Albummers

Choice: Marty

Choice: Richey

Choice: Kealan

Choice: Ste

Choice: Rob

Choice: Marty

Choice: Richey

Choice: Kealan

Choice: Ste

Choice: Rob

Choice: Marty

Choice: Richey

Choice: Kealan

Choice: Ste

Choice: Rob

Choice: Marty

Choice: Richey

Thoughts:
Kealan: Right: I’m going to be a bit brutal. Not too much. But a little.

…..I didn’t think it was all that.
I hear the Persian influences that you heard Ste. I actually think the opening track sounds a bit like the Gizz.
But…none of it really wows me.
@⁨Richey⁩ you mentioned Battles in the 00’s and that was something to be there for (and I’m glad I was) but I’ve heard math rock in all shapes and sizes since then and this just doesn’t blow my skirt up.
I smashed through this album several times while working this week but only then went to watch the live vid thats been presumably doing the rounds.
Nice costumes but then…yeah grand, what else you got? ‎It’s the drummer I think. He’s very good. Just not THAT good.
if you take the costumes away it’s nothing we haven’t heard before
And the formula means: are you going to listen to a 3rd or 4th album by these guys? I doubt it.

Ste: I get Persian surf rock vibes off them like moments on early secret chiefs 3 records. So far into them.
With Vol. 1 I think I’m more into the overall aesthetic than the music on its own.
The look, the stylisation, the whole confrontational vibe really works. But just listening without the videos, it feels thinner. Like the performance element is doing a lot of the heavy lifting.
Strong as an audiovisual project. Less convincing purely as a record.
2.5 polka dots / 5 & a floppy willy nose

Richey: They kind of give me a Battles vibe, who I saw years ago in Vicar st and they were incredible.. but Battles didn't do the paper machete and strange voice and hand signals. love the theatrics!
Ah didn’t realize it was microtonal! @⁨Kealan⁩ I actually agree with most of your assessment! More fun to watch! Guitarist very interesting, drums are kind of pedestrian in places. I agree re the whole looper pedal thing that it can only go one way all the time with build up. I think they should loop the drum parts too and try some polyrhythms on top to make it a bit spicier. Enjoyable non the less, but sooner watch them than listen to them
I agree with everyone here! I feel they can only be appreciated when looking at them but then feel the music could still go further in matching the zany aesthetic! 2.5?floppy paper machete willies out of 5 for me! But defo would love to see them live for the craic

Marty: Ha! I was thinking on the listen I did yesterday I’m going to listen to the drummer because I think the guitarist is incredibly creative and came up with the same sort of thoughts as you K-Realium. He doesn’t miss and those timings to start things are hard but he’s not got the strange off beat vibes which the band needs.
The Persian/SC3/Gizz vibes are because he’s got a microtonal guitar and bass. Gizz has the same sort of guitar but not as many microtones as this lad has.
I still really dig the tunes though. Great melodies and polyrhythmic/melodic riffs. Kinda unfinished band though because like vomit town Ed Sheeran uses looper pedals, every song has to start small and get big so they all sound a bit same samey in song formation. They need to hook up with the band “O” and get rid of their drummer and replace him with her and the sax over the top of the guitar would be beastly
If you haven’t heard O before lads. I took Kealan to see them here and they were rad
Yeah after listening to them a few mores times I’m less taken with them as I was at the start like you lads. More band members will make the music so much more layered and get them more willy noses to come up with like a curly one, a stumpy one, etc…

I’ll give them 3/5 gold triangles because there’s some class riffs in there with that microtonal gat.

Rob: I'm kinda in the same place with this as Kealan is. I listened to it a load while working, and it was... fine. I didn't get sucked in the way the already-mentioned Battles would have a standout moment that would make me stop what I was doing and listen. (And - to be fair - the way the VIDEO made me stop and listen when I was scrolling by.) So - I liked it. It was grand. I'll throw it on again at some point. Maybe.
Two grand-wizard-pearly-kings out of five.

Choice: Kealan

Thoughts:
Richey: So I just finished this.. what an album. She really is incredible. The production is really ahead of the curve. And she produced it all herself which sadly even by today’s standards is uncommon for a female artist, never mind 1982. Last track was prob my least fav.. the ‘hee haw’s’ prob was a step too far 🫏 😂.
4.5 out of 5 for me. It was the Hee- Haw's... as much as I respect that she wanted to finish the album with donkey sounds I think I'll drop the half mark for that

Kealan: This album is a masterpiece. I chose this because it’s the album that Bush is the most experimental and weird resulting in pure awesomeness.
If you’ve a mind to (and I suggest you do) go to the previous albums Never, For Ever and listen to Babooshka, The Wedding List and Army Dreamers
Also go to the next album after this, Hounds of love. Skip Running up that hill. As good as it is we’ve all heard it enough the last three years because of a certain tv show. Listen to The Big Sky and then Cloudbursting. One of the most perfect songs I’ve ever heard.

Rob: Watching some of the videos from this album, and wow. She really is unique. Totally mental, like. And obviously amazing. But I can see why people at the time were like... 'um, what?' This is the year that Prince released 1999, and MJ released Thriller. Pop was crystallising. And Kazza goes 'for my next single I'm gonna do a weird panto heist in a cockney accent'
This album really is very good.
The only track I was familiar with before this run of listens was ‘Sat in your Lap’, which is an absolute 10/10 Bush classic.
That one is still my fav, but now also loving ‘Suspended in Gaffa’, ‘Night of the Swallow’ (Planxty & The Chieftains FTW), and ‘All The Love’. Very little NOT to love on this album.
Industrial is a great reference point - totally think there are moments when the drums kick in that Trent Reznor would be jealous of (notably Leave it Open’). The playing with time signatures is also virtuosic. She’s just something else - an incredible artist.
4.5 record-label-signing-bonuses-spent-on-interpretive-dance-lessons out of five.
Only not giving 5 because the scale needs somewhere for Hounds of Love to go.

Marty: I didn’t realise that she was completely bonkers and unhinged like that. Took me a couple listens to get it but dawg gawn it’s amazing. The odd time signatures just randomly put in there are brilliant. I love artists that say fuck whatever you think is good because this is what I’m doing and I don’t care if you like it or not. It usually ends up being an absolute masterpiece.

Ste: The Dreaming
Absolute treat to revisit it
What hit me most this time around was how obsessive it is, proper studio maximalism. Claustrophobic, rhythmically strange, borderline unhinged in places.
Sat in Your Lap is still insane, that percussive violence is almost industrial.
And somehow it’s all totally controlled. Not glossy at all, it feels constructed and deliberate. Still sounds feral. Still one of her best.

Kealan: Full on 5 screaming harpies for me. Hounds of love can also be a 5

Choice: Ste

Thoughts:
Ste: I don’t know why but it gives me big Bowie vibes

Kealan: I thought it sounded like David Sylvain which is kinda ironic that the guy from Japan sounds like Japan

Rob: You know the way in the late 60s Miles Davis happened to be in France, and a film studio contacted him and said ‘listen, while you’re here, do you fancy banging out a soundtrack for a crime movie?’

This album feels to me like an equivalent moment in time, when David Bowie visited Japan in 1983 and ended up writing music for a high-energy kids cartoon about a war under the sea.

Choice: Rob

Thoughts:
Kealan: 30 seconds in and I can see why you like this 😂 You do love a man who makes his voice quiver more than is natural don’t you? There’s no level that I could claim that that style is bad.
It’s quite good actually.
It just never resonates with me properly.
Same with bright eyes, same with Beirut. my opinion didn’t change on that album. It’s not bad. There’s many instances of great music but it just didn’t resonate at all.

Ste: Works best for me when it’s cold, restrained, and impersonal. The vocals ruin that for me, they feel imposed and break the atmosphere. The trad Irish touches are worse, they announce identity in a way that feels performative rather than structural. I like the idea of the record more than the record itself.
Three matchas out of five. Performative ones. Ordered loudly, explained unnecessarily, made a point of not adding milk.

Rob: I quite like it. Think there are some great songs there, which I’ve found stuck in my head while not listening. Feels very accomplished from a production POV. Incredible for a debut album from such a young artist. I think the specific sub-genre is kinda my jam, so that helps. I give it four emotionally available young men out of five.

Choice: Ste

Thoughts:
Kealan: This was pretty good
Great music. Kinda like how the vocals don’t really suit the music but also kinda do. I listened to it a few times doing work and didn’t notice the time going by

Rob: I was really liking this but the main opportunity I got to listen to it was when I had a splitting headache, so I genuinely think it nearly killed me. Haven’t gone back yet. But was digging it.

Ste: I was really liking this but the main opportunity I got to listen to it was when I had a splitting headache, so I genuinely think it nearly killed me. Haven’t gone back yet. But was digging it.

Choice: Kealan

Thoughts:
Ste: I liked the bass, but don’t vibe with the jam band vibes.
I don’t like it has a stink of primus off it (not a good thing for me)
Zoned out on repeated listens
Don’t collapse fully into “just a jam” so respected it but won’t get into the rotation.

Rob: Yeh I wasn’t wild about it. With this following the headache stuff last week I defo at one point was like ‘these fuckers are trying to kill me’.
Could 100% imagine a time when I’d be loving it though, and be bopping around. Obviously some kinda Battles-y stuff in there.
Yeh. Not bad. Not wild about it

Kealan: Didn't give an opinion, just criticised the other two for not liking it. Standard.

Choice: Rob

Thoughts:

Rob: Did it in an audio message which I'm not fucked transcribing

Ste: well-made, no teeth.
it is too inherited, too self-aware. The production is slick but safe, leaning into midlife-cool synth pop rather than risky. It feels curated rather than necessary & sounds a bit like music jez & superHans would make

Kealan: I quite enjoy the music but I think the vocals are lame as fuck. I’m really over that talk-singing in a thick English accent thing like Idles and Sleaford mods and yard act.
With this one it was a dude in his mid-50s doing it over stuff that he produced in his bed room which makes it sound really sad. Also, what the fuck is allbarone and why the fuck should I care?

Rob: Did it in an audio message which I'm not fucked transcribing

Choice: Kealan

Choice: Ste

Choice: Kealan

Choice: Ste

Choice: Kealan

Choice: Ste

Choice: Kealan

Choice: Ste

Choice: Kealan

Choice: Ste

Choice: Kealan

Choice: Ste

Choice: Kealan

Choice: Ste

Choice: Kealan

Choice: Ste

Choice: Kealan