There's a real charm to how it feels put together - as it's a one-man job, you can sense the seams of the whole thing, and I quite like that. The first half of the album felt stronger and more memorable than the back end, but 'Exhausted' provides a very satisfying coda. 'Floaty' and 'Weenie Beenie' are worthy efforts at experimentation.
I've never been a big Foo Fighters fan, but I enjoyed this. There are still hints and echoes of Nirvana in there, but it's perhaps closer to more recent Foo Fighters releases than I anticipated. Fun listen - I don't anticipate running back to it, but we'll see how it grows on me.
First half of the album, I felt all the songs were at least 30% too long. '1969' was very evocative. 'I Wanna Be Your Dog' is a classic, and 'We Will Fall' feels very particularly of its time. But for all you read about The Stooges' proto-punk, I don't get the visceral sense of anger and frustration that I do from later punk music. The lyrics are largely not great, and the musical motifs and hooks sort of outstay their welcome. I feel like there's something I'm not getting. I didn't much like it.
I'm not sure whether it's more of a reflection of the all-pervading influence of the blues on modern popular music, or a sign of how stylistically conservative this album is in particular, but I found most of the tracks felt very familiar.
Waters is a charismatic and assured vocalist, and he and his collaborators all seem like they're having a blast while laying down the album, which gives the whole project a very enjoyable air.
'Mannish Boy' and 'Bus Driver' feel every bit like timeless blues standards, but as the album progresses, while it never grates, I am left wishing for a little more rhythmic, tonal and textural variation.
A reluctant 3/5, because there's too much good in here to deny. Musically, it's varied and interesting. Lyrically, it's a mixed bag of clunky, weird, downright pretentious, and the occasional unguarded bit of inspiration.
My biggest problem is Bjork's vocal style itself. Breathy, gossamer sing-speaking is all well and good, but too often she's determined to linger and play with the rhythm and melody long past the point at which listening to her do so is enjoyable. There's this mode of delivery that sounds like a jazz vocalist on sedatives - a soporific scat that completely robs the track of propulsion. Syllables are drawn out until they almost lose any semantic value.
That said, that isnt constant: there's enough in here that works, and when it works, it's elven and intimate, and hell, a little bit sensual.
I feel an uncontrollable, visceral revulsion for almost every element of this. It's canned, bland, and impossible to stand. I can't discern any semblance of genuine human emotion from it. The sounds are flat and textureless, the songs plod along interminably, and the lyrics seem like they were written by a concussed android. Whether they're celebrating promiscuity and duplicitousness, as in 'Smooth Operator', or criticising it in 'Frankie's First Affair', (it's genuinely hard to tell), they are abject with an almost impressive uniformity.
I find it hard to separate this album from my previous experience of it - which is to say, it sounds like my adolescence. At least part or that has to do with the sheer bombast and somewhat overwrought quality of the lyrics.
That's not necessarily a knock on the album, either. It's a lot of fun, musically a rock solid piece of work from a band that had just gone stratospheric, with a whole load of elements of a Western-tinged space opera.
I was never a hardcore Muse fan, but this album is perhaps the one I've had most history with of the ones I've listened to so far, and it holds up perhaps better than I expected: it's loud, varied, and weird in all the right places. In Supermassive Black Holes, Map of the Problematique, Starlight and Knights of Cydonia, the album has a respectable clutch of hits (the latter of which is good enough to retain some charm even despite a million drunken Rock Band failures).There are lots of elements to commend lesser played tracks such as Assasin, too.
As an album, however, it feels slightly disjointed. Some tracks seem like they'd have been a better fit on earlier albums, while others, like Knights of Cydonia, are fully committed to that particular Southwesten Alpha Centauri theme. It's almost as if they didn't quite have the confidence in their newfound star status to fully commit to their concept across the whole album.
Every musical decision on the album seems specifically designed to up the drama, which, given the requisite amount of weirdness, is exactly how stadium rock ought to be done.
However, the lyrics also naturally tend towards the overblown, and sometimes struggle to convey their sentiments without veering into theatrical insincerity. Connecting with some of the songs emotionally can feel like a performance in and of itself.
