The Hall of Fantastically Fine Things

      Introduction Interestingly, my review of Let's Go Eat The Factory provoked the most divisive comments that I've seen so far. Not particularly regarding my review itself, but opinion seemed very polarised about the 'reunion' albums. 'All reunion records belong at the very bottom of the rankings,' commented Matthew M Leclaire on the Facebook group. On the other hand, Rob Shepherd averred that, 'For me, the 6 album run that starts here is absolute perfection.' I am - for now - keeping myself distant from the context of the band's history, so I'm not fully cogniscent of the reasons for these strong views. My approach is, as Matt Harnish noted, to '[go] in  with no expectations whatsoever and just listen.' As noted in the previous post, we're rapidly approaching the end of the LPs that I've had on rotation; as a result, this was another that I didn't know that well before settling down to give it a focused listen... The Alb...

     Introduction We are edging ever closer to the albums that I haven't, as yet, listened to. But we still have four to go, so this is still one that has been part my evolving whole-album / sequences of LPs rotations. However, as it's close to the end of where I've got up to, it's not one that I've listened to extensively before doing this post. I have made a point of not doing any research as to the context of any of these releases. For now, I am focusing on listening to them with a 'pure' focus-on-the-music-only approach. That said, I can't help but notice that - after seventeen years of at least an album every two years - there's an eight year gap between  Let's Go Eat the Factory and  Half Smiles Of The Decomposed . I'm sure there's a bit of a story there... The Album Unthinkable / undrinkable What's immediately apparent is that  Let's Go Eat the Factory is a significant departure from the sound of (most of) the late 90s - e...

    Introduction As I spent the first half of this year almost exclusively listening to whole GBV albums (or chronological sequences of them) on a loop, this was one of those that, l ike  Earthquake Glue , seemed at least reasonably strong without actually leaping out at me. One of the joys of doing this blog is taking a deep dive and seeing how each LP stacks up against the others... The Album A wash of warm, gentle chords Yet again (for the fifth time in a row), the album commences with a cracker. ' Everybody Thinks I'm A Raincloud (When I'm Not Looking)' is a driven piece of carefully controlled riffing overlaid with an uplifting melody. There's a bit of philosophical introspection (' I crept from a soft dimension / w here one of my souls was lighter'), but overall there's an optimistic, forward-looking tone to the lyric (' every change of tomorrow...  hungry to fix it... a miracle cure for my sorrow') that's perfectly in tune with the inv...

   Introduction As I've mentioned several times previously, my listening habits re GBV have, over the last few months, involved listening to both individual albums and sequential 'chunks' of the back catalogue (as far as English Little League ). Doing this, some albums (including, inevitably, Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes ) immediately stood out as strong pieces of work. Others ( Vampire On Titus springs to mind) took a little work to get into.  Earthquake Glue  was not one of those that immediately leapt out at me. However, although it isn't perhaps absolutely top drawer, it's been a very rewarding experience to have it on heavy rotation over the last couple of weeks. The Album You can ride on my shoulders As has been the case with the last three albums (as well as several others), Earthquake Glue  hits the ground running with a strong opener. 'My Kind of Soldier' has a driving yet calm intensity, the vocal floating languidly over a bed of urgent strummi...

  Introduction After the unsteady dip of Do The Collapse , Isolation Drills felt like a breath of fresh air. Would Universal Truths And Cycles continue the upward trajectory? Well, on my listening journey so far (everything up to English Little League ) it was an album that had come across as solidly strong, if perhaps a little lacking in breath-taking highlights. So I was interested to see if a detailed perusal would elevate it beyond that... The Album Gumming the fun tunnel Album opener 'Wire Greyhounds' sees me revisiting the 'hits the ground running' cliché, as it's an admirable burst of concise, focused, melodic energy. There's an echo of the mid-90s in its brutally truncated brevity, but we're still in crisp, punchy production territory. Lyrically, it has an amusingly self-reverential air, the enigmatic ' Breath woman captures a ghost / b lurring sweat heads eat noodlestuff' being followed by an instruction to 's it up and beg f or slive...

  Introduction Reactions to my previous post about Do The Collapse were interesting: a lot of agreement with my take on the album, but also a few who rate it more highly than I did. In addition, several people pointed me in the direction of apparently far superior demo versions - which I will get to in due course; but for the moment I am firmly locked onto a 'doing the studio albums with no tangential distractions' course. Anyway, moving on... Despite my well-established level of ignorance, I am aware that Isolation Drills is a generally well-regarded album. And it didn't disappoint. The Album A lot of leg rubbing 'Hits the ground running' is a bit of a lazy cliché, but opener 'Fair Touching' is an undoubted cracker for which that clich é  is entirely appropriate. An infectious, REM-ish gallop, it's bouncy and exuberant but also tautly focused with a hint of melancholy. It's one of those songs that you can't help but fall in love with: it wel...