Other Lives / For Their Love

This could have been difficult for the old me. See my friend LOVES this band and insisted I listen to their "acclaimed" new album. And I did. To the end. Sadly....tt sounds like what it is: a lot of time, money and effort (God hear that effort) being thrown at very thin excuses of songs. I don't know how but it manages to sound smug and apologetic at the same time. I told my friend that rich people make lousy records because they don't need to find cheap creative solutions....y'know, they can just bring in a choir or a brass section or hire someone to fix the mix...she came back with a very clever retort that I am not going to reveal until I find a clever answer.

Ohmme / Fantasize Your Ghost

Makes me a little sad to find something this digestable, this unremarkable on a label like Joyful Noise. Like a lot of modern records it lacks a degree of madness and vulgarity and the will to avoid some easy tropes of the age or offset them with some politely positioned experiments. It is not bad but not bad is not good enough. I want them to be better. I want them to try harder to be better. It feel like things came to them too easily. Plenty will like it but plenty like a lot of things. 

New seeds

This morning I was driving and thinking but not thinking and my mind went up and down the freeway and at one point I was trying to remember how this sounded and then trying to remember to remind myself to play it once I got home and I actually remembered and impressed myself in the process.

Too small a thought? Maybe. But these are my pages now.

Here we go AGAIN

OK. Here we go again.
I am able to do many things.
Maybe I can even sustain a blog for a bit longer than the last time.

I will start positively with a few random favorites but THIS TIME I will not walk away from writing negative or ho-hum reviews. I felt pressure before to like everything bands sent me or tried hard to find something positive in them. I know I am older. Maybe I am a bit wiser. We'll see. Go easy if you find me.