it doesn’t strike me as what I know as Heavy Metal, but it’s heavy something.
am I going to get an answer?
my first reaction to stuff like this is, if they can play so well, why don’t they try and make proper music.
I know that’s bad but I don’t have the same reaction to… say.. Hip-Hop.
I saw what’s his name…Dizzee Rascal last night on the concert for the children, and he was good, very good, good AND enjoyable.
I know this is good but it’s not enjoyable.
it would be great if they could apply their talent and energy to music.
{track 5: The Taking}
this has some interesting parts in it.
{track 7: Spit}
it’s amazing, with all the loudness he produces, he’s obviously trying to sing as loud as possible, if you could call it singing, but it doesn’t help with the diction, I still can’t hear what he’s saying.
well he’s from Limerick…
oh so he’d be hard to understand anyway.
”crowsy spee”?
is he upset about crows?
what did they ever do to him
the crowds they spit, the crowds they pity you.
ok but you didn’t understand that, you read it.
I’ve nothing to read it from.
are you from Limerick?
{track 8: Red Faced Killers}
the laughing is pretty good!
tonight is their last ever Dublin gig.
are they splitting up?
yep.
so this might be the last review they ever get?
actually of course not.
is the reason that they’re breaking up consideration?
ba-dum-tisch!
what?
that’s the bad joke drum sound, maybe I should’ve done the sad trombone.
ehhh….right.
there are things in it that are musically quite good and clever, they could be very good if they stopped concentrating on being loud.
what’s wrong with being loud?
is loudness in itself a virtue?
of course not, you just can’t see past the loudness to the great songs underneath.
well, maybe, all I can tell is that they’re angry about something.
GAMAK I will miss you, thanks for all the amazing gigs, records and….*sniff*, hold on, I gotta pull myself together.
Can’t wait for tonight!
Before they go, make sure to watch them go back to school.
this dictionary site is super-helpful; –adjective of, pertaining to, or characterized by atavism.
hahaha
oh wait, here it is; reverting to or suggesting the characteristics of a remote ancestor or primitive type.
yes that’s it, do you get me now?
yeah I can see that, sure.
it’s not very original though.
there’s someone else who makes music just like this.
not that that matters a great deal.
the only problem with so many of these things, it fails to keep up the interest.
after a while you start to say ‘ehhh yeah ok, I’ve heard it now’.
it starts to disappear up it’s own arse basically.
I know that’s a nasty way of saying it but….
you know what I mean right?
maybe you just need to listen to it in a slightly different way, rather than as a whole album.
or maybe it’s…hmmmm.
{track 11: I Am Eustace}
here’s something different.
maybe they just got the sequence wrong?
One man, lots of synths, junkshop instruments, reverb. It’s cold, it’s desolate, it suits the view from my window, dead trees against grey nothing. But it’s good. Tonight the good folks at Foggy Notions have Mr. Kelleher and His Cold Dead Hands playing with Tickley Feather in Whelans. Wrap up warm.
it sounds like it was just thrown on top, without anything to do with it.
out of the blue.
it’s an imaginative mix of styles.
pretty eclectic.
and sometimes it works.
although I don’t know what they were trying to do with the guitar solo.
did they want people to sit up? to think there was a telephone going off?
{track 4: September with Pete}
see, here they do something similar but it works.
{later}
it’s very good.
nice.
inventive.
they have a musical identity.
it’s by no means perfect, some of the numbers go on too long and get very boring.
how many people are involved?
is it a band or one of these loose conglomerates?
a… band I guess.
I guess if I needed more music I might buy something by them.
it’s a dangerous area, all this eclecticism.
it can all go very wrong.
look at all the attempts to merge a rock band and an orchestra.
it’s tricky.
it’s tricky to rock a rhyme, to rock a rhyme that’s right on time, it’s tricky, huh huh, it’s tricky tricky tricky?
exactly, actly actly.
The excellent Woods play Dublin tonight as part of the annual Shred Yr Face tour, also on the bill are Espers (who I always confuse with Vetiver, I’ve seen one of them live before, pretty good) and Cave Singers (who I’ve never heard, but I’ll fix that now in a minute).
parts of it sound almost middle ages, madrigal melodies.
and then you combine that with jazz, chamber music.
but it works.
aha! there’s some Beatles in it as well.
I have a strange feeling I’ve heard this before.
sounds extremely familiar to me.
I love it.
absolutely riddled with influences!
they’ve dragged it from everywhere.
beautifully done.
hmmm sounds like a crumhorn?
I think you may be right.
only shows you that it can be done, very often when you mix styles and influences it ends up, you know, a nothing sort of hodge podge.
but this works extremely well.
I’m going to play this quite a bit.
it kind of reminds me of Gill Evans as well.
the things he did with Miles Davis, Sketches of Spain and the other one.
it’s also done with a sense of humour.
sense of fun more really, it’s not ‘funny’ per se.
yeah I guess your right.
and some great musicians.
{track 8: Spinning Wheel}
THAT’S HUMOUROUS!
that’s not just a sense of fun, it’s the sort of thing Thelonious Monk would do.
that’s a sense of humour.
it’s good to hear people making music like that.
you wonder, where does that go?
it’s a pity that it’s a once off…or maybe not, maybe stuff like this should be a rarity.
it’s amazin’ what raisins can do!
you can tell this guy, I like his taste.
‘This guy’ is Paul over at the wonderful treasure trove that is Spiral. I asked Paul to recommend ‘something relatively crazy’ for Nick to review and he certainly came up with the goods. Get it here.
Nick: Well….
Nick: WHAT??!!
nick thinks... 