief in their own style lends it a sense of genuinety that gives it a foot on the ground. You can hear the it in the delivery too, and that makes the chosen direction all the more powerful. Fist-pump for the hero dogs, for the superhero foxes, for the plucky wanderers out to defeat evil.

KTN’s music is also obscenely bright and ludicrously glittery, in a way that I wouldn’t bark at anyone calling it cheesy, but the band’s approach to songwriting is to cover absolutely every ground with big melodies, and it’s a perfect bedfellow for the technicolour audio. It’s actually quite exciting: it’s a disarmingly charming approach, full of genuine giddiness that takes over, a ray sunshine filling the room from the speakers. And whilst they play these melodies in a very direct fashion, there’s an off-kilter sensibility that persists throughout the album and moves the verse-chorus-verse songs a little more off the beaten path. “Tulikettu” breaks into a synth-freakout right after a spoken word section that comes out of nowhere, “Kaikki pienet koirat” threatens to be a huge centerpiece but its choruses are surprisingly laidback in a really alluring fashion, and “Askeleet rannalta” takes a semi-synthpop approach which feels like the kind of natural band evolution we’d see a few albums on, making an early bird cameo. “Yö laulaa” is the culmination of this, bringing forth the prog-pop core closest to the surface as it ebbs and flows with its smooth, water-like melodies, closing with a sequence of shapeshifting instrumental sections which each sound more ambitious and exciting (and excited) than the last. When the band take it straight, their surprising influences make themselves known in the clearest way: “Lennon” genuinely feels like a theme song to a lost animation series, extended into a full-length anthem. It’s pulled off perfectly as well and a really intriguing thing to behold: and for someone like me who has had a fair number of cartoon-related songs all over my hard drive, it hits those vibes excellently.

The lyrics do play some role to it. Kirahvi nimeltä Tuike are creating their own mythos here - a pantheon of heroes of all sizes and fur coats and a lot of giraffes - and the band sing their tales like they were honoured anthems, with a stylistic earnestness and directness of any great opening theme that needs to hook you in straight away while still clearly introducing each character. They form a huge part of the album’s own personality as well, being deeply tied to the very concept of the band. As such, there is a certain kind of language barrier here that has made KTN an awkward album to recommend, because when so much of the album’s charm is based on its curious lyrical themes and they’re all delivered in obscure moonspeak, part of the record is bound to get lost in translation for many. Fortunately though, Lehtipeitteen suojelijat is rather fun just on purely musical terms as well. The obvious infectiousness of the hooks is one thing, but there’s a good deal of really good playing and very neat ideas from a purely musical standpoint here, too: an arrangement and instrumental know-how which are present throughout the album underneath the vocals, from the charming retro game synths to the brilliant bass lines gliding beneath every song. There’s a couple of full instrumentals punctuating the tracklist too to prove a point, even if their place on the album is more to support the rest of the tracklist. The interlude-esque “KKAR” demonstrates that the band do not necessarily need the vocals and lyrical material to create something distinct, with the band’s obvious video game soundtrack inspirations coming to surface the most. “Vaapukkamehulaulu” on the other hand surprises with a moody post-rock vibe that tucks the album into bed with a suddenly dramatic swerve and demonstrates that there’s more than one trick to KTN. Both give a larger spotlight to the actual musical side of the band and while they’re not as in-your-face as the album’s main songs, they do show off elements that otherwise might get a little more lost under the vocals, or in the case of the latter a side of the band we haven’t seen before.

Sadly Lehtipeitteen suojelijat seems to have been the only proper album KTN ever released, with the band largely vanishing beyond some internet freebies in the following years. It’s a shame. I readily admit that my overall musical knowledge is more the breadth of a comfortably sized lake than even the tiniest ocean, but the lyrics and music combined quite unlike anything I’ve come across from an artist without a TV or game tie-in. That’s commendable - four young guys from Finland creating something unique and truly their own, and backing it up with a set of superb songs full of heart.

Rating: 8/10

Kent - Kent (1995)

1) Blåjeans; 2) Som vatten; 3) Ingenting någonsin; 4) När det blåser på månen; 5) Jag vill inte vara rädd; 6) Vad två öron klarar; 7) Den osynlige mannen; 8) Pojken med hålet i händen; 9) Ingen kommer att tro dig; 10) Stenbrott; 11) Frank

Cookie-cutter inexperienced rock band debut album from the 90s. Flaws and charms in its guitar wall melancholy.

Key tracks: "Blåjeans", "När det blåser på månen", "Stenbrott"

Kent were quite inarguably one of the biggest success stories the Nordic region has had. Dubbed “Sweden’s biggest rock band”, they’ve been paving their own way to great effect and achieved largely anything a band of their kind could hope for: international hits, constant critical acclaim, no particular flops worth a mention, managing to turn a b-side into a pseudo-hit, going through a full sound reinvention and pulling it off perfectly, and finally settling down by steadily releasing consistently good albums after the radio hits died down - all done with the sort of complete creative independence a lot of bands of their stature have had to fight for. It’s good to mention their future for the sake of context and getting the grasp of just how far they’ve come, because on their debut we’re dealing with none of the above. In 1995 Kent were a group of young guys escaping the mundanity of their small town life by playing music and who had barely just settled on a line-up and a name when they were signed up.

Based on just that, you can kind of guess where this is going. Kent is spirited, impassioned, and so indebted to the moody, post-grunge British rock scene of the 90s that you’d only need to switch the sung tongue and it’d be right at home. Kent make their entrance with the way and the sound that hundreds of young bands just like them started their journey with during the time period - moody, dour and propelled by quiet/loud dynamics, with echoes of Manic Street Preachers, early Radiohead (The Bends was released almost exactly on the same day as Kent, fun fact) and other contemporaries. The band members were in their mid-twenties when the album was released but it’s a hotbed of all the teenage anxiety they had been bottling for years, and Joakim Berg’s inexperienced voice barely holds itself together. There’s not a lick of originality present, but there is plenty of passion and Berg’s charisma is already starting to bubble through. At times, it’s the only thing really carrying the songs.

Like a lot of the albums of this kind, Kent as well is little more than just a launchpad. I mentioned before that Kent haven’t had any real failures in their lifetime and I stand by that, but it’s really obvious the band were still completely green at this stage despite years of active grassroots activity. They play well enough but the songs themselves lack depth, coming off as decent enough to listen to but rather nondescript when it comes down to leaving an impression. The best cuts - “Blåjeans”, “När det blåser på månen”, “Stenbrott” - wouldn’t be the highlights they are if they were on any other album and even their memorability is partially based on silly little details; “Blåjeans” sticks in your head because of its placement as the first ever Kent track sequentially, “När det blåser på månen” has a hilariously melodramatic lift-off countdown by its end and the abrupt guitar lick in the chorus of “Stenbrott” is a thoroughly daft but efficiently memorable hook. This isn’t meant to be a backhanded compliment or a dig at the other songs because the album does get the bare minimum of foot-tapping, head-nodding approval rating at the very least, but the album’s overall generic nature is undeniable and the songs aren’t so great it’d be easy to ignore.

That said, the best thing that the album has going for it is in fact that typical 90s sound - it’s definitely a heavy load completely subjective and unashamedly personal associations talking, but the little touch of nostalgic warmth that the dry 90s rock sound brings is probably just as, if not even more crucial to the overall enjoyment it brings than the actual songs are. But as far as any real merit or general importance goes, Kent doesn’t have much of it. Its main talking point is that it’s Kent’s debut album and in all likelihood, without that connection it would probably be lost in time completely, filed along with countless others of its kind. There’s no hidden deep cuts or a random hit song equivalent to the “Creep” scenario to keep it in general consciousness - it’s just five guys with guitars and drums and a will to make something more out of life. That gets them somewhere, at least, but Kent’s debut is quite obviously the weakest thing they’ve done.

Rating: 5/10

John Frusciante - Shadows Collide with People (2004)

1) Carvel; 2) Omission; 3) Regret; 4) Ricky; 5) Second Walk; 6) Every Person; 7) -00Ghost27; 8) Wednesday's Song; 9) This Cold; 10) Failure33 Object; 11) Song to Sing When I'm Lonely; 12) Time Goes Back; 13) In Relief; 14) Water; 15) Cut-Out; 16) Chances; 17) 23 Go in to End; 18) The Slaughter

What Frusciante sounds like when he sets out to make his own big-budget recording. Don't worry about this being stifled by overproduction though; if anything, this is a prime example of how to use the studio space correctly and create your masterpiece.

Key tracks: "Carvel", "Omission", "Time Goes Back"

A persistent characteristic throughout John Frusciante's solo recordings is how modest they are. In contrast to his time with the Chili Peppers and the extensively labored, expensively produced album sessions spent at top-of-the-line studios, Frusciante's own albums have mostly been recorded at home and with only a few additional names in the credits lists. Shadows Collide with People is, to date, the first out of only two exceptions, and it's the major one. It's a big budget, hi-fi experience meticulously recorded in a professional studio; a self-admitted response to anyone who called Frusciante's prior recordings unfinished or messy, going all the way to prove he could do the opposite if he wanted to.

Shadows Collide with People introduces its densely constructed sound right off the bat. Every note played and every sound made has been treated with pristine perfection, there's layers upon layers of vocal melodies and guitars that would make it impossible to accurately replicate it live, and the majority of the tracks are amplified by prominent keyboard and synthesizer parts. Considering the timing, it's easy to see Shadows Collide with People as Frusciante's personal counterpart of his then-band's By the Way, released a few years prior and in itself a melody-rich and studio-heavy album that was heavily weighted towards Frusciante's contributions, featuring many of the same musical cues that Shadows is full of. Familiar Peppers names even feature here, with Chad Smith powerhousing the drums on each song and Flea making a surprisingly understated appearance in "The Slaughter", and with frequent brother-in-arms and future Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer having an audible backing role across the tracklist. But where By the Way was rather blunt dynamically, Frusciante himself helms the producer's seat on Shadows and ensures that the sound world isn't an overproduced and overstuffed mess, and rather each element is given its own space. It's a rich and warm sound, both when filling the room out loud and when intimately observed via headphones. Shadows Collide with People sounds gorgeous, and a great deal of effort has been put forward to make it so without sacrificing anything.

The production values of Shadows are especially noteworthy not just because of the sound itself and its contrast against the rest of Frusciante's discography, but the (possibly coincidental) effect they have had on Frusciante's songwriting as a whole. With the clear sound, the ability to layer multiple elements precisely and the piece-by-piece recording process, Frusciante approaches the songs with the mindset of having all that utility in hand and makes use of it in the song arrangements in a practically liberating way. The songs were written with these possibilities in mind and designed to use all those elements to their advantage, building upon their already-strong core melodies with frequent multi-tracked backing vocals, several guitar parts trading spaces and keyboard textures that are like punctuation or font changes for the thoughts and emotions the songs wish to raise. It's that interesting, and in this case often beautiful, point where the songwriting and the production hold hands so well that they both support one another, and reach to the listener all the more strongly because of their collaboration.

That freedom of possibility brings out two things. One, Shadows is Frusciante's most openly joyous album. Many of its songs could be called downright anthems, Frusciante bellows out the abstract but appropriately scene-setting lyrics with complete conviction and major chords are everywhere. Frusciante's physical and mental rehabilitation post-coming clean is a big part of the man's mythology, but that newfound appreciation for life is the most apparent here, still relatively recent after the recovery: it leads to the passion evident in the performance and the lyrics frequently referencing learning from life's mistakes. This then leads to a kind of positive boundlessness for the album, expressed through Frusciante indulging himself with big choruses, dramatic musical explosions, grand swoons and other notions that might be a bit too 'obvious' and bombastic for your average Frusciante home recording - which, while not experimental most of the time, have their own sense of song structures and lack of reliance for any of the above.

But here you have "Carvel" opening the album with a proper bang after its bubbly intro and sounding colossal from the get-go, only becoming more towering as it goes on and Frusciante keeps dialing up its rock anthem intensity. It's all giant guitar walls, fist-pumping sing-alongs and sort-of-choruses, and it's while unusual to hear Frusciante play something so bold and powerfully direct under his own name, it's near-empowering to hear it: "Carvel" is a phenomenal song that constantly one-ups itself with another section more awesome than the prior one. Meanwhile "Song to Sing When I'm Lonely" and "Wednesday's Song" are two of Frusciante's most straightforward pop songs, and they're both disarming in their sheer melodic wonder - they're the sound of summers and life at its most colourful, brought through a warm sound and rich tune. While the tricks they employ aren't new to Frusciante, the unashamed openness of them has been rarer in his back catalogue.

Behind the production and the structural choices, the songs of Shadows Collide with People are consistently strong. Each of the actual songs offers something new, has the power to stay with you long after the album has finished and strongly resonates even within the greater context of Frusciante's whole discography. That's staggering on its own, but even the interludes (the ones with all the number titles, representing various milestone ages for Frusciante) all feel absolutely crucial to the album's flow - in fact, the hauntingly atmospheric ambient cut "23 Go in to End" is one of the album's big stand-outs, a veil of dreamy sound covering the world in a particularly poignant way. Out the "proper" songs, many - "Carvel", "Wednesday's Song", the achingly lovely Klinghoffer duet "Omission" and the bittersweet beauty of "Ricky" - are among the best within Frusciante's discography. Even "Regret", built entirely on two repeated lines and a couple of similarly recurring melodies, is an impressive example of how the same passage can be wholly different when the production behind them changes and grows, from downbeaten to defiant; it's the underdog that unexpectedly reaches the goal far more impressively than you'd expect. And while much of Shadows'  strength comes from its more delicate moments, it can also be physically powerful when it wants. Smith's drumming, here in its peak strength, injects the songs with a thunderous energy which especially makes the more guitar-heavy rock-out moments even wilder, whether contributing to the majesty of "Carvel" or powering through the brief but punchy "Second Walk", which is downright breath-taking in its sheer speed and in-your-face melodies (particularly when Frusciante bring out the sparkling guitar part towards the end). 

But the light that shines the brightest is "Time Goes Back". It's a marvellously effortless and staggeringly beautiful song that doesn't brag with complex arrangements or intricate structures, but Frusciante's delivery is phenomenal and makes the song sound so effortlessly majestic. It's where many of Shadows' traits all come together to reach the peak: it's blissfully lovely and larger-than-life in its power, melodically rich and thoroughly resonating. Other songs on the album may arguably be more ambitious or more upfront, but "Time Goes Back" hits a special nerve simply by how its delivered. It could just well my favourite moment Frusciante has committed on tape; or so it at least feels every time it reaches its heights and feels like a revelatory moment for the power of music.

That notion is where that top rating comes from. Over the course of this review it may have become apparent that Shadows Collide with People often whelms me, repeatedly and throughout over the course of is duration, and in a way that feels like the first time, every time. As a John Frusciante album it's the strange one. It bears little similarity with anything else the man has released under his own name, both in songwriting and especially the sound. But it simultaneously showcases the best sides of Frusciante in the clearest way: his vocals, his detailed arrangements, his style of guitar playing, and how Frusciante brings those elements out on this record is sublime, often perfect. It's not that the big production makes Shadows stronger than his other albums, it's that the production has taken Frusciante down to a path where he can really show off those ideas. He immerses into the songwriting so well that you can hear the love and devotion he has for his craft that he's famously obsessed about. When an artist puts so much of themselves into something, the excitement becomes a tangible part of what comes out from the speakers and resonates through the listener. It's a series of moments that take one aback with the impact of a gut punch; and once the album has finished, there's that curious, almost physical feeling of the world feeling a little different after going through all that splendour. It's the embarrassingly subjective hallmark of an all-time favourite album.

Take that particular super-subjectivity away and you're still left with an incredible landmark album for Frusciante. It doesn't overshadow the rest of Frusciante's works and I don't hold their more home-knit nature against them in comparison, but if you want the best possible idea as to why Frusciante is a noteworthy artist on his own right, this holds all the tricks.

Rating: 10/10

Kemopetrol - Everything’s Fine (2002)

1) Goodbye; 2) Saw It on TV; 3) For Nothing; 4) Shine; 5) Everything that Surrounds Us; 6) Windmills; 7) Hypno Eyes; 8) Forest for the Trees; 9) Everything Under Control; 10) Everything’s Fine

The move from the debut's freshness towards slicker and more radio-friendly waters begins.

Key tracks: "Goodbye", "Windmills", "Everything Under Control"

Not to be too melodramatic about it but it’s Kemopetrol’s second album and it’s the end of them as they were. The start of something different as well, though.

Slowed Down, the band’s debut, sounded a little out of sync with everything else that was going on in Finland at the time. The general mainstream state was that of flux: the millennial shift times were characterised by the Finnish indie rock scene starting to find its feet underground, while the radio play belonged to groups trying their hands at adapting American and British mainstream approaches for a Finnish taste. Kemopetrol’s chilled out, daydreaming bedroom indie pop was something completely different. But the Finnish mainstream has a habit of adopting outsiders with a very open mind: primary examples include the mainstreamification of metal to the point of making Christmas and children’s versions of it, and how the country managed to turn the combination of reggae and Finnish folk music into a legitimate commercial trend. So Slowed Down became a hit and slowly started shaping the scene sound in its own way. And that’s where we come to Everything’s Fine, the second album.

It’s either a case of the mainstream adapting to Kemopetrol pretty heavily or Kemopetrol deciding to go on a more commercial route, but there’s a definite transitional transformation going on with the band’s second album. It’s slick, punchy and polished – the homely musicians have suddenly turned into radio superstars. This happened without warning: normally a development like this would take a couple of albums and a few careful toe-dips in the water before fully diving in, but as soon as the sharp, slick futuro-disco of “Goodbye” reveals itself it’s clear the band have gone through a reinvention. They’re shiny, painfully cool and painfully hip with the times. They’ve lost some of their original charm and have started on the road they’d walk for the next few albums (ie most of their active duration) as relative mainstream darlings.

Not inherently bad when you’ve got the songs to back it up, which Kemopetrol do. In addition, Everything’s Fine is a little bit of a transitional effort even if at first it seems like it’s loaded with just the suave hits. All the singles are loaded right up the front: the pounding “Goodbye”, the glitzy “Saw It on TV” that might as well be Finnish pop/rock of the early 00s in a nutshell, the name-appropriate “Shine” and the lightly rocking “For Nothing” (which wasn’t a single per se but still got some air play). They’re all fine tunes for most parts: “Goodbye” in particular is pretty excellent despite its anaemic and thoroughly pointless guitar solo. But once the initial hit wave has gone Everything’s Fine reveals its best parts by showing some different sides. “Everything that Surrounds Us”, “Everything’s Fine” and “Forest for the Trees” are all minimal piano driven pieces but each one approaches the formula differently: “Everything that Surrounds Us” swivels around intimately, the title track is a late night mood piece and “Forest for the Trees” adds a little beat to the backbone and is a surprisingly affective song despite being a glaringly simple and straightforward mid-tempo rocker. “Hypno Eyes” brings a sudden bit of tight groove into the mix, being led by a hypnotically thumping rhythm in some dark disco somewhere.

The most inspired are the last remaining tracks. “Everything Under Control” is bombastic and dramatic, almost aggressive - and in a fashion that suits the band better than the debut’s sudden forays into hard rock riffs. Instead, the song is driven by a simple piano melody, a swivelling accordion and a hoover (!) and it grows into colossal heights you would’ve never suspected from such a band who normally tends to stay grounded. “Windmills” is even better. The accordion is back, this time floating weightlessly around the airy production, and it meets with a dreamy chorus and Charlie’s Angels melodies, mixing into a daydream of a pop song. It also feels like the closest tie to the atmosphere set by Slowed Down (make of that what you will).

The sequencing is so that Everything’s Fine is a little bit of an album of two (almost) halves. The first half re-introduces Kemopetrol as a genuine mainstream force, then the second half applies the same production tricks to a group of songs more reminiscent of the first album. First re-invention, then natural evolution. If you want to be cruel about it, this is somewhat the end of Kemopetrol at their most original as the subsequent albums would see the band walking well-worn paths after others. At this stage though they still had enough of their own to lead rather than follow. Everything’s Fine is definitely not as timeless as Slowed Down but it still plays out strong, in particular during the second half that has aged very gracefully. It’s a little sad it doesn’t quite follow in the debut’s steps, especially since whenever it does it’s at its best, but time has definitely showed this to be a better follow-up than initially thought. Kemopetrol wouldn’t be the same band they were on the debut ever again, but here they’re still playing up to their strengths.

Rating: 7/10

Kemopetrol - Slowed Down (2000)

1) Tomorrow; 2) African Air; 3) Child Is My Name; 4) Night After Night; 5) View from the Sea; 6) Drown Little Child; 7) Teeth; 8) Disbelief; 9) Slowed Down; 10) Without Listening

Fresh, exciting, wonderfully melodic. A classic, scene-setting debut.

Key tracks: "Tomorrow", "Child Is My Name", "Disbelief"

The late 90s were a fertile breeding ground for brand new Finnish talent. Maybe it was something in the water or maybe it was the influence from what was happening in the UK and the US breaking through to the Nordic consciousness, but it suddenly felt like anything was possible and the groundroots music scene started bursting with new names taking lessons from English-language rock and adapting the sound into the Finnish mindset. It was mostly bubbling under the mainstream of course – lots of critical acclaim and countless small names becoming cult classics overnight to be treasured forevermore in scene-centric box sets, but no real presence on the airwaves over the more experienced, foreign peers. Which was fine; it gave the scene a chance to develop without pressure and grow slowly through the internet and music shows on small-time cable channels.

When they first debuted, Kemopetrol sounded completely unique to the Finnish landscape and in retrospect, can comfortably be attributed to be the icebreaker in charge of the new wave of Finnish music about to take over by storm in the 00s. In the grand scheme of things they hadn’t developed anything unique – their debut Slowed Down is so early 00s zeitgeisty in its sound – but they had two very strong feats of their own: one, they were Finnish and two, they actually broke into public consciousness big-time. You could hear them on the radio with their legitimate hits, you could hear them on the TV with their music licensed to advertisements, you could actually see their name in the headlines. They spearheaded the movement breaking new ground and while I’m sure it would have happened later on anyway through other means, I genuinely attribute Kemopetrol with not only helping Finnish indie to become popular, but also helping to shape the sound of Finnish pop music in the new millennium. There’s a direct line starting from here and going through a range of acts from indie darlings like Husky Rescue to latter-day mainstream pop such as Chisu.

Slowed Down, then, is a bit of classic record. It’s not just a famous in its general cultural relevance as described above, but it’s also somewhat of a magnum opus for the band themselves. It didn’t have the biggest mainstream impact out of the band’s albums (that award goes to the follow-up Everything’s Fine) and there’s something noteworthy to say about the band’s ability to change and re-invent themselves a number of times later on, but it’s here where the biggest impact lies. To wit, it has “Child Is My Name”: the band’s inarguable signature tune, the song that got them recognised in the first place and a cut that still remains remarkably captivating to the point of never failing to seize the attention when it plays. It’s a perfect match of an outstanding melody that feels huge without ever directly actually sounding so, a killer bass riff, a deep production that gives them both an otherwordly tone and a set of suitably vague lyrics that probably sound deeper than what they actually are, but which suit the tone of the music spectacularly. It is, in itself, one of those songs that make the album it resides in worth a mention. It also doesn’t even begin to describe what the album itself actually is.

Slowed Down is very much a mongrel album – a mixture of sounds so apart from eachother that it would be bafflingly bizarre if not for the fact that somehow, somehow, Kemopetrol actually managed to marry them together. The ten songs scatter between Britpop both at its breeziest and most upbeat as well as its angriest and angstiest while taking a dip down in dub and making eye contact with trip-hop, eventually finishing the album in a happy-dappy rave-out because why the hell not at this point. It’s sometimes a little jarring – the metal-riffic “Drown Little Girl” as a prime example – but to their credit the band make it work. A large part of this is due to the production. While the songs may come from altogether different places, they’re all treated the same sonically and the same rules are applied to each of them. It helps to tie down the songs and make it feel like they belong together, showing off Kemopetrol as a band who simply have a wide range of influences rather than one that haphazardly aims everywhere in confusion. There’s of course singer Laura Närhi’s voice too. She doesn’t have the strongest set of pipes but her tone is perfect for the music and she never really alters it across the album, which once again acts as a binding glue rather than as a flaw. There’s a bit of a Finnish twang to it but it’s strangely charming in its own right.

Each of the ten songs also stand out, partially obviously because of how different they sound but also in terms of sheer songwriting. There’s that cliché about bands having a lifetime to perfect their debuts and being able to capture themselves at their purest in their first releases, and it’s a cliché I have an aversion towards for a number of reasons, but there’s a hint of truth to it and it’s albums like Slowed Down that make a good case for it. Each song in Slowed Down is not only really solid as tunes but they all have a certain ambition and energy to them that could only come from a young band wanting to take on the world and not knowing any better. Each song acts as a bit of a mini-statement of its own, whether it’s the pop/rock could-be-hits ready to conquer the radiowaves (“Tomorrow”, “Night After Night”), the deeper, more atmospheric cuts (“Slowed Down”, “Teeth”, “African Air”) or the parts where it’s incredibly obvious that someone was listening to a lot of British rock music in the late 90s (“View from the Sea”, “Drown Little Girl”).  They all want to captivate the listener completely as much as the last song tried to, attempting to build new worlds from scratch every time the track number switches to the next. Most of the album succeeds in it pretty well – it’s all damn good music and while the style-hopping can cause some of the tracks to get buried in the chaos for a while, it’s never for good. For all its varied sounds, Slowed Down is tight.

What actually edges the album from great to classic are three cuts in particular. “Child Is My Name” we’ve already talked about but it’s worth an essay in itself if one were so inclined and definitely at least deserves another direction mention here. “Without Listening” is a tour-de-force closer that finishes the album in a way that it deserves: by making absolutely no sense compared to anything that came before, with its space discoteque vibe bearing no resemblance to anything else here, but sounding so exuberant and passionately joyous that it’s clear the band were having the time of their lives when they were given a chance to record their music. Then there’s “Disbelief” – quite possibly the best thing Kemopetrol have ever committed to tape, no matter how brilliant “Child Is My Name” is. It’s a five-minute trip through hazily dreamy soundscapes, pop perfection melodies, soaringly spacey guitars and bursts of energy that break through the dreaminess and take the song to warp speed. It’s a huge song that starts so benignly but ends up somewhere completely different: a proper journey encapsulated into a pop song. It’s special, genuinely special. Where the rest of the album is a strong collection of songs on its own, it’s these three songs that really make the case why Kemopetrol were the ones to make an impact in the larger scale: you needed a band who were able to tap into something special like this to be able to reach out.

And reach out they did, both to the general audience and to myself, and Slowed Down still continues to do so. It’s definitely an album very tied down to what the music world was up to at the turn of the millennium, almost like acting as the marriage between the British strain of pop/rock that was everywhere at the time and the downtempo atmospherics that would soon begin their climb to relevance. But it’s not aged in the slightest and if anything, the time between then and now has only made it more obvious that the album’s success was due to its great songs, not because of any particular external factors. There’s also the context that comes from knowing the rest of Kemopetrol’s journey. While the nature of those albums will be tackled on their in their own reviews, the gist is that the band became more precise and polished in their execution with time and while that’s not a bad trait in itself by any means, a part of why Slowed Down sounds a little bit more special is because it’s still a bit aloof and imprecise: there’s a type of untamed nature to it that gives it life, the backbone of the music being the still-youthful energy of a young band unafraid and eager. It has character. Combine it with the songwriting and the sound, and even when you strip away all the contextual and cultural bobbins the underlining message is clear: Slowed Down is a great, varied and inspired album that would’ve been a landmark release even if it had stayed bubbling under in its own scene.

Rating: 9/10

Anssi Kela - Nummela (2001)

1) Kaksi sisarta; 2) Mikan faijan BMW; 3) Esko Riihelän painajainen; 4) Puistossa (feat. Alexandra); 5) Kaunotar ja basisti; 6) Rva Ruusunen; 7) Harhaa (feat. Anna Kuoppamäki); 8) Kissanpäivät; 9) Nummela

Under the incredibly of-its-time production there's a classic singer/songwriter storyteller's album, by a man who needed to get the songs out of his system. And then he took over the world around him with them.

Key tracks: "Kaksi sisarta", "Mikan faijan BMW", "Nummela"

Every now and then an album arrives that takes over the entire world or the country you live in. For some time, it's the biggest thing there is - it dominates the airwaves and the charts, it breaks records and it's heard by absolutely everyone and they all have an opinion on it. The Marshall Matters LPs, the 21s, the Neverminds. In the early 00s, singer/songwriter Anssi Kela's debut Nummela became the biggest thing in Finland. You couldn't escape from its songs on radio or TV, it sold insane amounts and broke several sales records, and everyone knew it - everyone, from young kids to your grandma. Kela's music broke barriers and was loved by everyone regardless of age or music taste, and those who didn't enjoy its omnipresence made sure they were ready to mention it whenever required, with the requisite defenses and reasons for their contrary opinion.

The secret to Kela's success wasn't a mysterious one: he simply made his music incredibly approachable to everyone. The basis of his sound was in the great, classic singer/songwriter tradition. He's a storyteller by nature, filling his lyrics with relatable or otherwise understandable stories of everyday people and their joys and tragedies (a direct quote from someone older than me at the time, it was "lovely to hear someone sing about actual things"). The core of the music itself was in your traditional man-and-guitar vein, but decorated with a slick, modern production and appropriate fashionable (at the time) touch in its sounds: a combination of both new and old in exactly the right amounts. Kela had a seemingly divine gift for a really great hook and it was impossible to get his songs out of your head once they made their way there, and all those hooks and melodies were so perfectly hummable and singable and repeatable. Kela himself was a charmer as well. A softly husky, pleasant voice, reasonably charismatic looks and a background that was equally humble and legendary, tragic and inspirational: he was a small town kid (this album itself is titled after the said town) who came from a line of town-famous musicians who all died before their age, leaving the rest of his close family in a rather chaotic state, but who overcame the hardships and climbed to the top. Considering that pictures of his dead father and grandfather are included in the album booklet, it's not like any of this was being kept particularly quiet either.

In short, Kela was a humongous success because he was destined to be so. Everything in his music or character almost seemed to be designed to win everyone's hearts, but genuine charm and realness radiated from him to the extent that you could never have been cynical over him. He was a lovely guy who wrote fantastically catchy songs, and then proceeded to dominate the whole country through that simple formula.

But there's still something special within Nummela itself. Kela has been steadily releasing albums throughout the past decade but nothing has come even close to the eyesight of his mega-selling debut; actual hit singles beyond the ones taken from Nummela number in exactly two (until a sudden career resurrection no one expected over a decade after), and they're the ones that directly followed Nummela (one of them so closely that it was included in the deluxe re-release of the album). Nummela, then, clearly carries a special magic that continues to make it a rewarding listen in a way his other albums do not.

It all somewhat boils down to his personal history. The photos of his lost family members weren't in the booklet because the record label wanted to build a mythology and a backstory: they're there because Kela's legacy and personal history fueled the album itself. The title track outright says it so - located at the end of the album, it's the only song where Kela stops telling stories about other people and sits down to talk about his own story. The song feels like a confessional, bittersweet excerpts of life's ups and downs that eventually cause Kela to follow his family bloodline and commit his feelings on tape. The song is the album's masterpiece and while it's the only one that's outright about the writer himself, that personal touch flows through the other eight songs. While the character names and situations in each song are different to Kela's own, each one feels like it stems from a real place and from personal experiences. Naming the album after his hometown and paying tribute to his family tree both signify that the music in Nummela comes from the heart, that it's been fueled by the artist's blood, sweat and tears as he's worked on the songs day and night as if he was possessed by the need to let them out. Often it manifests in a notable emotional load on the shoulders of the songs, like with the genuine happiness found when your life hits that one perfect moment in "Kaunotar ja basisti" and the painful nostalgia for the innocent days of youth that looms over "Kissanpäivät". The whole of Nummela has that incredibly precious feeling of genuine emotional presence that we often associate with artists' most personal records, only this time the lyrics mostly avoid anything directly personal and the music is in the guise of somewhat slickly-produced pop/rock rather than lo-fi acoustic escapism or dark atmospherics.

Which is fine - it's clearly the place where Kela feels most comfortable to be in and it results in a group of excellent songs that allow his knack for a great melody and hook to shine, sometimes literally as the production really lets each note play out clearly. On the other hand, at times the album's rather dare-I-say commercial sheen and modern production result in a somewhat more dated sound. You couldn't get much more 2001 than the record scratches, drum samples and effects on "Mikan faijan BMW" and "Puistossa" (perhaps unsurprisingly the album's two biggest hits), but if you were there at the time it's less like unearthing ancient artifacts and has a far more pleasant, nostalgically warm feel to it. The songs themselves are great though, and in particular "Mikan faijan BMW" has stood time incredibly: its wistfulness and pathos can get a bit heavy-handed, but Kela manages to make it scarily relatable and the highly sing-alongy chorus sounds like a classic already canonised in pop culture songbooks from the very first time it hits your ears and likely lodges into your head forever. "Puistossa" is like the little brother to "Mikan faijan BMW" in tone, style and tragedy, and its folk-meets-hip-hop stylings are the most dated in the album, but Kela manages to whip up hooks so strong it's really hard not to get captivated by it.

Huge debut albums are almost always a curse for their artists and Kela couldn't escape that either. He's continued to write catchy choruses and tell bittersweet stories of everyday people, but none of the subsequent albums have carried the same spark as Nummela. It's clearly an album that took a great deal of personal motivation to come out and once he had found a release for that emotional energy, his music took a turn towards your standard sort of singer/songwriter rocker material. Nummela is his apex point as a songwriter, a collection of nine incredibly catchy pop songs filtered through a greater desire that became such a strong concoction it took an entire country by storm.

Rating: 8/10

Hot Chip - Coming on Strong (2004)

1) Take Care; 2) The Beach Party; 3) Keep Fallin’; 4) Playboy; 5) Crap Kraft Dinner; 6) Down with Prince; 7) Bad Luck; 8) You Ride, We Ride, in My Ride; 9) Shining Escalade; 10) Baby Said; 11) One One One 

Geek r'n'b. All you need to know.

Key tracks: "Playboy", "Crap Kraft Dinner", "Baby Said"

As far as first impressions go, this has got to be one of the more surreal ones. Early Hot Chip in general had a bit of a bizarre feel to them, given the band were intentionally playing up to the “wise-ass nerd romantics” image they had and a result stood out from the crowd by emphasising their complete non-machoness. But Coming on Strong is still a surreal album even coming from that context, especially as a debut album. Imagine a group of pasty white nerds having grown up on gangsta rap and smooth R'n'B, using these as a thematic launchpad for their bedroom music experiments while simultaneously being both earnest about it and, realising the inherent absurdity of it, taking the mick out of themselves and the concept. Here we have Alexis Taylor getting sick of motherfuckers and jerk-off losers with his frail falsetto and Joe Goddard longing for his boo and trying to act like the coolest guy in the hood while he’s rolling around in his twenty-inch rimmed car, while the music straddles a thin line between oddball, off-kilter amateur experiments and genuinely soulful, emotional songwriting.

Arguably Coming on Strong’s sound is a more significant reason to listen to it than the actual songs, because its sonic thematics are its most distinguishable feature. The tone of the album is part decidedly quirky and part early uncertainty on where to go and how to get there. The latter is even more detectable in the actual songs themselves: Hot Chip were still testing waters at this point in that department and it’s pretty clear even from a cursory look. It’s probably better to talk about Coming on Strong as a series of rather good moments separated by a lot of very similar low-key, home-spun mid-tempo synth pop. It’s not without its charms but it is without any major hooking points, especially for anyone coming into the album after the rather hook-tastic later albums. The album tries a lot – most songs will have some sort of focal musical part that nests in your head if you give it a chance – but rarely succeeds to the level that you’d start thinking its main draw is in its songs rather than the gangsta nerd ambience.

But Coming on Strong isn’t without its more complete merits. The lead (and only) single “Playboy” more or less sums up the entire album within its five and a half minutes: you’ll get the moody minimalist beats, Taylor’s quiet whispering and the bonkers swagger bragger ‘tude all over the album, but here they’re all together and in the best form as they’ll get, almost as if this song came before everything else and the band then decided to extend the idea for an entire album. On the whole other end is “Baby Said” which, conveniently for a song so near the end of the album, links the Hot Chip here to what would come next. It’s lighter and airier than anything else here, with a catchy pop singalong finale where the band suddenly stumble onto the makings of what would inspire a good chunk of the rest of their career. “Crap Kraft Dinner”, the best song on the album, is on the other hand simply a really good tune. It drops the pretense and roleplay completely and goes in a strikingly more wistful direction, properly debuting the band’s trademark soulfulness and revealing their heart. It’s a simple song, consisting of two halves made up of repeating the same part over and over again, but both parts are excellent in their own right and combined they form a heart-grasper of a song. Under its off-kilter name lies a sublime thing of beauty.

Those three songs are the musical anchor points that Coming on Strong relies on. While some of the rest of its songs are better than others (“Down With Prince” and the dance anthem lite “You Ride, We Ride, in My Ride” have a certain quirky groove to them that raises the bar slightly), the disappointing truth is that Coming on Strong is more a strong curio than a strong album. It’s arguably far better if you come to it with the hindsight of someone who’s already familiar with the rest of the discography – the added knowledge of what the group really are like allows you to enjoy the oddness without thinking this is all there is to the group’s music, and makes it doubly so fascinating and endearing. But remove it from its context and it’s even less noteworthy than with the safety net of the band’s history underneath it. I’ll be the first one to admit that it’s still an enjoyable thing to listen through, but at the end of the day the songs pale in comparison to what anyone’s come to expect from Hot Chip.

Rating: 6/10

Guillemots - Red (2008)

1) Kriss Kross; 2) Big Dog; 3) Falling Out of Reach; 4) Get Over It; 5) Clarion; 6) Last Kiss; 7) Cockateels; 8) Words; 9) Standing on the Last Star; 10) Don’t Look Down; 11) Take Me Home

Mixed bag by design, but the combined brilliance of the band's creative minds strikes through.

Key tracks: "Kriss Kross", "Cockateels", "Standing on the Last Star"

Ideally I’d like to tackle every album on its own merits, but in order to talk about Red you first need to at least briefly mention Through the Windowpane, Guillemots’ debut album, as the former is so tied to the latter’s legacy. Through the Windowpane is a very immaculately and in-all-honesty perfectly crafted album, a stunning masterpiece of composition where each song inhibits a special place in the greater whole. It was also an album that was largely created under the vision and craftsmanship of Guillemots’ front man, Fyfe Dangerfield. The other members definitely had their imprint on it, but it was clear who was in charge based on the writing credits alone, where only three songs are attributed to the band as a whole and two of those were the interludes. Red is a complete 180 degree flip – only two songs have come solely from Dangerfield’s pen, with the rest having been credited to the whole quartet. This is where the key difference between the two albums comes to play. Instead of repeating the magic of the debut, Guillemots decided to take full advantage of the group’s rather unique cast of members - an international collective with backgrounds in classical training, noise music, indie rock, jazz and hip-hop, all collaborating together to create their combined idea of pop music. Red, then, could be called a debut of sorts for Guillemots as a whole. It’s an album created as a team, every member participating equally in the brainstorming and encouraging everyone to bring forth their unique points of view. It’s only natural to compare Red to its predecessor because it intentionally takes such a great distance to what came before.

Red is all about throwing different things all over the place and giving every colour in the palette a go. Where Windowpane placed great emphasis on grandiose beauty and sweeping melodies, Red just does whatever it feels like. The humongous, life-affirming anthems are still present but this time they’ve been mixed together everything from RnB-influenced pop eccentricities to loud and noisy walls of sound, with Dangerfield intentionally stepping back to clear more room for the other members’ voices (including literally, with Magrao and Hawkes taking lead vocals in the crunchy, hard-hitting  "Last Kiss"). There’s no consistency, not even an attempt at it, and that’s the intention. In its place are wild whimsicality and a dash of mad creativity - “Cockateels” has the feel of a movie soundtrack cue turned into a musical number with Bollywood choirs thrown in for good measure, “Clarion” sounds like a Chinese children’s song played by a cartoon disco group and “Big Dog” spices its falsetto-lead pop stabs with sampled bat sounds and , to name a few examples. Red is a madhouse where earnest pop songs filled with tearjerkingly lovely melodies co-exist with the kind of sonic experiments that most bands would hide away on EPs and b-sides, and they all hold hands together.

If you draw an issue with this, Red is going to be a rough ride. The band appear to be on an intentional mission to destroy Through the Windowpane’s legacy, deciding that rather than to try to follow up what many already called a modern classic when it came out, going for something completely different was a far better choice of action. Remnants of the debut flash occasionally but they’re few and far between, and you might as well be looking at a release from a different band for all it’s worth - but what a band this new quartet is. Red may re-invent itself with each song but most of those songs are actually really, really good and the band behind them is beams with inspired energy, and while the sounds they use may be brand new, Guillemots still know a thing or two or several about amazing melodies and how to craft massive songs. Red largely bounces from highlight to highlight and if anything, the way each song plays out completely differently to everything else just emphasises the special nature of each. The tracklist is a checklist of exciting highlights, from the beautiful (“Standing on the Last Star”, “Take Me Home”) to the anthemic (“Kriss Kross”, “Cockateels”), from rocking and roaring (“Don’t Look Down”, “Last Kiss”) to just plain fun (“Big Dog”, “Clarion”). In fact, only two songs clearly show the shortcomings that could have affected Red in a larger way in less capable hands. The jazzy ballad “Words” feels like re-heated Windowpane leftovers and goes to show why not making a close-knit follow-up for it was probably a good bet, while the lead single “Get Over It” is a bit of an aimless ruckus covered by a shiny radio slickness that doesn’t really suit it. If you ever get a chance, try to hear a live version of the song somewhere: the rougher, beefed-up version they unleashed during concerts reveals what they were aiming for with the song, and how the studio version fails to achieve it.

But it’s a small niggle. For all purposes, Red is at the very least an interesting attempt of a band trying to re-establish and re-invent themselves. It does have the sound of a practice round and a transitional album, something that becomes even clearer in hindsight through the albums after it: their sound is heavily influenced by a lot of the elements explored in Red, but refined into a finer, more thought-out form. But as far as transitional practice rounds go, Red comes out pretty strongly. It’s definitely a mess of an album and really, really obviously in a completely different ball park to the debut they made their name with, but the band still has that same magically inspired way of creating music and when it clicks - and it often does - the schizophrenic style-flipping doesn’t matter. When the startlingly different opener “Kriss Kross” changes its tone from a moody, aggressive bull-fight pounder to a far more bittersweet guise filled with vulnerably longing beauty in its final set of climaxes (plural, indeed), and then suddenly shifts gears again right after it, it’s clear that while the sounds may have changed, the same great creative minds are still behind it all.

Rating: 8/10

Grandaddy - The Sophtware Slump (2000)

1) He’s Simple, He’s Dumb, He’s the Pilot; 2) Hewlett’s Daughter; 3) Jed the Humanoid; 4) The Crystal Lake; 5) Chartsengrafs; 6) Underneath the Weeping Willow; 7) Broken Household Appliance National Forest; 8) Jed’s Other Poem (Beautiful Ground); 9) E. Knievel Interlude (The Perils of Keeping It Real); 10) The Miner at the Dial-a-View; 11) So You’ll Aim Toward the Sky

Maybe not the magnum opus but I can very easily see how you could make a case for it. The definition of Grandaddy's music.

Key tracks: "He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's the Pilot", "The Crystal Lake", "So You'll Aim Toward the Sky"

Grandaddy’s defining statement. Perhaps not their best album - I for one don’t think it is - but the perfect summation of everything that springs to mind when you look at Grandaddy analytically and split the music into its foundations. It is the best representation of their music and the best description of what made them unique. You could call The Sophtware Slump their thematic peak: even if you regarded one of their other albums as your favourite in terms of quality, odds are The Sophtware Slump still displays the special sides of Grandaddy you love the band for more prominently than your album of choice in its design and themes.

In terms of tangible sound The Sophtware Slump bears little difference to the other albums. The distorted guitars, the fuzzy synths, the lo-fi aesthetics and Lytle’s ever-weary, ever-bittersweet voice are all here just as they’re on every single other Grandaddy album. The songwriting is a (major) step up from Under the Western Freeway but otherwise mostly in par with the subsequent albums. The key difference is that the thematic undertones that lie all over the Grandaddy discography are most prominent here. No one ever forgets to mention Lytle’s preferred lyrical material because it is so deeply entwined to the band’s sound and affects the music in several levels: the idea of looking at humanity through technology, analysing human existentialism through our relationship with machines and what we’re developing the machines into, has always been central to Grandaddy’s music to such extent that it’s a defining characteristic of theirs. Lytle’s tales of anthropomorphised machinery and people getting lost in the modern world had such a strong grip that the music around the words reflected them accurately in sound.

It’s this aspect that The Sophtware Slump emphasises more than the other Grandaddy albums. You can see this in all the reviews and articles that reference The Sophtware Slump as a concept album. The songs do not tie in together, outside the Jed couplet, but the thematic consistence is strong enough to make the album feel like they do. Calling it a concept album would require a loose definition of concept, but it’s easy to see where people come from: it feels like one and has great grounds for analysis in such terms. The emphasis on the concept doesn’t mean that you have to study the lyrics in order to get the album: that might give you more fuel for the whole concept album argument, but the concept shows its strength through the overall mood and atmosphere of the album. The music, and Lytle’s voice, is just as lost and vulnerable with or without checking the words and the unified threads and conceptual decisions are audible in every part of the music.

It’s good to talk about concepts and thematics and their power on the music, but ultimately the reason why they are expressed so strongly in the songs is because the songs themselves are strong enough to make the themes come alive. The key difference between The Sopthware Slump and the other  Grandaddy albums is two-fold: that this is where Lytle’s writing pen comes consistent (even the interlude has a place) and he discovers how to brew the formula he has in his head - which sets it apart from the debut - and that this maturement comes with a streak of creative wing-stretching that’s more prevalent than on the subsequent albums. Opening with “He’s Simple, He’s Dumb, He’s the Pilot” is a mission statement of sorts. It has all the bearings of classic Grandaddy songs, but they’ve been pushed together into a single nine-minute suite of multiple parts and stylistic switches. It’s little like any other Grandaddy song, but it compiles every side of the band under the same set of notes. Much like its parent album, it may not be their best song but it’s their definitive statement. Leading the album off with reveals straight-off how far the band have come from the debut and what’s lying ahead.

The remainder keeps up a similar pace: it’s Grandaddy as we know them through and through, exploring each facet of theirs. Sometimes it comes in form of a pop song, like the short and sweet “Hewlett’s Daughter” or the largely canonised and actually quite straightforwardly brilliant “The Crystal Lake”, other times it gets close to punk as the band rev it up on “Chartsengrafs”. The Jed the Robot couplet is the emotional heart of the album: “Jed the Humanoid” presents its melancholy via a deceivingly simple but powerful piano build while “Jed’s Other Poem” drowns itself in angry static and fuzz before fizzling out in despair. “Broken Household Appliance National Forest” and “Miner at the Dial-a-View” explore the greater concepts both lyrically and sonically, carrying along in the opening track’s lineage but in a condensed form. “So You’ll Aim Toward the Sky” is a closing bookend to match the opening one - a weary, wistful and heavenly end to a journey that’s the finale of a grand soundtrack and the final emotional push.

There isn’t really a weak link in the chain and it’s that kind of consistency in themes and writing that sets The Sophtware Slump apart from its siblings. Sumday has the big hit tracks but can’t keep up the pace and while Just Like the Fambly Cat is arguably the better of the two albums, its stylistic hodgepodge could be as much a turn-off as a turn-on. The Sopthware Slump is devoted to the concepts that make up the very core of Lytle’s songwriting and Grandaddy’s identity, and that doesn’t undermine the strengths and efforts of the other albums. Instead, it’s a natural center core for the band, acting as a sonical and ideological source for everything else they did. The essence of Grandaddy, if you may.

Rating: 9/10

Ben Folds - Supersunnyspeedgraphic, the LP (2006)

1) In Between Days; 2) All U Can Eat; 3) Songs of Love; 4) There’s Always Someone Cooler than You; 5) Learn to Live With What You Are; 6) Bitches Ain’t Shit; 7) Adelaide; 8) Rent a Cop; 9) Get Your Hands Off My Woman (feat. Corn Mo); 10) Bruised; 11) Dog; 12) Still; 13) Bitches Ain’t Shit (Reprise) [hidden track]

Folds has always had a sense of humour, and out of all his albums it's this collection of odds, sods and alternate takes that really highlights it in his discography. 

Key tracks: "In Between Days", "Bruised", "Still"

Ben Folds was incredibly prolific between his first two solo albums, but you probably had no idea. After Rockin’ the Suburbs and presumably all the expectations that came with it, Folds wanted to return to the idea of simply writing and recordings songs for the sake it, with sharing them becoming a secondary concern. Between 2003-2004 he kept himself occupied in his own private studio, recording stylistic experiments, choice covers, old castaways and ideas for his next album and releasing them hap-hazardly in small batches as internet-only EPs: Speed Graphic, Sunny 16 and Super D under his own name and The Bens with other two Bens, Lee and Kweller.

Supersunnyspeedgraphic, the LP was released shortly after Songs for Silverman as both a nod to fans as well as a way for Folds to canonise some of his favourite cuts from the eclectic EP sessions by bringing them together into a ‘real’ release – and to sweeten the deal further, a few other non-album cuts from around the time that deserved better than to be forgotten in obscurity were added into the tracklist. Supersunnyspeedgraphic isn’t an all-encompassing catalogue of the sessions and due to its brevity it’s presented more like an album than a b-side compilation, even if stylistically it’s obviously all over the place: it’s happy to chuck in comedic covers and quirky goofball jams right next to sincere ballads and earnest anthems, but it does it in an appropriately Foldsian fashion that arguably describes him better than either the studio slickness of Rockin’ the Suburbs or the sombreness of Songs of Silverman alone could. The sound, too, is appropriately like the missing link between the two releases, keeping the playful nature of the former but moving towards the arrangements of the latter. The unique ingredient is the sheer fun of it all – Folds is clearly having a blast writing off-kilter character studies and fusing them with bouncy piano melodies, enjoying the relaxed nature of the sessions that produced the songs.

The centre-piece, the attention-hogger and likely the only reason this album ever made ripples outside the fanbase is undoubtedly the already-infamous version of “Bitches Ain’t Shit”, which did the whole sincere pop cover of a rap song thing way before it became a thing. The most miraculous thing about it is that it completely avoids the pitfall of being a novelty song that wears off really thin really fast. The arrangement is absolutely superb – all lush and moody – and best of all the performance takes itself completely seriously. There’s no “winky-winky look how funny and subversive we are” ethos behind it – it’s full of pathos instead, with a lot of surprisingly heartfelt delivery that at least attempts to pay respect to the original despite the inherent ludicrousness of it all. The version doesn’t rely just on the humorous absurdity of pale white guys reciting gangster rap lyrics with a serious face, and it ends up being actually quite brilliant with a lot of longevity to it.

As great as “Bitches Ain’t Shit” is, Supersunnyspeedgraphic is also much more and turns out to be a pretty fun album in itself. The other covers include a brilliantly rollicking take on The Cure’s “In Between Days” that threatens to be near-essential, The Divine Comedy’s “Songs of Love” that could have easily come from Folds’ own writing pen and a trash-the-piano, shout-duet version of The Darkness’ “Get Your Hands Off My Woman” that says ‘screw it’ at the delicacy of the other covers and just goes crazy. The Folds originals are largely a quirky mix of snarky commentary and curious humour, keeping the mood pretty light throughout. “All U Can Eat”, “Adelaide”, “Rent a Cop” and “There’s Always Someone Cooler than You” all compete on which could be the most sarcastically bitchy, while marrying the sentiments to various degrees of bouncy piano rock – only “All U Can Eat” goes for a subtler approach in its music but its expletive-laden lyrics sound just the more vicious for it.

There’s a few earnest parts scattered throughout the album in a way that juts out completely, and they end up being among its best. “Bruised” off The Bens EP (“the extended version!”) is a shining spotlight of arrangement and performance with its vocal harmonies and a killer chorus melody that the song builds up as it goes along. “Still”, taken off the Over the Hedge soundtrack (where Folds’ half of the score was the best thing about the film) takes the build-up angle and makes it the point, growing from a lightly arranged, hauntingly introspective ballad into a wall of sound in a dramatic, emotional fashion that really doesn’t befit the film it came from. Here, it sounds far more in place and gives the fantastic song a chance to become the solid part of Folds’ oeuvre it deserves. The promotional single “Learn to Live With What You Are” is a little too alike to Folds’ other string-laden torchlight anthems to truly leave a mark into his full discography, but here it represents that side largely on its own and its loveliness gets to shine for its duration.

When “Still” has finished, the notion that Supersunnyspeedgraphic is a collection of odds and sods has become easy to forget. Only the slightly half-baked “Dog” sounds like a typical off-cut – its ideas not supporting its length as much as it could - but the rest act as testament’s to Folds’ writing as well as his proper albums.  As an album it’s obviously an erratic little beast that goes all over the place, both because it’s a compilation as well as due to the “anything goes” nature of the sessions in the first place, but to Folds’ credit he’s curated the right material to be included and managed to make it into a consistent ride. One of the best compliments you can give to a b-side compilation (which is what this sort of is) is that it holds up strongly against the artist’s actual albums on its own and doesn’t feel like just a product for obsessive fans, and it’s a compliment that Supersunnyspeedgraphic easily deserves.

Rating: 7/10

Peter Gabriel - So (1986)

1) Red Rain; 2) Sledgehammer; 3) Don’t Give Up; 4) That Voice Again; 5) Mercy Street; 6) Big Time; 7) We Do What We’re Told (Milgram’s 37); 8) This Is the Picture (Excellent Birds); 9) In Your Eyes

Gabriel lets his pop sensibilities fly free and creates one of the defining albums of the 1980s.

Key tracks: "Red Rain", "Sledgehammer", "In Your Eyes"

The 80s didn’t treat many of the previous decade’s rock stars kindly. Or rather, the rock stars had no clue how to react to the times and repeatedly embarrassed themselves as a result. The advancing studio technology and the increasing scope and capability of synthesizers shaped the sounds of the era and many past giants, nervous of losing their cultural foothold, took the path of lowest effort and let the trends shape them without thinking twice. The result is an embarrassing grey spot in a number of rock history’s classic discographies, which people are either warned about or which fans pretend just don’t plain exist.

Peter Gabriel saw the new technology as an opportunity. His solo career had started out fairly mundane but it had evolved and gained new depths as the albums kept coming. Gabriel is an artist who sees the studio as his favourite instrument: his musical development and a lot of the depths and strengths of his music are integrally tied to advancements in technology unlocking new musical possibilities, sometimes spearheading these advancements himself. He’s an artisan producer just as much as he is a musician and the 1980s came as a blessing to him. The new possibilities served as an inspiration, a way for him to make the music come alive exactly as it appeared in his imagination. And thus, where most of his peers wilted away, Gabriel flourished: this was his playground, not a submission to trends.

So is Gabriel’s version of the ‘80s Pop Album. It’s obviously more accessible than his previous albums: he’s never shied away from a more direct sound (he did start his solo career with “Solsbury Hill”, after all) but So is markably more universally approachable, brushing off the more abstract soundscapes and brimming with choruses that feel instantly at home in stadiums for crowds to connect to. The key difference is that Gabriel has done it in a fashion that emphasises his strengths, rather than hiding them underneath trends. If anything, the central audible theme of the album isn’t the hook-favouring direction but how Gabriel exercises the new freedoms and possibilities he’s found with the new studio technology. Sonically So is just as adventurous as his past albums, but in a different direction: taking the lessons he took from his prior forays into soundtracks, mixing in the world music inspiration he was starting to dwell in and finding a way to bring the absolute best out of every layer and instrument he saw fit to include. The 2002 remaster is even clearer about this: the gorgeous remastering work (which I presume has been kept with subsequent re-releases) helps to push off some of the more dated symptoms of the era and allows the details of the rich arrangements come out more boldly. So is, quite frankly, absolutely golden to listen to in terms of pure sound. The rich sound also helps to underline the sheer amount of talent Gabriel had gathered around him to bring his vision to life, in particular in the rhythm section thanks to Tony Levin’s superbly fluid bass finding the perfect match in Manu Katché’s precise, fill-happy drumwork.

The ubiquitous “Sledgehammer” is here, obviously - it’s a song that defines the album both in music history as well as conceptually, its punchy groove and shout-out chorus having become Gabriel’s signature song as well as indicator of the album’s approach to production. It’s incredible, really - it’s stacked with one instantly memorable stand-out moment after another, building its intensity until unleashing a finale that bids farewell to the song’s killer chorus completely because it’s found something even bigger. That it’s actually nowhere near the album’s best moment is the real testament to So’s quality: after launching into it early on, following the epic opening statement “Red Rain” that could happily be a signature moment for Gabriel on its own (it’s certainly one of his most awe-inspiring moments, particularly as the choruses take their dramatic flight), So’s tracklist morphs into a borderline arrogant series of dethroning its most famous song. “Don’t Give Up” builds something grand out of the simplest elements and progression, devoting much of its space to the simple magic of Gabriel and Kate Bush’s charisma sparking against eachother in one of the album’s two key guest spots. “That Voice Again” is warm and welcoming with its keyboard-laden soar, Gabriel beckoning with an openly inviting tone that comes off almost shocking after the relative coldness of the preceding albums. “Mercy Street” features one of the album’s most wonderful moments of production, this time married to a deep atmosphere and a majestic tune. “Big Time” is effectively Sledgehammer 2 (including a similar video) and re-uses all its tricks, and while it’s not quite as strong as the original it finds a more urgent, frantic approach that gives it its own voice. And there is “In Your Eyes” - a strong contender for Gabriel’s greatest moment overall. It’s so serene it’s downright disarming and so uplifting that it soothes the soul, Gabriel pleading and praising with such a vulnerable tone that it feels like he’s tapping into some sort of universal connection.

The experimental tone of PG III and IV has largely been pushed to the sidelines, relegated to two songs near the end. Out of these, “We Do What We’re Told” is a bit of a non-event: it’s an effectively atmospheric mantra with a more soundtrack-like feel but its mood isn’t particularly engaging or haunting despite its best wishes, and what you’re left with is the album abruptly slamming down the brakes to hear Gabriel and backing vocalists repeat a few lines over and over again. Gabriel did a lot of soundtrack work across the 1980s and “We Do What We’re Told” feels like a remnant. “This Is the Picture” fares far, far better. So largely defines Gabriel in the 1980s but he kept himself busy dropping a scattering of random songs across various compilations and, yes, soundtracks throughout the decade. These songs had a more neurotic groove to them and “This Is the Picture” falls along that line as it finds Gabriel and Laurie Anderson (the album’s second major guest vocal) trade lines atop a twitching, minimalistic groove that keeps rebuilding itself. It’s still highly at odds with the rest of So, but “We Do What We’re Told” smoothes its entrance (so I guess that’s why it’s there) and the song itself is downright hypnotic: over time it’s become a strange personal favourite that I never quite acknowledge when thinking about the album but find myself entranced by when it does eventually appear.

Where most of his fellow 70s rock figureheads lost themselves in the 1980s, So is, in my opinion, where Peter Gabriel really found himself - where his solo discography really comes to life. That’s not a knock on his previous albums by any means because they are all good (okay, maybe not PG II), but they were audibly restricted by their era’s limitations, particularly as Gabriel got more adventurous. Starting from So, Gabriel finally had the means to reach the full extent of his visions. In no way is sound ever more important than the actual songcraft, but as said before Gabriel is just as much a producer as he is a writer: that rich, highly-detailed and carefully thought-out sound is an integral part of how his songwriting comes to life. And you can hear the difference: So is full of life, ideas and evocative moments of absolute musical genius. At its best moments it radiates a grand sense of wide-eyed wonder that joyously raises the hair on your back with excitement. So is comfortably not only one of Gabriel’s very best, but a landmark album of the 1980s in general.

One final note regarding the tracklist. The original running order in 1986 was compromised by the limitations of the vinyl format and there are probably a number of people to whom it’s more natural that “In Your Eyes” is in the middle of the album. Gabriel fixed this with all subsequent re-releases and it’s honestly such an improvement that the original running order is plain insulting. The two off-beat tracks do not make a convincing closer and the album finishing with “In Your Eyes” is a natural climax point, given both the song’s emotional resonance as well as how it musically builds into an epic finale. It’s one of the best examples of retroactive tracklist amendment, and no one should need to go through the original sequencing anymore.

Rating: 9/10

Peter Gabriel - Passion: Music for The Last Temptation of Christ (1989)

1) The Feeling Begins; 2) Gethsemane; 3) Of These, Hope; 4) Lazarus Raised; 5) Of These, Hope (Reprise); 6) In Doubt; 7) A Different Drum; 8) Zaar; 9) Troubled; 10) Open; 11) Before Night Falls; 12) With This Love; 13) Sandstorm; 14) Stigmata; 15) Passion; 16) With This Love (Choir); 17) Wall of Breath; 18) The Promise of Shadows; 19) Disturbed; 20) It Is Accomplished; 21) Bread and Wine

Arguably the most prominent display of Gabriel's love for regional world music. The usual film soundtrack caveats apply, but Gabriel at the very least does something unique here in terms of scores.

Key tracks: "Of These, Hope", "A Different Drum", "With This Love"

At one point I made it a point that absolutely, definitely had to own everything officially released by any artist I liked. I’ve long since relaxed my rules, but that period of joyous collection with abandon has led me to some potentially inspiring purchases like this album: a soundtrack to a film I’ve never seen, performed in a style intentionally different to usual sound of the artist.

Passion was Peter Gabriel’s second soundtrack, recorded for Martin Scorcese’s The Last Temptation of Christ, and it was the first to comprise of fully original work (the prior soundtrack to Birdy extensively sampled Gabriel’s past solo albums). As a project it’s incredibly more ambitious than anything Gabriel had done before. The Last Temptation of the Christ is obviously biblical as per its name and Gabriel decided that the score should match its context: using it as a launching pad for his endeavours to raise the profile of world music, he utilised local musicians and area/era-appropriate instruments as much as possible and incorporated melodies and rhythms from local folk songs and hymns into the music. The modern touch is there with Gabriel’s favoured synthesizers showcasing their signature sound across the disc and his regular band members make appearances throughout, but all the modern instruments contribute more to background texture than melody. Passion, in addition, goes further than just the film – the soundtrack was released months later after extensive reworking by Gabriel to expand on the themes he had scored for the film and to make it a more powerful standalone experience. It has the feel of a passion project (appropriately) for Gabriel that he found a change to indulge in with the soundtrack request: that he backed it up with a companion album highlighting the folk music of the region that served as the inspiration says as much. As far as Hollywood film scores go, Passion is quite unique.

It’s still a film score, though. Film scores, perhaps more than any other type of soundtrack, are made to be hidden in the background, to underline rather than stand out. Gabriel continuing to expand these tracks bears little effect on this apart from a few obvious cases like “A Different Drum” which utilises (wordless) vocals so heavily that it would come across distracting in the film. Whether it does, I don’t know – I still haven’t seen the film, and given I’m not much of a film buff it’s unlikely I will either. That obviously means I lack the context that might be necessary to really unlock the power of the music: the knowledge of the scenes and events they were meant to emphasise, which would then in turn make the music more impactful. But if Gabriel wanted to make this an album more fit for standalone consumption, it’s not particularly great at it outside a few given moments: the powerful “A Different Drum” (which features Gabriel himself the most), the eerie “Of These, Hope” (and in particular its reprise), the triumphant “It Is Accomplished” (which wouldn’t need a lot of extra work to turn into a ‘real’ Gabriel anthem) and “With This Love”, which hosts the most beautiful melody of the album. Most of the album ends up blending together rather more non-descriptively: it’s all excellently atmospheric and mood-setting, but bereft of stand-out moments.

That mood is Passion’s greatest feat. It’s an album with a wonderful soundscape: the atmospheric synthesizer work mingling with the traditional instruments, often gorgeous and haunting on their own, is an enchanting combination. Gabriel’s also a masterful arranger who knows how to utilise rich instrumentations and this is another showcase for his knack. There is a lot to enjoy and admire in Passion’s sound and the 2002 remaster I own further highlights it: like all of the albums in Gabriel’s remaster series at the time, the sound has been updated into pristine perfection. Still, even with its aural charms it doesn’t feel as rewarding as it probably should when looking at the parts it does well. It sounds good but it doesn’t grip, and that’s something I look for in soundtracks when outside their primary context. In conclusion, it is perhaps an album that highlights its creator’s skills than it is one for active listening.

Rating: 6/10