Undeniable classic tracks here, and the influence on future hip-hop is palpable. Some of the rhyme schemes hit a bit corny, but I'm not the biggest rap fan anyway.
Solid overall, don't know if I'll be back for a full listen though.
Also, wtf was that Chinese restaurant thing?
João Gilberto's voice is amazing and his interpretation of some of Tom Jobim's best and most famous compositions is great. I'm not as stoked as the world seemed to be at the time with Astrud Gilberto's parts but it might be my bias as a native portuguese speaker to just prefer the original.
The mastering is a bit strange, the sax can get really in your face all of a sudden, especially compared to the airy singing of the Gilberto's and the gentle guitar chords.
Not the last time listening to this classic!
Really good moments and also not so memorable ones. The piano playing just sounds sloppy to me at times. The tenor sax in the intro to the first song is not my favorite performance either. The celeste was a cool instrumentation choice but being a keyed instrument the clumsiness is there as well. Bass and drums were good throughout.
Maybe I will come around sometime but for now it's not doing it for me.
I liked it a lot. Interesting sabbath influences coming through (the cover of iron man is obvious, but I seemed to hear variations of the main riff in a later track). The mixing sometimes made it seem like I was listening on the other side of the studio door.
Think I'll return to this one in the future.
Great experimentation with instrumentation, song structure and harmony. I hear some of what I've heard in prog metal, which is a cool anachronistic feeling.
Deserves another listen to get into it.
I'd say I enjoyed the later parts of the album more than the beginning. Feel like I always hear about pyramid song but did not find that the highlight of this project.
All those chromatic mediants, the sliding strings, distant muffled sounds and stereo usage along with the surrealistic lyrics really do leave an impression of emptiness and amnesia.
Front loaded. "Reasons to be beautiful" felt like a real road bump, with "Dying" winning me back if only for a bit, since the following two tracks did not impress vocally, despite the instrumental and a few key moments of "use once & destroy" being great.
"Northern star" really put me off, I think the extremely bright twangy vocal delivery doesn't particularly lend itself to an otherwise solemn acoustic track.
The rest is unremarkable except for the great album closer.
I listened to this one twice and didn't come away with much at all. The folk-y aspect definitely places it on the outside of my usual bubble, and some of the singing got pitchy at times. Some cool chord progressions every now and then made sure it was at least not a cookie cutter album, as did the occasional inclusion of strings and brass.
Sounds like the same song for the whole album except for the overdriven guitar of "She Cracked" and the tempo changes of "Hospital". I guess "Dance With Me" is different too, but it's also one of the worst pieces of music I've heard. "Your face says 'sex' " might be a contender for worst lyric OAT.
In fairness, one of these songs within a playlist at the pub would not be egregious, but a whole album is just insulting.
Enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would! Very cool instrumentation choices with so much fun percussion (big fan of the timpani). Some classic tunes as well of course.
Ended up putting it back on by the end of the day.
