The Ark - We Are the Ark (2000)

1) Hey Modern Days; 2) Echo Chamber; 3) Joy Surrender; 4) It Takes a Fool to Remain Sane; 5) Ain't Too Proud to Bow; 6) Bottleneck Barbiturate; 7) Let Your Body Decide; 8) Patchouli; 9) This Sad Bouquet; 10) Angelheads; 11) Laurel Wreath; 12) You, Who Stole My Solitude

A flamboyant and confident debut, both bolstered and perhaps overshadowed by the inclusion of one truly immortal song. 

Key tracks: "Hey Modern Days", "Joy Surrender", "It Takes a Fool to Remain Sane"

I don’t like to generalise but I think all of us gay folks (and presumably all non-straight and/or non-cis folks for that matter) end up doing a fair bit of amateur self-psychoanalysis sooner or later in our lives: what were the first signs that we felt different from our peers, when did we feel at odds when comparing to the expected, et cetera. In general I was a late bloomer when it came to dealing with that whole subject properly, but the sudden arrival of The Ark in the early 2000s was probably the first time the topic appeared as a blip on my radar. Their colourful music scored a fair few significant airplay hits at a time when mainstream popularity was the only real way for me to discover new music and I found myself drawn into those songs, but they came with flamboyant performances and frontman Ola Salo’s playfully provocative theatrics, and thus the band were deemed - in the most elementary grade school way possible - gay, and that wasn’t cool to like. I was a nerdy and not particularly outgoing kid in a small city with a very small friends circle and so I was always paranoid about losing what little social interaction I had, and liking The Ark became something I was very cautious to admit: I sheepishly bought the “It Takes a Fool to Remain Sane” single in the first instance so as not to commit myself wholly to the band by way of owning a whole album, because I felt like I needed to have that song around me. I wasn’t exactly fluent in English but knew it far better than most kids my age (thanks PC games!), and even with my limited knowledge of the language there was something in that song that resonated.

Every morning I would see her getting off the bus
The picture never drops, it's like a multicolored snapshot
Stuck in my brain, it kept me sane
For a couple of years, as it drenched my fears
Of becoming like the others
Who become unhappy mothers
And fathers of unhappy kids
And why is that?
'Cause they've forgotten how to play
Or maybe they're afraid to feel ashamed
To seem strange
To seem insane
To gain weight, to seem gay
I'll tell you this:
That it takes a fool to remain sane
In this world all covered up in shame

That’s a hell of a verse, and even as a kid there was something in its proud defiance that spoke to me - and word-dropping “gay” into the whole thing and grabbing that particular subject head-on felt literally rebellious and smashing taboos. Yet in an unexplainable way it felt good and right to hear it, though the reason why wouldn’t properly click until some years later. But I obsessed over the song and to this date it’s very firmly in my pantheon of my favourite songs of all time: Salo’s fearsomely charismatic performance, that absolute killer of a chorus melody, the breathless run-on section demonstrated above where Salo breathlessly abandons all notion of where to split between the verse, bridge and the chorus, and that soaring, triumphant chorus itself where it feels like the world genuinely has no boundaries. They all coalesce into a genuinely life-affirming, resonant and thoroughly evocative anthem: a monster of a pop song. 

 

Nothing on We Are The Ark threatens to top "It Takes a Fool to Remain Sane", but the same qualities that make that song so great are still represented throughout the record. In the five years between their debut EP and this record, The Ark had somehow transformed from a group of borderline sullen goths into a gang of endlessly energetic ambassadors of glam rock throwbacks, and they roll in with the fervour of a band reborn and grasping everything precious about their new life: so much of the record is so positively boisterous and aspirationally joyous. The credit to a lot of it goes to Salo, who even this early on was already scouting for a slot in the halls of all-time great frontmen, with his voice and performance radiating with charisma and sheer, complete command of his audience with every wink of the eye or uttered sentence. There's a charm and a quirk to his lyrics as well that helps make him so engaging. I once read them described as incredibly obviously written by someone not native to the language, not because of grammatical errors but because they exhibit a kind of outside-the-box thinking that's definitely not natural but effective exactly because of it: just take a look at the tongue-twister chorus of "Hey Modern Days", the opener that kicks down the doors and writes the ruleset for the rest of the record to follow, from the extravagant whimsy to the sheer strength of the melodies. He's just as memorable when he's more direct as well: "Let Your Body Decide" is the album's definitive "love yourself regardless of who you are" anthem among many but Salo makes the honesty in the message work, and the swirling, moody closer "You, Who Stole My Solitude" is possibly the only song about love I've come across where the narrator is downright angry about finding someone and falling in love ("did you expect a love song?", Salo coyly winks at the camera at the end of the second verse). He's not necessarily a consistently incredible lyricist but he has a language of his own, and it makes a good part of why The Ark were so exciting.

It's worth emphasising the musical aspect of the record as well, as it's the richness of the melodies that makes We Are The Ark such an exciting album, particularly as a debut. The Ark's glam-influenced pop/rock is the kind of thing that aims to be instant by nature, and when you opt to go down that route you have to go in for the kill when it comes to your choruses, harmonies et al. So, they do. With debuts there's often a great temptation to talk about confidence and ambition, of a band wishing to take on the world and proving why their name should be the one to remember. That's certainly the ethos behind We Are The Ark, where each of the songs exist as one big hook in the best possible way, in that the arrangements and melodies genuinely grab: they're genuinely thrilling in a way that plants a smile across one's face through the sheer power of how well those elements are crafted or how they are presented. They make an instant impression and it's almost show-off-y in how The Ark approach that aspect of their writing. That's even the case for the weaker tracks. "Echo Chamber" kind of goes nowhere, "Ain't Too Proud to Bow" is a sass anthem that only really kicks in once the duelling guitar solo begins and leads into the final blown-up chorus where the song stops being a little flat, and "Patchouli" is almost obnoxiously upbeat in its hippy-dippy sunshine handclaps and sax, and yet they still get under my skin and I can groove to them quite willingly. The reason why I don't think as highly of them is because they come across less developed than the other songs: they lack the sense of dynamics and a level of depth the rest of the album has. Salo's still magnificent as always, but a few times around the record it feels like the band as a whole are almost holding themselves back, lest they get too wild. Maybe it's because there was still some element of figuring out what they should be even after a nearly a decade of musical soul-searching, but you compare the incredibly confident takes like "It Takes a Fool to Remain Sane" or the dangerous disco swerve of "Let Your Body Decide" that keep you in their grip firmly throughout and compare to them how "Echo Chamber" and "Patchouli" meander through their verses until they get some jolt of life in their chorus, and you can practically feel yourself swaying to avoid falling into the gap between.

Which leads me to tackling the big question of how this hasn't become the kind of favourite-of-all-time, perfect score record you'd expect given its pivotal role in making me question the world around me, and it's honestly because the album as a whole arrived a little late to the party. I finally got hold of the full album a few years later after hearing and buying "It Takes a Fool to Remain Sane", once my friends and I had grown up by a few years and the diversity in music tastes between us had started to show, and it became clear to me that it was perfectly OK to like things that your friends might not. By the time I finally did get around to hearing We Are The Ark in full, they'd already followed it up with 2002's In Lust We Trust and I bought both albums at the same time, and simply from a compositional point of view that older sibling is above and beyond the debut, and Salo gets downright brilliant lyrically in it. That doesn't make We Are The Ark any weaker per se, and I still haven't even mentioned some of my other big favourites (so I'm cramming them here) such as the dramatic "Joy Surrender" with its angelic walls of sound, the flamboyant and parading "Angelheads" that brings a burst of light into the slightly more downtoned latter half of the record, and the genuinely beautiful "This Sad Bouquet" which shows the band can pull off quiet and intimate if they want to. But In Lust We Trust ended up overshadowing We Are The Ark at the time of purchase and "It Takes a Fool to Remain Sane" is an outlier on the album in how strongly it connected with me as a music listener and as a human being, compared to the other songs. Outside that, We Are The Ark is absolutely a great record, and when I simply want some larger-than-life pop songs performed by an extravagant gentleman, this is where I turn for such. At its best makes you feel completeley invincible as you stand on top of the world.

Rating: 8/10

Physical corner: Jewel case, liner notes in glossy(!) paper. Lyrics and pictures of all band members, photo manipulated to the point they have an uncanny valley real doll look to them. Salo gets the whole centrefold for himself, of course.

The Ark - The Ark EP (1996)

1) Racing With the Rabbits; 2) I Laid It Down; 3) Cracked Messiah; 4) Od Slatrom Ekil

More grim than glam: mystical ramblings and loud guitar walls. The Ark, before they realised who The Ark were. 

Key tracks: "Racing With the Rabbits", "I Laid It Down"

The thing to note about The Ark's debut EP (officially self-titled but I've heard this being referred to as Racing With the Rabbits EP too) is that this is a very different band to the one that would finally break through under the same name - after all, the EP was released four years before the debut album, and The Ark themselves had existed for a good few years before the EP was recorded. Instead of glittery glam rock and witty lyrics with a sharp tongue, the overall feel here is something more cryptic, noisier on the guitar and occasionally even veering towards dark and heavy. You can still recognise The Ark through the cracks, mostly thanks to Ola Salo's voice, but there's quite a distance between this and their eventual debut album We Are The Ark. That's something to consider when approaching the EP - I felt very cold towards this when I initially came across it due to my expectations being somewhere completely different, but as soon as you can shake that off you can very well enjoy the EP for what it is: a decent four-set song.

The first two tracks are the most Ark-like. "Racing with the Rabbits" starts like a creepy children's lullaby thanks to its recorder intro and Salo's downtone singing, but it turns into an almost-jubilant cascade of choruses the closer the track gets to its end, and you can start to hear the reach for the skies that would become emblematic for them once the band properly got going. It leads onto "I Laid It Down", which is the closest to The Ark you know (and love?) out of the four cuts, and might have even fit one of the earlier albums had it been polished further. The choral "Oppular!" chants are even something close to fun, which stands out in an otherwise quite po-faced release. They're also, perhaps not coincidentally, the best part of this EP. They're rough but there's enough real quality pushing through: a still struggling band starting to catch onto what they're actually good at.

The course correction hasn't yet quite started to crack on the second half of the EP, and it's this section where the ugly duckling reputation of this release comes from. "Cracked Messiah" is the first lyrical tease of the general territory where Salo and the band would make their home in, as opposed to the cryptic babbling and mythological references of the rest of the release, but musically its hard rock inspirations come across misguided at best, and the dark, murky atmosphere and the heavier breakdowns aren't all that well executed. The final track, "Od Slatrom Ekil" closes the EP on a more distinctive even if still not particularly remarkable fashion, mismashing ideas and elements from the rest of the EP and stretching the concoction to ten minutes, which is about six minutes too many for what it actually offers. I'm a sucker for an epic finale but "Od Slatrom Ekil" tries too hard to be one and just gets monotonous.

It's still quite interesting to listen to this in retrospect, but like many debut EPs its place is in the curio box aimed solely for the fans, and even that comes with reservations given how distinct it is from what anyone would actually consider The Ark's signature sound. And that's not rare, bands quite frequently evolve their sound from their very start to even when they get to a proper studio for the first time, but most of the time there's a clear line between the distant end points. This EP on the other hand is fascinating simply because of how distinctly different it is, even when you can hear some of the same DNA bubbling through. It doesn't excuse half the EP from being rather bland, no matter how hard the band try to sound mystical and artsy, and I honestly wouldn't go out of one's way to seek this out unless you’re a real enthusiast. I would absolutely love to have witnessed this particular evolution in real time when it happened, though - there's got to be some very interesting stylistic experiments in the four years between this and the debut.

Rating: 5/10

Physical corner: Slim jewel case, lyrics hidden in the inlay of the cover slip. Fairly basic fare, as expected from an early EP. I imagine my copy is a repress given I bought it from a fairly big online store rather than a collector's site, but I've not been able to track the exact issue given the catalog number seems to have remained the same.

Various Artists - Joulu pulkassa: 20 toisenlaista joululaulua (1998)

1) Juice Leskinen Slam - Me käymme joulun viettohon; 2) Hassisen Kone - On jouluyö nyt laulaa saa; 3) Aknestik - Oravan joulu; 4) Leevi & The Leavings - Jossain on kai vielä joulu; 5) Pauli Hanhiniemi & Normaalijätkät - Tavaratalon ikkuna; 6) Sanna ja Lapset - Voitko vaari vilkuttaa; 7) M.A. Numminen - Joulupukki puree ja lyö; 8) Paula ja Rautsi - Purppurataivas; 9) Rinneradio - Jouluyö, juhlayö; 10) Juice Leskinen Slam - Sika; 11) Hanoi Rocks - Dead by X-Mas; 12) Eppu Normaali - Heinillä härkien kaukalon; 13) Ne Luupojat Surf - Kaikki uskoo joulupukkiin; 14) Yö - Joulu ominpäin; 15) Limonadi Elohopea - Jos sul' on jouluna märkä tyyny; 16) Jussi Hakulinen - Joulu avaruudessa; 17) Lotta Riepu - Sian leuka; 18) Juliet Jonesin Sydän - Silti joulu jaksaa naurattaa; 19) Inkvisitio - Joulupukki tepsuttaa; 20) Trio Töykeät - En etsi valtaa loistoa (feat. Pekka Kuusisto)

The old school class of Finnish alternative rock music celebrating Christmas in their own, curious ways. "20 Christmas songs of a different kind".

Key tracks: Aknestik - "Oravan joulu", Leevi & The Leavings - "Jossain on kai vielä joulu", Hanoi Rocks - "Dead by X-Mas"

This compilation is where my fascination for non-standard Christmas music starts from. My dad bought this album around the time it came out and he got a kick out of playing it when my mom just wanted to listen to classic Christmas songs. Most of the compilation flew over my head when I was a little kid, but I loved listening to it simply because when I did get it, it was speaking about Christmas in a wholly different way than I was used to - a little more cheeky and a lot more rock and roll. These days I get almost obsessively excited whenever artists I like release Christmas songs or even whole EPs/albums, and while it's my combined love for both music and Christmas that's the main reason for it, this collection served as a catalyst by showing that it's not all holly-jolly standards.

Joulu pulkassa, subtitled "20 Christmas songs of a different kind", is a compilation of Christmas songs - both originals and covers of Finnish standards - from the 80s and 90s released by the legendary Finnish label Poko Records, one of the major names that defined what Finnish alternative and independent rock scene sounded like in the late 1970s and 1980s. The artist list is a selection of various iconic names of the early Finnish alternative scene, with a few unknowns thrown in the mix for good measure, and most of the artists featured are famous for being more or less irreverent or anarchistic in their own myriad of ways. With song titles such as "Santa Claus Bites and Punches" and "If Your Pillow Is Wet on Christmas" and the CD artwork featuring a close up of the cartoon pig's head with a bullet hole where the CD hole is (the Finnish Christmas dinner is centered around a piece of ham rather than a turkey, get it), the overall tone is all very playfully edgy, in the kind of way that old-school Finnish side-of-the-road rock scene was. It's the kind of record where you can find a punk rock take on a Finnish hymnal classic that can be described as literally snotty ("Heinillä härkien kaukalon" by Eppu Normaali, before they became barfly karaoke fodder) and where the centerpiece of the collection is a sardonic ode to carnivorous joy of slaughtering a pig and finally tugging into it in detail after a year of fattening it up. That's "Sika" by Juice Leskinen Slam (the only artist who gets to have two goes on the tracklist; "Me käymme joulun viettohon" is a functional opener that sets up the expectations for the rest of the album), and for the adolescent me it was the record as far as I was concerned. My mom hated the song, but its attitude was so radically different and incredibly amusing compared to all other Christmas music I knew that it was the sole reason I wanted to listen to the album.

As an adult, having come back to the record with my own copy, it's been interesting to realise two things. One, that "Sika" isn't actually all that good and that it would probably work better if it were 50% shorter because the one good joke it has (the ridiculous tone, with the wonky organ and unenthusiastic choir) has grown stale by the time it starts its third verse-chorus loop with many more to come. Two, a lot of the album is surprisingly well-behaved. In-between the unruly schoolboy takes are various attempts at more genuine Christmas songs, just with a more rock and roll touch. Some even barely register as Christmas songs: "Oravan joulu" by Aknestik (with its typically Finn-depressed lyric) is just a really good, smooth guitar hit while "Purppurataivas" by Paula ja Rautsi is a 90s new age electronica cut through and through packed full with the cheesy earnestness that comes with the territory. Leevi & The Leavings did a whole bunch of Christmas songs during their career, some cheekier than others, and somehow it's their most honest and genuine one that's ended up here - and that's great, because "Jossain on kai vielä joulu" is my probably my favourite Finnish Christmas song, dressing up its big bright chorus with actual Yuletide magic in a heartwarmingly sappy, but not too earnest, fashion. The record also closes with a straightforward instrumental version of "En etsi valtaa loistoa", which has one of my favourite melodies in the canonical Finnish Christmas songbook, and it's a genuinely beautiful take on the song, full of warmth and peaceful quiet that's basically crack to a Christmas romantic like me. It sounds so out of place compared to everything before it, but at the same time there's something pleasant in closing a record of off-kilter Christmas songs with something more traditional, showing that by the end of the evening, even the bad boys are allowed to feel a little bit of the real Christmas spirit.

It is absolutely a mixed bag of a compilation though, with the twenty-song length overstuffing the stocking. Some songs are genuinely great, "Jossain on kai vielä joulu" and "Oravan joulu" (which has become a regular in my Christmas rotation after rediscovering it here) in particular, and there's also other unexpected triumphs - 80s hair theatrics do little for me but Hanoi Rocks' "Dead by X-Mas" almost steals the whole show here with its glam energy. But a good half of the tracklist is decent if unremarkable background music, with some parts that are nicer than others but which barely scan when reading the tracklist. There's also a few real clunkers - Yö are always painfully milquetoast and their contribution here is so aggressively bland I actually skip it, and while I have general respect for the legendary provocateur M.A. Numminen's career, I have very little time for most of his music and the impish "Joulupukki puree ja lyö" isn't an exception. I'm generally not a big fan of the particular old school gang of Finnish rock history that this collection - and Poko as a whole, to be honest - represents and if it wasn't for that personal Christmas connection I doubt I would have ever cared to seek out to hear most of the music here; the tracklist is full of instantly identifiable names for any Finn, but it's like a list of artists that leave me completely cold for a variety of reasons and who I mainly just associate with boomer bars and generic 'Suomirock' radio stations, with a few exceptions. That definitely affects how replayable this actually is. That said, I also feel harsh about possibly underselling this: the amount of songs I like do to one degree or another outweigh the ones I genuinely could not care less about, and if you catch me in the right seasonal spirit, I'll be jamming along to this contentedly while wrapping presents or decorating my home or other festive chores. It's one of the few albums I own where the skip button gets used quite liberally to get to the parts I genuinely enjoy.

My biggest takeaway from Joulu pulkassa is, surprisingly, how little nostalgia I have for it. There is obviously some there, and particularly as someone currently living abroad, listening to Christmas music in my original tongue gives surprisingly fuzzy feelings. And yet, I have very little actual resonance or personal touchpoint with this record beyond some fuzzy memories, and I am suspecting I'm the one to blame for that - it wasn't until I obtained my own copy that I realised just how much I ignored the rest of the album in favour of - sigh - "Sika". Joulu pulkassa does make for an interesting time capsule of a record, but its place in my shelf is ultimately because of its (admittedly diminished) place in personal music history rather than because of my actual affection for most of the music within. 

Rating: 6/10

Kent - Isola (1997)

1) Livräddären; 2) Om du var här; 3) Saker man ser; 4) Oprofessionel; 5) OWC; 6) Celsius; 7) Bianca; 8) Innan allting tar slut; 9) Elvis; 10) Glider; 11) 747

The first real Kent album. Moody guitars, walls of sound and classic anthems.

Key tracks: "Livräddären", "Saker man ser", "747"

In the liner notes for the box set Box 1991-2008, frontman Jocke Berg describes Isola as Kent's "first real album". It's an accurate nutshell of a description. Kent's first two records were a decent introduction and Verkligen in particular already had some genuinely great parts to its name, but both were rushed out by a band who were still learning. By the time the Isola sessions started, Kent had the experience to start expanding their horizons and they were more in tune of what worked and what didn't. In a more practical fashion, the surprise success of the last record had granted the band a proper studio budget and their new record ended up being produced by Zed, who'd click with the band so well he'd become a regular fixture with the group for a good while. Those same liner notes also mention that the band’s general line of thought at the time was that it was perfectly fine to be ambitious and to treat the band as something with a real future, instead of sticking to some pre-conceived notion of being a scruffy grassroots indie band forever. So, with the options available to them and with the sense of progress they themselves felt they had made, Kent decided to transform themselves into what they fantasised they could be. It worked.

Kent's sound until now had been indebted to the particularly melancholy strain of 90s Britrock, which itself was in the process of transitioning from the swooping Britpop-era anthems into the anxiety of the OK Computer-driven end years of the decade, and Isola tapped into the sweet Venn diagram spot right between the two: there's strings and there's hope as the band build themselves louder with each chorus, but a tinge of Scandinavian sadness trails underneath it all. That particular concoction clicked with the general public. For the benefit of the non-Nordics in the audience, it's perhaps important to note that Isola was a big album. The lead single "Om du var här" was almost omnipresent in Finland, and I can't even imagine how huge it must have been in Kent's native Sweden - it's a big, dramatic, string-laden angst anthem that sounds custom built for purpose to serve as an introductionary statement, that the scrawny punks of the first two albums had grown up. It lead Isola towards the charts and accolades across Northern Europe - so much so that Kent becoming a true international act could have been a real possibility. 

(As a matter of a fact, a re-recorded version of Isola sung entirely in English does exist, in an attempt to break the language barrier and reach the Anglosphere audiences; but the clunkily translated and pronounced attempt didn't quite work, and so Isola remained a Scandinavian success story.)

I don't mean to imply that chart success equals greatness, but sometimes - particularly with albums of this kind in this era of music - it can act as a kind of vindication, that all the hard work finally pays off with good reason. Isola is exactly that: the underdogs snagging the trophy. The reason it took off is because it harnessed all the latent talent Kent had that was almost bursting, and in doing so the band proved what had been hinted at on the first two albums: that Kent were actually a legitimately great band with some serious songwriting talent within, and it was now becoming too obvious to ignore. Isola doesn't stray away from the first two albums as much as it completes the gradual evolution from the beginning to now, perfecting the formula that the band rode on for in their early years - loud guitar walls, a strong sense of melody, and an emotional impact booming through Jocke Berg's slurring voice which has come leaps and bounds since he first got in front of the microhpone. The guitars crunch more, the choruses soar wider and the emotions climb higher - this is what the first two albums promised but didn't quite deliver.

Kent letting go of the fear of ambition also leads to some new winds blowing through Isola's covers, namely in its wider arrangements. Isola marks the moment where Kent begin to introduce new elements to their sound and moving beyond their standard rock band setup; with baby steps, but drawing a clear line nonetheless. The vulnerable late-night ballad “OWC” is dominated by piano rather than the familiar guitars, and the ethereal "Innan allting tar slut" is drowned in soft drum machines and keyboard textures, which fit perfectly into Kent's moody soundscapes; and where the slow songs used to be the band’s weakness, here they’re downright standouts, these two in particular. Elsewhere the expanded sounds can simply mean some additional strings (special mention to the stellar sweeping ending to “Oprofessionel”) or taking full advantage of the once-again quintet’s ability to wield three guitars at once if they want to, leading to the shimmering “Celsius” which has just about as many lead guitar parts as it has players. When they do just want to rock, there’s a dynamic confidence that wasn’t there before, from the driving rhythmic flow of “Bianca” to the incredible opening salvo of the crushingly loud "Livräddären", the timelessly undeniable rock and roll force of “ Om du var här” and the gently wistful 90s alt rock perfection of "Saker man ser". Of these, “Livräddären” and “Saker man ser” are in particular the most perfect examples of what Kent aimed for in the 90s, and why they were so great at it.

While “ Om du var här” was the big calling card, the album’s actual signature song is its closer “747” - not just because of how close the album’s visual side is to the song, but because out of everything on the record nothing exemplifies the band’s new horizons as much as "747" does. It’s the natural climax point that the rest of the album builds up to both musically and through production, with a partly-programmed drum beat shuffling through a dreamy soundscape the likes of which just a year ago would have felt impossible for Kent to achieve. It's when Berg finishes his vocals roughly around a third of th way through when the song truly begins and lifts off towards its sunset ride ending, dovetailing into infinity with skyscraping guitars and textural, carefully introduced synthesized elements. "747" is a lot of things: a fantastic fireworks-accentuated closer which feels like the natural end point for everything that came before, the codification of the now-tradition to close off the album with a long epic, and and enduring classic song and a genuinely legendary piece of Kent’s discography. It's also a foreshadowing of things to come: if Isola is Kent’s first real album, then the synthesis of sounds of “747” is the arrow sign pointing towards the group's future, and even now you can practically feel the pieces magically clicking into place when you listen to it. 

Kent would go on to make greater records than Isola as they followed their new ambition and instincts further, growing into a widely talented band while perhaps coincidentally moving away from the straightforward guitar sound that they started with. That doesn't diminish the strengths of Isola and if anything it's a testament to its quality that it still sounds vital for the band. In fact, arguably it's the company that it keeps that highlights its accomplishments. If we are perfectly honest the first two albums aren’t exactly the kind of start that leaves you in awe of a new band, and on their next record Kent would arguably dial their new tones up a little too much - which means that Isola stands as the sole balanced part of this first chapter of Kent’s career. It’s the strongest representative of who they were at this stage: a group of young guys who had started to dream big, who had a love for atmospheric guitars and with an almost romantic penchant for melancholy. They inhabit that space excellently, as Isola proves.

Rating: 8/10

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