Day 0957 - Penance Soiree

The Icarus Line "Penance Soiree"

The album's cover with its streams of red running from the face of a wild-haired mosher kind of hints at the possible aggression of the music within.

At first it sounds quite blunt and aggressive, but as you go on a lot of it sounds akin to some of the 70s garage rock revivalists like the Datsuns, or a wilder version of Jet which is not necessarily my favourite genre.   I could kind of see them inspiring a band like Royal Blood in places.

"Spike Island" and "Kiss Like Lizards"  bear some resemblance the heavier moments of grunge bands like Stone Temple Pilots or Alice in Chains.  "Big Sleep" has a nice slow, moody lead-in that then becomes less interesting as it kicks into more of the same 'raw rock'.   "Meatmaker" has a mix of industrial beats and vocal effects that make it seem like a pleasingly ugly mix of Butthole Surfers and Ministry.

Not my favourite album on here so far but it had its moments.

Day 0657 - Nick of Time

Bonnie Raitt "Nick of Time" (1989)

To say that Bonnie had had a hard time of it, would be understating things slightly.  Her record company dropped her due to low sales, and (after a two year gap) released the album she'd been working on prior to being dropped, but under a completely different title.  This left Bonnie to promote an album of 2 year old material that she was no longer particularly connected to.
Her romantic relationship ended, she had to disband her backing band as she couldn't afford to pay them, and she fell into a slump of addiction and depression.

After a brief attempt to work with Prince (seems that everyone was doing that in the late 80s/early 90s) Bonnie was put together with Don Was from the group Was (Not Was) of "Walk the Dinosaur" fame.  It ended up being one of those fruitful artist/producer match-ups.  Was matched Raitt's bluesy rock and country-tinged balladry with a little pop sensibility and studio sparkle to create "Nick of Time" and its follow-up "Luck of the Draw", both of which successfully revived Bonnie's career.

Bonnie Raitt is another of those artists where I'd heard her name but had never heard any of her songs... unlike other artists on the list though, her music sounded pretty much exactly as I'd expected it would.

Day 0430 - GI

The Germs "(GI)" (1979) - got it

 
The band kicked off their first show in 1977; lead singer Darby Crash was dead of a drug overdose 3 years later.  In that time they built up a fierce live reputation and recorded this stonkingly good punk album.

Darby Crash is like Johnny Rotten, Henry Rollins and the Ramones thrown into a blender and spat on, then spat out.  Venomous, yet cartoonish. Pat Smear's riffs are killer, and it's a pity that this side of his sound doesn't really come out with Foo Fighters, but then I guess that's "Dave's band".

A great punk album, full of attitude, noise and... interestingly enough turns out it was produced by Joan Jett!

Favourite track "Richie's Dagger's Crime"