Day 0888 - The Contino Sessions

Death in Vegas “The Contino Sessions” (1999)

The band were originally called ‘Dead Elvis’, but as it tunred out this was the name of an existing record label.  They changed their name to the thematically similar ‘Death in Vegas’ and used the Dead Elvis moniker for their first album instead.

The Contino Sessions (named for their recording space) is their second album.  The blurb in the book mentioned DJing and electronica and I’d thought that I’d be getting something very much in that musical arena.   I was quite surprised then to hear the opening track “Dirge” that starts with a sparse guitar line and vocals, then eventually builds to a Shoe-gazey wall of guitar noise.  

There are definitely electronic elements here (electronic beats, loops) but the sound veers between the aforementioned shoegazey sound and triphop, with shoe-gaze/wall-of-guitar band Jesus and Mary Chain’s vocalist Jim Reid featuring on one track “Broken Little Sister”.  Actually, that one sounded a bit familiar to me.

The second track “Soul Auctioneer” features a sinister, subdued groove that would not feel out of place on an early Massive Attack album.   Iggy Pop features spoken word vocals on “Aisha”, meanwhile the track “Aladdin’s Story” is a rare burst of upbeat melody amongst the gloom… though even there, it’s deceptive.  The few lyrics are hardly uplifting “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen/Nobody knows my sorrow”.

Day 0718 - The Chronic

Dr. Dre "The Chronic" (1992)

Dre left N.W.A. and teamed up with Suge Knight to create Death Row Records (which got off to a running start with classic albums from Dre, Snoop and eventually Tupac) and released his first solo album.

Dre's production created the genre known as 'G-Funk', slow P-Funk style grooves with deep sludgy bass and high lead-synth parts.  Dre would often re-record the source material rather than just sample the original recordings, and the lyrical approach of this new genre was confrontational and 'raw'.

I know that rap beefs are part of the fabric of the genre, but so much of that feels a bit petty and insecure, with shots being fired at some of Dre's old N.W.A. associates (Eazy E in particular).  A lot of the rest seems to focus on dicks and balls being people's mouths, or people being on said dicks and balls... to the extent that there's even a track called "Deeez nuuuts".

Whatever my feeling toward the lyrical approach, the album helped launch the production career of Dre, and the rap career of Snoop Dogg before he'd even released an album of his own - though once his debut "Doggystyle" appeared, he cemented that success.

Day 0604 - Scum

Napalm Death "Scum" (1987) - got it

Napalm Death, one of the progenitors of grindcore and producers of maybe the shortest song in the history of recoded music - "You suffer" clocks in at barely more than 1 second.

The band took punishing blast-beats, growling, barely-intelligible Cookie-Monster style vocals combined with some intense guitar riffs to produce an album that is nothing short of an aural onslaught.

The two halves of the album are also produced by almost completely different bands, with only drummer (and sometimes vocalist) Mick Harris playing on the entire album.  Guitarist Justin Broadrick had left partway through recording to help create industrial metal band Godflesh. 

Day 0576 - Reign in Blood

Slayer "Reign in Blood" (1986) - got it

 
An album that kicks off with a punishing blizzard of guitars and cymbals, and (after an unsettling high-pitched yell) leads off with the lyrics:

"Auschwitz, the meaning of death, the way that I want you to die"

certainly made it difficult to ignore Slayer.  Though that opening track "Angel of Death" would lead them to have to continually reiterate in interviews that they did not support nazi ideals.

The album combines the stripped-down, unrelenting aggression of hardcore punk with the musicality and 'menace' of the nascent 'heavy metal' to create one of the early cornerstones of thrash metal.

Tom Araya's aggressive and fairly tuneless vocal yell means that the riffs can go where they want without clashing too much with his voice.  Though it has to be said that the little melody that is in the guitar parts is pulverised by speed and distortion with the focus being more on the rhythm than melody.

Some flashy lead guitar work on show, but the real (background) star of the album is Dave Lombardo who, with his inventive, unrelenting drumming can (even now) outplay most other drummers in his genre.  His playing has elements of jazz, punk, metal and more.

Day 0575 - EVOL

Sonic Youth "EVOL" (1986)

Sonic Youth are a band that I'd hear & bits and pieces from, but they'd never really inspired me to dip deeper into their work.  I really quite enjoyed this album and ended up listening to it 3 times in a row.  Love the mix of hypnotic but noisy drones, pared-back riffing, and dalliances with musique concrete.

This is a sonically exciting and experimental album, that still has a solid base in 'song' writing, with melody and structure being employed where appropriate.  For me, the album's epic penultimate track "Expressway to Yr Skull" is the album's high point.

I like that it's not a straight instrumental album, but that the vocals are used sparingly, and often as more of an 'instrument' than as a way of communicating a message.

Day 0462 - Crocodiles

Echo and the Bunnymen "Crocodiles" (1980)

Echo and the Bunnymen: the 80s-ness continues.

I have their album "Ocean Rain" which had a kind of atmospheric, gothic somnambulism to it and I really liked it... however, I'm glad that they sound different here, because variety is the spice of life.

This is much more a dark and jangly album with a definite post-punk  flavour, though still with hints of what their sound would become.

Day 0345 - A Night at the Opera

Queen "A Night at the Opera" (1975) - got it

Although I did listen to the album again for the 1001 albums (twice in fact) I'm mostly just going to plagiarise another review I wrote when I was re-listening to all of the Queen albums a few years back. ~apologies, this will be a long one~

Queen started with a fairly cohesive 'band' sound over their first couple of albums, but the work of the individual songwriters (mostly) became easier and easier to pick.

On night at the opera they're kind of in a middle ground, you can pick the different songwriters but this is still such a cohesive 'album', right from the opening piano flourishes through to the big finale of "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "God save the Queen".

"Death on two legs" is such a great opener, Freddie belting it out with real venom before the wall of voices comes crashing in to back him up.  Mercury then performs a compositional 180 with the light and cheery 'Lazing on a Sunday afternoon'.

Roger Taylor's "I'm in love with my car" is such a musically strong slice of rock (some great lead guitar) that I'm actually able to ignore the fact that he used the lines:

"Told my girl I just had to forget her, Rather buy me a new carburettor

So she made tracks sayin' ths is the end now 

Cars don't talk back they're just four wheeled friends now"

The rock calms down into John Deacon's much lauded 'You're my best friend'.  It's not my favourite of his ("spread your wings" holds that spot) but I have succumbed to its charms over the years.

Brian May's '39' is an odd mix of old and new.  It kind of has an olde timey folk feel, yet lyrically it is a sci-fi story.  Roger Taylor's eerie falsetto in the middle section is particularly stunning. "Sweet lady" is one that I never really used to like, but listening to it now, I'm not sure why as the verses sound kind of like David Bowie rock tracks or maybe the rolling stones, while the chorus riff... it's like part funk, part metal ...like extra heavy Hendrix (makes sense as Roger, Brian and Freddie were all big fans of Jimi, with Freddie in particular following him around on tour in the UK)!

Side a is rounded out with another jaunty little music-hall number , complete with a kazoo horn section and Freddie and Roger doing a tap dance routine by wearing thimbles and drumming on the recording console!

Side B kicks off with 'The Prophet's song' (the longest song Queen released while Freddie was alive) which has always been a favourite of mine.  I would be surprised if some 90s alt-rock bands like Soundgarden and Alice in Chains haven't heard this song, the riffs and vocal harmonies are very ahead of their time.  The vocal/delay section in the middle is still mind-blowing... almost literally, I was listening to the album while walking home from the gym and I just fell over, I was getting so disorientated trying to follow the different parts as they flicked from one ear to the other.
"Love of my life"... I really kind of prefer the live version of this song, just acoustic guitar with the power of Freddie's voice and the quality of the songwriting brought to the fore, but this song is beautiful in any form.

"Good company"; I'm guessing it was Brian aiming for a George Formby sound, but to me it kind of comes off sounding more Paul McCartney and not necessarily in a good way. "Bohemian Rhapsody"... this song is still amazing no matter how many times I've heard it, seen the video, sung it at karaoke, or watched it in Wayne's world. The album's outro of 'God save the Queen' is a brilliant cheeky little touch and really does make it feel like you've reached the end of a journey or sorts with the album.