Day 0994 - D

White Denim "D" (2011)

Originally a 4-piece group called Parque Touch.  Once one of their members left, the group solidified into a trio for a couple of lo-fi psychedelic rock albums.   They then recruited a new fourth member before moving into a professional studio to record "D".

The mix of psychedelia, melody and decent recording techniques is delightful.   "Burnished" with its distorted, fiddly playing around with time signatures reminds me favourably of Soundgarden.  It then segues seamlessly into the fusiony fretboard pyrotechnics of "Back on the Farm".

The pace is pulled back then for "Street Joy" which is spacey and melodic.  Elsewhere "River to Consider" has a busy 'world music' percussion and jazz flute.   It's not all trippy melodic and psychedelic rock though.   "Is and Is and Is" er... is a solid rock track with Ian Curtis-esque vocals.   The album closes on a relaxed note with "Keys" which has kind of a laid-back Lou Reed "Transformer" vibe to it.

I don't quite rate this as an "I must rush out and buy this one" album, but definitely above average and I enjoyed it well enough.

Day 0945 - Under Construction

Missy Elliott "Under Construction" (2002)

Missy continued her collaboration with Timbaland, bringing a lot of classic hip-hop sounds into the mix and reminiscing on the 'good old days' a bit with "Back in the Day" featuring Jay Z.   

The album has a few guests and collaborators, but Missy easily rules the roost.   Ludacris guests on "Gossip Folks" but Missy again is the centre of attention, completely changing her vocal style for the track and still busting some great rhymes.

Single "Work it" has a fairly simple arrangement of skeletal beat and synthline with a synthy hook that swings in now and then.  Most its appeal then comes again from Missy's vocals.  She manages to make a dirty-as song where half of it dances around its subject, but you know exactly what she's talking about.   Sound effects and clever use of reverse sounds complete the picture.

Beyonce shows up on "Nothing Out There for Me" one of the albums more melodic moments.   

The spoken word parts at the start and end of the album could easily have come across as a bit cheesy, but again Missy manages to make them work.  The opening speech reflects the World Trade Centre attacks and show that (thinking back a few entries to Bruce Springsteen) this was a hurt being felt by artists across a range of genres.

Day 0930 - The Blueprint

Jay Z "The Blueprint" (2001)

It could almost be seen as overcoming adversity, Jay Z had court cases pending against him (though when has that harmed a rappers rep?), he had several high profile beefs underway (though, again....) and his album was released on September 11th 2001, leading to some of his earlier shows needing to be rescheduled.

That aside, this album helped launch the career of producers Kanye West (for better or worse) and was critically lauded.

While I enjoyed some of Jay's rhymes and I could hear the influence of this album on the next decade or so of mainstream hip-hop albums, I don't think it's really converted me into a Jay Z 'fan' as such (apologies if this is hip-hop heresy).

Day 0805 - (What's the Story) Morning Glory

 Oasis “(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?” (1995) – got it

The band were signed to Creation records, released their successful debut “Definitely, Maybe”, fired and replaced their drummer then set about recording this, their second album.
 
The recording sessions went quickly though (as seems to be standard) not without fighting between the two Gallagher brothers.

The band have been accused of possibly wearing their influences a little two prominently on their sleeves with the Beatles being a very obvious influence, touches of David Bowie and even a possible lifting of an REM riff ("the One I love" for the song "Morning Glory").  Regardless of this, Morning Glory remains a great rock record, that takes the band's established swaggering rock ("Hello") and expands out into more melodic areas such as Lennon-esque balladry ("Wonderwall"), to vaguely psychedelic pop ("Champagne Supernova") to acoustic power ballads ("Cast no Shadow").

This album and the debut were everywhere when I was in high school.  The band have never really topped them with subsequent Oasis albums or their other projects, but these two albums are worthy enough to have stood the test of time.

Day 0655 - Pump

Aerosmith "Pump" (1989)

Aerosmith feel like they combine the riffs of Zeppelin and the backing/harmony vocals of the Beatles, but with a little slease and 80s production shine.   Going further on the Zeppelin thing, Aerosmith are such a quintessentially American band that it's almost like one of those things where someone puts English text through an online translator then translates it back into English.  You get Zeppelin taking American blues and doing their own thing with it, then Aerosmith bringing it back to America but funnelling it through their own unique filter.

The album is reflective of the band's late 80s/early 90s output with some stomping hook-filled rockers and some power ballads that could power half of Massachusetts.  Some interludes break things up interestingly ticking along and the odd, confronting "Janie's got a gun" keeps the listener from getting too complacent.

Aerosmith's creative and commercial slump was well and truly over.  For this album they decided to eschew outside help and assembled at a secluded studio to work on songs, coming up with 19 tracks that they divided into the 'A' and 'B' material.

Day 0562 - Picture Book

Simply Red "Picture Book" (1985)

Mick Hucknall had started out in a punk band called the Frantic Elevators, but decided that he wanted to play a genre that would give his voice more room to showcase itself.  He assembled a number of session players to form Simply Red.

This album skits around a few genres, including rock and jazz, but mostly sits in the soul zone, where Hucknall makes full use of his (admittedly strong) voice.  Not a huge fan of the band.  There's some okay stuff here, but much of it sits firmly in the middle-of-the-road.

Eventually the band would go on to become a revolving cast of players with Hucknall as the only constant.

Day 0525 - Porcupine

Echo & the Bunnymen "Porcupine" (1983)

E&tB's third album was apparently a bit of a chore coming after the ease of their first two.  They were experiencing a bit of writers block, and once they'd finished the album their record company dismissed it, saying that it was uncommercial.  ...Normally this would be the bit in the story where the band kicked against this assessment and pushed for 'their album'.  Instead, they said "Yeah, okay" and used the original album as a jumping off point to create something else.

Some sitar was laid down here and there (apparently against the wishes of much of the band).  A horn section was added to the song 'The Cutter', again, the band weren't happy but begrudgingly admitted that it improved the song somewhat.

This album is certainly a different beast to the previous two albums.  Aside from the different instrumentation, the Bunnymen's usual slow, Gothic groove was accelerated a bit in places.  Would have been interesting to hear what the original album sounded like, but the released version is enjoyable. 

Day 0510 - Black Metal

Venom "Black Metal" (1982)

A bunch of Geordies having fun, playing speedy, punky metal and kind of having a bit of a laugh with it.  Yet they somehow manage to help create the genre of speed metal, and to spawn (or at least to help christen) a new, dark, twisted subgenre of metal that would go on to take itself and its church-burning far too seriously.

This album starts with the drummer cutting through a metal door with a chainsaw (according to the book... and it does sound like that's what's happening) and once the music gets going, the acoustics make it sound like it was recorded in a cave. All of this helps give the music on the album a special, feral charm.

Day 0412 - Live and Dangerous

Thin Lizzy "Live and Dangerous" (1978)

 
I'm not really familiar with Thin Lizzy outside of a couple of 'hits', so I can't really comment on how this compares to their recorded/studio output.  Whatever the case, it sounds like a killer concert, with some wailing guitar. I had read that TL's guitar harmonies were an influence on Metallica's Cliff Burton and that sounds about right from what I can hear here.

The music is exciting and (literally and figuratively) electric. I've mentioned in the past that live albums are not usually my favourite thing, and long albums are also not usually a favourite of mine -  this is both.

The live part doesn't really worry me here because (judging from the one or two songs of theirs I had heard before)  they seem like one of those bands that probably sounded a bit tamer in the studio but then really unleash live.  For all of the excitement and vitality, the running time did kind of wear me down a bit by the end and I started to lose my concentration on the music.