Parachute (1970)

Artist: The Pretty Things
Release Year: 1970

Rating: 10/10

Track Listing: 1) Scene One; 2) The Good Mr. Square; 3) She Was Tall, She Was High; 4) In the Square; 5) The Letter; 6) Rain; 7) Miss Fae Regrets; 8) Cries from the Midnight Circus; 9) Grass; 10) Sickle Clowns; 11) She’s a Lover; 12) What’s the Use; 13) Parachute.

Sometimes you find an album that you love for reasons you can’t explain.  Sure, you’ll try to explain your love for it, but those reasons still float just outside your own understanding; yet, in trying to chase those reasons down, the album only ascends to further greatness.  You’ll try to describe your feelings to others, but chances are that no one will see what you see, and that’s a bitter pill.  When I first heard this album about 15 years ago, it was like listening to the sound of my own consciousness, of a pure distilled Self that had fallen by the wayside in the miserable beige monotony of adult life. 

Again, why that is, is hard to pin down.  This album is not particularly bright or sunny; in fact, it’s rather dark, a kaleidoscope of betrayal, debauchery, infidelity, anger, and murder.  Even the ostensibly sunshine-and-rainbows songs like “She Was Tall, She Was High” and “She’s a Lover” are tinged with sadness, and both turn out to be illusions in the end, deflating in tragedy and heartbreak.  But oh, what beautiful tragedies these are, and how warm and bright it all feels regardless, when the album is over.    

There’s no way the psych-folk opening suite of the first six songs was not meant as a copy of the medley from Abbey Road.  Each one is a minute or two long, moving through distinct but related scenes, telling the story of a young love that ends in rejection.  I also can’t help comparing the groove of “Rain” and its stellar drumming to the Beatles single of the same name – go on and tell me there’s no similarity there!  But a 30 second intro, then a 20 second verse, followed by a 60 second coda that only builds in intensity alongside the furious drum work?  That’s an original idea!

Elsewhere, there are several fiery rockers with a bluesy bent: the urgent, frenetic “Miss Fae Regrets”, the lecherous “Midnight Circus”, and the stuttering and bitter “Sickle Clowns”.  Bassist Wally Waller might be the unsung hero of the second one: just listen to that sinister, pulsating intro and imagine whatever kind of degeneracy might be going on under that tent.  Then later, when the distorted scatting kicks in, we’re too far gone to realize that the groove doesn’t change much throughout the six minutes – we just get front-row seats when “cries of murder splash on the walls”, and although I don’t know exactly what I’m supposed to be outraged at here, I won’t deny that it works.  “Sickle Clowns” is pretty similar in sound and theme, but this time there’s more guitar madness to spice things up, so both are winners.

I think it’s the ballads, though, that do the most for me.  “Grass” is immaculate, and so much more moving than anything else I’ve heard from 95% of artists out there, perfectly portraying that immense, helpless longing for someone or something that has moved on from you and will not return.  In fact, it’s done so well that when the ecstatic “She’s a Lover” shows up a few songs later, we know better than to believe it – and sure enough, the poor protagonist is the last to realize his delusion in the crestfallen “What’s the Use”.  How can I not praise such dramatic irony after something like that?

Finally, there’s the ethereal title track to wrap things up with a cryptic stanza about…something.  I don’t know what, but I assume it has something to do with a message that will outlast civilization.  Typical Sixties, but I guess back then it seemed like we actually had a chance in hell.  Unless this thing is supposed to be a dirge for the progressive momentum that had mostly withered by then?  Sure sounds like an end-credits theme, so maybe that's it.

Again, I can’t explain my great love of this album without seeming like I’m overselling it to everyone who reads this.  Structurally, thematically, musically, and so forth, it’s nothing far removed from what others were doing at the time or even before, yet something in there just clicks for me on a deep spiritual level that remains inscrutable.  Maybe it’s best left for the ages.

Trespass (1970)

Artist: Genesis
Release Year: 1970

Rating: 7/10

Track Listing: 1) Looking for Someone; 2) White Mountain; 3) Visions of Angels; 4) Stagnation; 5) Dusk; 6) The Knife.

The classic Genesis lineup had yet to coalesce in 1970, but the sound was emerging, albeit less uniformly than one would like.  The production is still strange and uneven, but Peter Gabriel's charisma makes up for that.  Right from the opening shout of "LOOKING FOR SOMEONE?!", the guy's rich, dramatic vocals draw us in, clunky song structures or no.

We get a dose of pure fantasy on "White Mountain", which is a little campy at times, and Gabriel sounds like he's struggling to hit a few of the notes.  Still, the driving power of the main melody can't be denied, and the story is interesting.  "Visions of Angels" is suitably uplifting and majestic, but regardless of how well they nail the soaring feeling in the chorus, I can't help but feel the song is a little too precious and sappy.  

Yes, it's clear throughout the album that the guys were still learning how to play prog, as the instrumental sections frequently lack the kind of dynamism needed to sustain their length.  They're rarely offensive, but boredom does set in when the same theme is repeated measure after measure.  This is less of a problem on "Looking for Someone", given the great momentum it's already picked up in the verses (and redoubles in the coda), but "Stagnation" and "Dusk" really suffer for it.  I can hardly remember anything about the sleepy "Dusk", and the same would be true of "Stagnation" if not for Peter Gabriel's fabulously desperate cries for water at the end.  If nothing else, that moment was the indication of Gabriel's potential as a frontman and showman.

But, without question, the best track on here - and one of the greatest Genesis songs ever - is "The Knife".  It's a brilliant, furious, exhilarating epic, complete with war-march verses, lyrics of passion and zealotry, an ominous, portentous flute solo, and a positively electrifying guitar solo to portray the climactic battle.  Every member is in top form here, and I daresay this song rivals even the best of the classic lineup of 1971-74.  All but the very worst records can be saved from total ruin by a song like this.  

Fortunately, of course, Trespass is far from being a bad album; in fact, I think it's underrated in its dark, wintry, atmospheric creepiness.  My previous complaints about the long stretches of monotony still stand, but there are enough fresh ideas and great moments to compensate, and the uneven character of this album would not be repeated on the following releases.

From Genesis to Revelation (1969)

Artist: Genesis
Release Year: 1969

Rating: 6/10

Track Listing: 1) Where the Sour Turns to Sweet; 2) In the Beginning; 3) Fireside Song; 4) The Serpent; 5) Am I Very Wrong; 6) In the Wilderness; 7) The Conqueror; 8) In Hiding; 9) One Day; 10) Window; 11) In Limbo; 12) Silent Sun; 13) A Place to Call My Own.

I'm actually glad Genesis didn't turn out to be one of those bands that blew out all their good ideas on their first few albums, before stumbling along in mediocrity for the next ten or twenty years.  No, they took their time in developing, and so did their best ideas - but of course, what that means is that few of those ideas can be found here.  It's not that I actively dislike this album, but rather that I have a hard time remembering most of it.  It's strange when an album has plenty of very real hooks on it that mostly fade from memory once the thing is over.

The guys were barely adults when they recorded this, and while that didn't affect their playing (which is actually pretty tight), it did limit their songwriting.  Pretty much every song on here is another mid-tempo psychedelic folk piece-- indeed, there's hardly an electric guitar note to be found outside of "In the Beginning".  The drums and bass are also curiously mixed into the background, leaving only the saccharine violin and generic acoustic strumming to accompany Gabriel, whose singing is one of the things that redeems this album a bit for me.  Yes, even an unremarkable folkish arrangement can be a showcase for a great vocalist, and Gabriel delivers the trite, laughable concepts of "DESTINY!" and "INCARNATION!" in just the right style - warm yet somewhat eerie - and with his talent for lyric writing already evident.  That's another saving grace to this album: the overall themes may be the usual pretentious, universalist drivel of the day, but the lyrics themselves could have been worse.  I can only dry-heave at the thought of what Graeme Edge would have done in that position.  

And speaking of Graeme Edge, I could actually hear the Moody Blues doing a lot of these songs with their lush smoothness, or Love with a more melancholic feel; but as it is, the sound of this album is just too thin and insubstantial to occupy a spot in my regular rotation. 

There's hardly an offensive moment on here, but there's hardly an exciting one either.  Soft, sweet, and a bit cutesy here and there: no problem for a pretty psychedelic baroque album in the vein of  Donovan or The Left Banke, but something's just missing.  Maybe the fact that I keep comparing the sound to other artists of their time goes some way toward explaining whatever the problem is.  I guess it makes for a good album to relax with on a Sunday afternoon, but when your time only comes once a week, it's about time to step up your game.  Fortunately, they would do so.

P.S. - Hey, that "illusion/disillusion" chorus in "Fireside Song" sure reminds me of "I Talk to the Wind" - did King Crimson rip off these guys for In the Court?  Or maybe we're dealing with a "common ancestor" situation here.  Ironic for a band called Genesis, I guess.

Discipline (1981)

 

Artist: King Crimson
Release Year: 1981

Rating: 9/10

Track Listing: 1) Elephant Talk; 2) Frame by Frame; 3) Matte Kudasai; 4) Indiscipline; 5) Thela Hun Ginjeet; 6) The Sheltering Sky; 7) Discipline.

A musical Rubik’s Cube.  Look at the cover art for a perfect visual interpretation!

To paraphrase Fripp himself, this incarnation of King Crimson is "a way of doing" the Eighties.  New Wave is here, for better or for worse, and Robert Fripp somehow managed to incorporate the best elements of the genre into the King Crimson fold without submitting to the horrendous evils of synths.

First, the personnel.  Fripp and Broof are back, but the other two slots are filled by the band's first Americans: former Talking Heads associate Adrian Belew and Chapman stick wizard Tony Levin.  Belew certainly let the wild paranoia of David Byrne rub off on him, and never before has a Crimson lead vocalist stood out as much as Belew does.  In fact, he almost seems to stand as an equal to Fripp here: right from the wibbly-wobbly intro of “Elephant Talk”, it’s clear that we are in new territory.  The music is more open, more danceable, and – dare I say it – friendlier this time around.

And speaking of that opening track, it’s so hard not to smile along as Adrian Belew shouts out those lists of alliterative synonyms, cheekily noting in the fourth verse that “these are words with a D this time”.  No way would this band have been so self-referential in earlier years – now there’s your proof of evolution, right right.  Then we get obsessive and unstable ramblings on “Indiscipline”, both narratively and musically, with lines like “I repeat myself when under stress, I repeat myself when under stress…” providing another nugget of black comedy, right before we’re catapulted back into instrumental madness—and be sure to marvel at Bill Bruford’s claustrophobic drumming!  “Thela Hun Ginjeet” continues the theme, but even better, almost like we’ve gone further down the river in Apocalypse Now.  This is the infamous true story of Adrian Belew getting mugged in London, recorded not an hour after it happened, but the constant return to that intense, adrenaline-drenched instrumental suggests both a fit of nervous sweats and some deeper meaning, almost like some kind of postmodernist piece.  Serendipity is an incredible thing.

Yet, in spite of the increase in humor and whimsy, there’s no denying that this is still the super-professional and terrifying world of King Crimson.  The dizzying, interlocking guitar work and polyrhythms of “Frame by Frame” and “Discipline” – the latter of which also includes some refreshing elements of African music and gamelan, of all things – is proof enough of that.  The lengthy, atmospheric jam of “The Sheltering Sky” is an underrated gem, too: just listen to those gorgeous whistles and swoops and scrapes and everything else Belew can make his guitar sound like.  It really does feel like lying under the clouds in a strange, empty land, and I can’t complain for a moment.  Finally, the ballad “Matte Kudasai” is just untouchable, from the gorgeous verses to the bittersweet, yearning chorus, to even the mournful seagull effects Belew throws in.

And let’s not forget Bruford and Levin: an unstoppable rhythm section, no doubt, even if the band’s new style doesn’t allow them to be the same “flying brick wall” that Bruford and Wetton were in the Seventies.  No, this is a more mathematical pairing of drum and bass, allowing more space for Fripp and Belew to weave their endless knots of hyper-complex guitar calculus.  Sexy it isn’t, unless you’re into some weird niches; but when the goal is a futuristic, world music-influenced engineering-meets-art project, the framework could not have been better than this.  It’s a softer, more pliable and flexible grounding for the looser-in-substance, but tighter-in-form posture that the band would adopt for the remainder of the incarnation.

All in all, there’s not a second on this album that I don’t like, and I almost rated it a ten…but something stays my hand.  Is it the lack of the spiritual universality that I feel on Larks’, or is it just the disappearance of that crunchy guitar tone that we heard all over the Seventies’ KC?  Maybe it’s Fripp’s partial abdication of the throne.  Just don’t tell him that.

Three Fish (1996)

Artist: Three Fish
Release Year: 1996

Rating: 8/10

Track Listing: 1) Solitude; 2) Song for a Dead Girl; 3) Silence at the Bottom; 4) The Intelligent Fish; 5) Zagreb; 6) All Messed Up; 7) Here in the Darkness; 8) If Miles Were Alive; 9) The Half Intelligent Fish; 10) Strangers in My Head; 11) A Lovely Meander; 12) Elusive Ones; 13) Build; 14) Stupid Fish; 15) Can I Come Along; 16) The Easy Way; 17) Secret Place; 18) Laced.

NOTE: The track listing above is for the LP version of the album, which uses a different track order and includes three songs that do not appear on the CD version.

Three Fish was the semi-supergroup formed by Jeff Ament of Pearl Jam, Robbi Robb of Tribe After Tribe, and Richard Stuverud of the Fastbacks.  I'll expand more on them if and when I create the artist page, but I felt the need to mention that here.  Anyway...

Forget all the death metal and all the other edgy things I've heard-- this is one of the bleakest and darkest albums I know of.  This whole hour (or 68 minutes, if you have the full LP version) is a constant soundtrack to falling deeper and deeper into a dark underwater cavern, choking and freezing, with no hope of escape, yet thrashing against the inevitable because there's nothing else your body knows how to do.  Somewhere in there, your mind starts to dream...and finds only nightmares.  No, there are no monsters visible, but there's always a great sense of danger around the corner.  From the thrumming, Eastern drones and tribal-sounding drums, to the reedy acoustic guitar, the lurching rhythms, the watery chords and sludgy distorted riffs, the moaning chants and the schizophrenic double-tracked backing vocals, there's always a perfect slot for the yearning and desperate vocals from Robbi Robb, which oscillate between sneering narrative asides, to uncomfortable seduction, to primal shouts into an indifferent void...and the repetition of so many lines goes well beyond monotony and into madness. 

Oh, and of course, the album is interspersed with segments of an old Chinese parable about using logical forethought to avert disaster.  I don't know what more we're supposed to learn from having the story on this album, but at least it fits the vibe very well.

I'm not going to spend time on the individual tracks, partially because they're all pretty similar in substance, despite the differences in form; but mostly because the album works so well as a cohesive unit that dividing it up would defeat the purpose.  I can't see myself listening to any of these songs outside the context of this horrid beast of an album…except, maybe, for the closing "Laced".  That song isn't much less dark and dreary than the others, but that longing "if she should fall away...into the waa-aaa-teerrr" provides as nice a resolution as could be believable after a pulverizing album like this, like an ocean sunrise that may or may not be real.

This whole album is a claustrophobic trip through jagged and troubled inner spaces that few would even acknowledge.  And note that I mean this not just in a lyrical sense, but in reference to the overall vibe and imagery suggested by all aspects of the sound described above.  Sure, the thing is longer than it needs to be, and there's perhaps a bit too much monotony for some, but I don't have a problem as long as the lurching-yet-ethereal trance continues.  Far as I can tell, there's nothing like this out there.  Death, decay, desolation, insanity, loneliness, bitterness, folly, and shame…and beauty.  

Please listen to this.  At least once.

Colors (2007)

 

Artist: Between the Buried and Me
Release Year: 2007

Rating: 9/10

Track Listing: 1) Foam Born (A) The Backtrack; 2) (B) The Decade of Statues; 3) Informal Gluttony; 4) Sun of Nothing; 5) Ants of the Sky; 6) Prequel to the Sequel; 7) Viridian; 8) White Walls.

Colors: the result of splitting light into different wavelengths, or of splitting metal into different genres.

Oh, the nostalgia that comes with this one-- and I didn't even listen to it nearly as much in its time as my friends did!  And as usual for metal, I'm not going to pay attention to the lyrics, mainly because I can't understand them, and I don't feel like looking them up.  That doesn't hamper my enjoyment of this album, though-- whether they're screaming, growling, or singing.  So what makes this one work so well for me?

Simple: the striking dynamism from beginning to end.  No more than five minutes at a time are spent on the same motif, so they easily avoid a problem that has made a lot of metal difficult for me.  No, this band seems to have followed the superior process of being interesting and varied first, then adding the heaviness.  There's always a new genre injected in, always a new breakdown or riff or vocal hook around the corner.  Sure, we have to start out with the usual spooky chromatic chords at the beginning, but then we launch into the groove.  Well, kinda– "Decade of Statues" does less for me as a mostly straightahead metal number, but they at least intersperse it with some nice riffs and cool breakdowns.

But then we get to the main course, when everything opens up in ways I couldn't have predicted.  I almost don't want to spell it all out here, for fear of spoilers-- but this album is almost 20 years old now, and it's not like anybody's reading this anyway.  

So then, what about the Arabian chant at the beginning of "Informal Gluttony", or the didgeridoos at the end?  How about the piano breakdown, then later, the power ballad-sounding "chorus" section in "Sun of Nothing"?  Or the almost Steven Wilson-sounding vocals in the middle verses?  And I could go on about the exquisitely frenetic "Ants of the Sky", which includes a heavy-funk solo like something from Living Colour, then blends later into a Spanish guitar piece, then wraps up with the laid-back, jazz-fusion solo near the end, which abruptly segues into something from a hoedown.  

No notes.

Then we get a nostalgic, soaring intro to "Prequel to the Sequel", followed by a polka breakdown to screamo vocals to thrash riffage, before a smooth instrumental transition to the crushing epic "White Walls".  From the curb-stomping intro to the mysterious "step back" section, which sounds like swimming under dark water, to the slow buildup to the throwbacks to classic metal in the dizzying solo section that caps it all off, this is probably my favorite on the album.  

Throughout Colors, the transitions from heavy to smooth make a hell of a lot more sense than you usually hear in bands that are just trying to sound intelligent, and are placed in just the right spots to deliver satisfaction and respite, like little oases in the wasteland.  It all fits, and it all keeps us listening on, like a novel we can't put down.  Sure, the harsh sections don't have the same kind of sludgy groove that Mastodon's best work does, but that's likely not the point.  The point is the journey throughout all these disparate scenes, the contrast between light and dark, and there's no doubt about their success in that regard.  Perhaps most tellingly, I was a fan of this album even before I began to appreciate metal, which means it might help make a believer out of someone else one day.  

Genesis (1983)

Artist: Genesis Release Year: 1983 Rating: 7/10

Track Listing: 1) Mama; 2) That’s All; 3) Home By the Sea; 4) Second Home By the Sea; 5) Illegal Alien; 6) Taking It All Too Hard; 7) Just a Job to Do; 8) Silver Rainbow; 9) It’s Gonna Get Better.

Not quite "Perfection", as the cover would imply, but solid for sure.

So many prog rock bands found themselves sliding awkwardly toward the pop end of the spectrum by the late seventies, and the output usually suffered a great deal.  Genesis was no exception.  In spite of this, I must maintain that for a few brief years, Genesis were a good pop band, and there is no better proof of that than on their eponymous album.  Somewhere between the struggle to compromise between prog and pop, and then submitting entirely to unabashedly soulless product, Genesis decided to just make thoughtful, well-rounded pop - no more and no less.

I'm a big fan of Peter Gabriel's work with the band, but on Genesis, I'm actually thankful Phil Collins was the frontman.  He's in top form here, from the range of feelings conveyed in his vocals to his engaging drumming style (when he's actually playing, of course).  You'll find the best example of both on "Mama", with the creepy atmosphere building and building as on "In the Air Tonight", but Phil is actually more maniacal here, and it works-- as long as you can pretend to take him seriously with that ridiculous "HA HA...heh" laugh he somehow saw fit to include.  The big hit "That's All" is smooth and has some interesting melodic turns, so that’s another high point.  My favorite, though, is "Home by the Sea", with an eerie melody complimenting Phil's narrative about being trapped with a couple of phantoms, before transitioning to a mostly-interesting instrumental that seems to continue the story without words.  That's the only vestige of prog on this record, and it's done well.

The other songs are pleasant and digestible, although they stand out considerably less.  The only misfire is "Illegal Alien", one of the band's worst songs.  The stupid melody and stupid lyrics would make the listener cringe even if they weren't sung in a fake Mexican accent.  All in all, this is a great pop-rock album one may freely enjoy.  It's warm and smooth, the songs are well-thought out, and there is little of the annoying sterility that would plague them soon afterward.  Cool cover art, too