Log #220 - Animals Is Pink Floyd's Best Album

My recent listening to the likes of Opeth, and Eloy in particular, plus a spin of Atom Heart Mother last week, has led me back to some more Pink Floyd this week. Wish You Were Here was my favourite album of theirs when I was younger (in fact, my favourite album of all time by anyone for a while). It's still excellent with the centrepiece of Shine On You Crazy Diamond of course, the ...

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Log #217 - Splashdown (Into the Ocean from the Stratosfear)

After the success of Lateralus last week I doubled down with TOOL's most recent album Fear Inoculum.Invincible sounds very much like Rush with the picked guitar and latter period Geddy Lee like vocals.7empest is epic and the opener is very powerful.The drumming is obviously very busy and front of mix in this style of full on nu-metal and the guitars are generally of the chugging variety - not an awful ...

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Log #214 - Van Morrison's Uncommon One

Common One from 1980 is a bit of a forgotten outlier in the Van Morrison catalogue. For me it sounds like a mix of Astral Weeks* and Avalon Sunset ie. the freeform stringy impro of the former (especially on the extended stream of consciousness Summertime In England) merging with the sax and organ groove commerciality of the latter (like on Satisfied). I can forgive Van banging on about ...

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Log #173 - Fireflies By Night - Rush With Nick Cave

It's not hard to remember why Rush were so exciting to a teenage boy - the music is so fast and tight, it's heavy yet progressive, with grand concepts, titles like By-Tor And The Snow Dog *, fabulous album covers, and a lead singer with the ultimate scream of the day. It was the thinking man's (or boy's) heavy metal. Fly By Night was the band's second album, and the first with the late ...

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Log #172 - Also Sprach A New Generation Of Songwriters

A mixed bag, as you'd expect, from Mojo's presentation of "A New Generation of Songwriters"; a compilation from the "Communion" label given away with their magazine in 2011. This "generation" mostly refers to the folk revival of the end of the noughties led by artists represented on this disc: Johnny Flynn, Mumford & Sons, Ben Howard, and Matthew And The Atlas, plus a few other singer songwriter ...

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Log #171 - A new decade, a new Van

Thinking Roxy Music were just a glam pop outfit? Think again after hearing For Your Pleasure - their second album released in 1973 and one containing as much rock and electronic experimentation as your next serious rock band. Roxy Music For Your Pleasure Van Morrison Hard Nose The Highway Pink Floyd Meddle Sufjan Stevens Carrie & Lowell Holger Czukay Moving ...

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Log #164 - Living With Young

Felice Brothers Favorite Waitress Van Morrison Too Late To Stop Now (cd 1) Mark Ronson Uptown Special Mike Oldfield Ommadawn Neil Young Living With War Neil Young Greendale I've been recommencing some concentrated Neil Young research towards a forthcoming album ranking - as he has about 50 albums to his name and is showing no sign of letting up ...

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Log #163 - Celebrating Enlightened Irish Waitresses

Felice Brothers Favorite Waitress Van Morrison Astral Weeks Van Morrison Days Like This Van Morrison Irish Heartbeat Van Morrison Enlightenment Felice Brothers Celebration, Florida 4 more Van Morrison albums this week book-ended by a couple of new Felice Brothers albums.  3 of the VM albums are from his "mid-period" if you like -  Days ...

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Log #162 - The Veedon Fleece Brothers Undress

Some treats this week. We spin Beck's latest (although a new album Hyperspace is out later this month) and also The Felice Brothers' latest. Top of the magazine we have two classic albums in the smooth jazz rock form of Steely Dan and Donald Fagen (one half of Steely Dan of course and Donald's first appearance solo at the blog). Centre midfield is taken up by one of Van Morrison's greatest ...

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Log #136 - Living In The Live Age

Ah, the Live album! Love 'em or hate 'em they were a staple of 70s rock. Most of the stalwarts of the rock scene in that decade had a live album in them. Many had two. For some artists (Frampton, Cheap Trick, and Bob Seger, their live album became their career defining moment far surpassing anything they produced in the studio). That was just the official ones: There used to be a major trade in bootleg ...

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