Wow. Just wow.

When an album starts on a track as powerful as Summer Overture, before going on to spin and re-spin the central motif of that work in Hope Overture, Cleaning Apartment and Lux Aerterna , you know you're listening to something of immense quality.

The emotional decent from Summer, through Fall to Winter is palpable as the haunting music takes on an ever-darker edge. Even on Bialy & Lox Conga it is clear any notions of happiness are purely ironic.

Seriously wonderful stuff, if you're going to buy a film soundtrack make it either this or Trois Couleurs Bleu.

Beastie Boys - Licensed To Ill

RATM - RATM

both albums are awesome, i'll be listening to these plus a few others a lot over the next few weeks i suspect

Tracklist:

1. Smells Like Teen Spirit
2. In Bloom
3. Come As You Are
4. Breed
5. Lithium
6. Polly
7. Territorial Pissings
8. Drain You
9. Lounge Act
10. Stay Away
11. On A Plain
12. Something In The Way

What a brilliant piece of aural art! Certainly one of the best albums i've heard in a long time (i really wonder where it's been all my life). Opening on the anthemic Teen Spirit the album rarely drops below the level of the sublime, a call to a generation or justa great piece of grunge rock it's timeless stuff from start to finish. I've listened to it alot over the last week and it hasn't yet dropped in interest. The way the musical arrangements weigh off against the vocals, the song-writing itself - there are at least 5 tracks on this album that should be #1s.

10/10

For what it's worth, In Bloom is my favourite track - it seems to sum up the last 10 years of my life ("he likes to sing along... but he dont know what it means")

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Tracklist:

1. Cygnus...Vismund Cygnus: A. Sarcophagi/B. Umbilical Syllables/C. Facilis Descenus Averni/D. Con Safo
2. The Widow
3. L'Via L'Viaquez
4. Miranda That Ghost Just Isn't Holy Anymore: A. Vade Mecum/B. Pour Another Icepick/C. Pisacis (Phra-Men-Ma)/D. Con Safo
5. Cassandra Geminni: A. Tarantism
6. Cassandra Geminni: B. Plant A Nail In The Navel Stream
7. Cassandra Geminni: C. Faminepulse
8. Cassandra Geminni: D. Multiple Spouse Wounds
9. Untitled
10. Cassandra Geminni: E. Sarcophagi
11. Cassandra Geminni: E. Sarcophagi
12. Cygnus...Vismund Cygnus: A. Sarcophagi

A huge improvement from the Mars Volta over their debut, far less chaotic with a distinct flow of consciousness that ebs and flows through the album's subtext. The experimental electronica merges much more seamlessly with progressive guitar arpeggios and rock drumming this time round as the all-embracing nature of the work bursts forth from every note. There are tracks on the album, but no breaks, thus enhancing the organic ever-evolving nature of the music that finds its roots firmly routed in improvisational jazz - whilst embracing influences from afro-carribean and a host of other rhythms. I really like this album, the best track being The Widow.

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Tracklist:

1. Son Et Lumiere
2. Inertiatic Esp
3. Roulette Dares (The Haunt Of)
4. Tira Me A Las Aranas
5. Drunkship Of Lanterns
6. Eriatarka
7. Cicatriz Esp
8. The Apparatus Must Be Unearthed
9. Televators
10. Take The Veil Cerpin Taxt

This debut album announces the presence of Mars Volta on the experimental prog' rock scene amidst a cacophony of noise, feedback, samples and electric guitar playing (and a little bit of background thrash drumming). I can't say any of the songs stand out, but each has its moments. The lyrics, delivered in the pained scream particular to the genre, are about everything and nothing - not as prophetic or poetic as some of the great rock bands have written... on a par with Muse i guess. In fact, the album sounds a lot like a Muse/Placebo colaboration - so if you like either of those two bands you might like this. The indivuals of the group sem at home on their instruments but for me it is on tracks like Cicatriz Esp when they dissapear into bizarre elctromnic samples that the experimental sound is at its' most interesting (if not its most exciting).

Not a "great" album by any stretch, but a diverting one that makes for background music that's a little different whilst bolging.

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Tracklist:

1. In
2. I Am The Sun
3. She Lives
4. Celebrity Lifestyle
5. Mother/Father
6. Blood Promise
7. Mind/Body/Light/Sound
8. My Buried Child
9. Warm
10. Alcohol The Seed
11. Killing For Company
12. Mother's Milk
13. Where Does A Body End?
14. Telepathy
15. The Great Annihilator
16. Out
17. I Am The Sun (Live At The Flesh Club)

A brilliant album, albeit one that takes awhile to really get into. Swans are known for loudness and deepness - at some gigs auddience members have left bleeding from the ears such was the volume of the performance. This album hasn't been recorded any louder than any other, but it does have a very deep, misanthropic heart to it. The vocals descending to a pessimistic drawl amidst bass-heavy percusve rhythms and acoustic guitar sounds, plus a few synthesised sound samples for good measure. Aside from the mood of the album though, the lyrics are brilliant, and - helpfully - are all included in the sleeve.

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Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennae To Heaven

Tracklist

Disc 1
1. Storm
2. Static

Disc 2
3. Sleep
4. Antennas to Heaven

Describing the music of Godspeed You Black Emperor! is like describing irony to someone who's unfamiliar with the concept - i'm not saying their music is ironic, just that it's very difficult to get across in words what they sound like. There are only 4 tracks on the 2-CD album which is odd for a start - each track is about 20 minutes long, and within each track there are many peaks, troughs, crescendoes, fades in and out, shifts in tempo etc etc. It's not like a classical symphony. A symphony has distinct movements, but each track on this album contains so many internal variations that to describe the whole as distinct from the other track on the disc isn't quite true. Symhpnies dont usually involve feedback, electronic tape loops and electric guitar plus a 5-piece (i dont think it's 8) drum kit, which this album does. However, the organic nature of the music (actually, feeling is a better description) is routed solely in the classic training of the musicians. Cello, violin asa well as the odd other orchestral instrument make an appearance yet somehow they never jar [unintentionally] with any other part of the group.

The album itself is simply exquisite. Storm is a wonderful opener that gives the listener an idea of what is to come on thalbum, whilst containing many of its own stirring crescendoes. Fading into the eclectic Static - a veritavble cornucopia of background noise, electronic samples, loops and mixes - you're left wondering where the album can go seeing as it never even contemplates whether it should fit into one specific genre.

Sleep is beyond words. A man tells us about his time as a youngster sleeping at the Coney Island fair before violins come in. ON top of the violins and then cellos comes a slight hint of guitar. Later the drums kick in. evey time you think the track has peaked and is fading out suddenly a new percussive hythm cuts across the music taking the whole thing in an entirely new and unpredicatble direction. Antennas to Heaven finishes off this astounding album impeccably, it's not as good as Storm or Sleep but after about an hour of the emotional rollercoaster this album presents it doesnt matter, thefact the track fits so snugly into the gap between Sleep and normal life is enough.

10/10

If you dont believe me on how fantastic this album is, just check the amazon reviews:

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Tracklist:

1. Blue Notebooks
2. On the Nature of Daylight
3. Horizon Variations
4. Shadow Journal
5. Vladmir's Blues
6. Arboretum
7. Old Song
8. Organum
9. Trees
10. Written on the Sky

Really there's not much to say about this album, that is amongst my favourites from my collection. Tilda Swinton occasionally narrating, an eclectic mix of classical composition and the avant garde sounds of Brian Eno. ON The Nature Of Daylight is one of the most beautiful, haunting string arrangements i've heard, overtly minimalist in structure a cello plays a motif over and over again whilst violins come in over the top with a melancholic tune. Horizon Variation demonstrates Richter's abilities to compose for piano, followed by the bass-heavy pulsating Shadow Journal. From hereon the labum never really slips to anything less than extraordinary - from Iconography's choir, the percusive Arboretum, to the ambience of Organum and more. Just brilliant from start to finish.

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Tracklist:

1. Planet Telex
2. The Bends
3. High & Dry
4. Fake Plastic Trees
5. Bones
6. (Nice Dream)
7. Just (You Do It To Yourself)
8. My Iron Lung
9. Bullet Proof...I Wish I Was
10. Black Star
11. Sulk
12. Street Spirit (Fade Out)

A far more angst-ridden album than Pablo Honey that stretches themes, motifs and references out of all proportion and more-often-than-not, recognisability. The lyrical thrust of the tunes combined with Yorke's awe-inspiring vocals provides the backbone to this solid early album that still stands the test of time. The songs aren't nearly as misanthropic or narcissistic as later Radiohead output, and i for one think that stands in this album's favour - like talking to a child before they learn just how bitter the world around them is. Not that album is all happy and celebratory - it's has that air but the words are fairly glib for the mostpart... it's a dichotomy that i can't really describe: one second the songs make me fell happy, then the next i hear a line and it saddens me. A resonant piece of work, a portent of the greatness to come in the band's (and Thom Yoarke's) career full of timeless anthems that came just at the right time for that half of a generation who weren't interested in brit pop.

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Tracklist

1. Everything In Its Right Place
2. Kid A
3. The National Anthem
4. How To Disappear Completely
5. Treefingers
6. Optimistic
7. In Limbo
8. Idioteque
9. Morning Bell
10. Motion Picture Soundtrack

Not, in my opinion, Radiohead's finest achievement (that's would be OK Computer), however it does have some extraordinary moments amidst a very unique album. The focus has shiftted in this album away from the indieness of Pablo Honey and the vocal brilliance of The Bends to the exploration of electronic sampling, a progressive sense of ambiance and occasionally some touching ambient pessimism. There's not really a bad track on the album, though MOtion Picture Soundtrack has some bizarre sections interspersed with long sections of silence - which reminded me a lot of the final track on Gorillaz (by Gorillaz). Optimistic and Everything In Its Right Place are my personal highlights of this unique vision.

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