Zack; Ah, the train. The pinnacle of modern
technology 150 years ago. I jest, I actually love train rides. They take my
mind off of so many of my problems, partially because they rarely come with a
wireless signal. This always adds another wrinkle to album-listening as well,
since I can no longer rely on merely Wikipedia-ing random factoids about a band
or album to take the place of having really poignant things to say. I can’t
out-think the music. And so, on this album, I decided to really put that to the
test. I don’t even know when this album was made. I have absolutely no clue who
these guys are. Below, you can see my notes as they were originally written.
The first song made me think of Hendrix, and then from there I decided to try
and match every song with an artist. Let’s see the results:
1) Hendrix-esque? Free styling, element
of virtuoso
2) Definitely not Hendrix, acoustic,
lots of call and response (Crosby, Stills & Nash?)
3) Garage rock-ish, Stooges/Iggy Pop
4) Weird hybrid of David Bowie and
Talking Heads
5) Lynyrd Skynyrd, which is hilarious
because it’s only 1 minute long
6) Vocals are off, but the song
composition itself reminds me of Springsteen
7) I’m almost positive this is
actually a Pink Floyd song. I think it was originally called Shine On You Crazy
Diamond part 26.
8) Early Eric Clapton, with only a
mildly mind-bending solo
9) Allman Brothers. Not dead on, but
the exaggerated sense of freewheelin’ is there as well as a section where a
guitar gets ripped to shreds
10) Electric Light Orchestra? This one
was hard to peg but I think ELO is the best mix
11) Elton John motherfucker. Weird to
say because it’s not piano-driven, but the robustness of the song is classic
Elton.
12) I’m calling bullshit on myself for
this one, but I got The Killers. It reminded me of Exitlude off of Sam’s Town
Well that’s conclusive. So these guys are some kind of mix
of psychedelic rock, folk, garage rock, glam rock, post-punk, southern rock,
experimental rock, blues rock, and alternative rock that probably came out some
time between the sixties and last year. Oh, and my iTunes labels them as jazz,
so don’t forget that element. Case closed. Seriously though, they’re pretty
diverse sounding with a lot of interesting compositions. It’s hard to peg this
album, and even trying to feels like pidgeonholing it. I’d stop short of saying
it was fantastic. I don’t think it really nails any element that they
incorporate particularly well. But the range that’s involved is pretty darn
impressive. I especially liked the songs where they drifted towards the virtuoso
stuff. Hendrix, Duane Allman and Clapton are probably my three favorite guitarists
of all time, so it was cool hearing some element of what they all do in the
same album.
Emily: Zack listened to this album by accident in lieu of another jazz album we had previously chosen. Fine by me, since I don't know much from the jazz on this list anyway. When I turned on this album, though, it was most certainly not jazz. Sure, there are some jazz-rock elements to it. But it's primarily psychedelic, with some roots, folk, country, and classic rock all thrown in there. These disparate influences didn't really come together for me. There were a few songs that I enjoyed, but the album as a whole was inconsistent and a bit confused. I think Spirit needed to pick one genre - say, jazz, since that's what we and Wikipedia classified them as anyway - and do it really really well before adding in a few external influences. Otherwise it sounds like 12 songs off of 12 completely different albums.
Favorite Tracks: Prelude - Nothin' to Hide; Street Worm; Mr. Skin
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