Reviews by markjazz

I'm not much of a Radiohead fan, or Alternative Rock fan for that matter, but I like this album a lot. It has a lot of great songs and features a ton of great moments within those tracks. Planet Telex, The Bends and Street Spirit are great examples. I don't care to much for the slower tracks, other than Street Spirit, which moves my heart and brain like no other Alternative Rock track out there, but I know for sure that if I was a fan of the genre this album would get at least a 4.5/5 rating instead of the one I've given. Radiohead has come out with some unique material over the years and I have to give a lot of that credit to Thom Yorke's vocals, which can hit some amazing notes at times yet still sound depressing and happy all at once. This is a very great album and it brings back a lot of my highschool memories. A good starting point for this group as well if you haven't heard them yet...which means you've been living under a rock pilled in 1000 meters of snow.

When I first got this album I thought it was terrific and something new. A tough girl proving to the world that she can kick some butt with the boys. After listening to it for a while now I don't think it has the same appeal anymore. Lots of the tracks are fairly weak and don't offer much except a great party album, which I hope was not what was intended.

The two best tracks, I think, happen to be included as one. 12.1 is basically track 13 for 7 minutes, then after 3 minutes on silence we have the "Killing Smile" remix. "Behind The Door" has no heavy beats and is actually really sad sounding. Something that may have been in a soundtrack for a horror movie. The "Killing Smile" remix is great and kind of sounds like Autechre a bit. Scratchy rhythm and great notes that are stretched out.

"The Day After" is a good album for blasting down the road towards a sunset or at a party but other than that it's filler music anywhere else.

Well this is an album I don't really love but I play it lots and I have to give credit to the producer of this album, Joe Haley (who also plays guitar on the album), because this album is fucking crisp and nice sounding but their studio sucks compared to what I've seen with some other death metal bands. My only negative with the album is that it maybe too catchy, but it is technical so I guess I can't complain too much about that. The drums are awesome and I think I like them the best out of anything else on the album. I also love this albums artwork, which I featured on this list; .... There really isn't a favourite track I have on here as they're all pretty damn good in their own way. It's one of the those albums where I don't need to skip a track on, and to me that makes it worth my money.

The DVD that comes with this is, however, not that great. It features a home made handy came video for "The Making of Ob(Servant)" but it's not even 15 minutes long. The live shows are pretty cool, nothing special though, and I will comment on the stage at the Wellington show. It's one of the smallest stages I've seen a death metal band play on. Just barely 10 foot by 10 foot and the 3 front men are nearly touching each other the whole time because there's so little room. Pretty funny. Overall this is worth the money and it's a grand technical death metal album in my book.

A nice simple compilation that showcases the group pretty well but I've made a much better compilation myself personally. What surprised me is that the track Hate is different from the album version. It sounds more cleaned up and there's some backgroud echo vocals too. I like this version better but it doesn't say anywhere on the album that it is a different version. Ah well, it's a good bonus. The '89 version of Animals was awesome to hear too!

Also, would have been nice to see the track Doggy Style from Pro-Death Ravers on here because it's one of my favourite and it's on a couple VA compilations so I'm not sure why they didn't include it on here.

This was some pretty ambitious material for the early 80's when it came out and that shouldn't come as a surprise coming from this group. This album has a few genre's all mixed in and that's why I like some of it and can't stand some of it either. OK, so Genesis P-Orridge has a baby girl and we're forced to hear him sing about her and have her crying vocals recorded at the end of one track as well. I think the song Just Drifting (For Caresse) is a beautiful track on its own but after a while I kind of got sick of it, and same goes for the similar sounding track Stolen Kisses. You'll be hearing "Fa-fa-fa-fa-fa" in your head all day after hearing this track.

The good stuff I like on this disc is the more daring and experimental tracks, such as Terminus, Thee Full Pack (for Bachir Attar) and Guiltless. The track Ov Power is a good tune as well with a kick ass bass line but after 4 minutes it's gets boring. Interestingly, the track I've probably played the most is the Untitled one. It has a ton of news clip sounding samples and some of them get messed up. It's pretty much a track about "Thee Process" and I think Skinny Puppy got influenced from this untitled track for thier track "Process" on the album The Process. They worked with him before with other groups so it seems very likely. All in all this was a good album and a good beginners guide to Psychic TV. If this came out now I'd probably rate it a 2.5/5 though.

I'm a hugh Project Pitchfork fan and I pretty much love all thier albums, with this one being the exception. Apart from the artwork and the last cover track, I'll Find My Way Home, there isn't any thing positive I can say about it. None of the songs are "catchy", as with most of thier albums, and it just seems like they added to much metal into it as well. I rarely do this with any artist I like but after downloading it and listening to it I promply deleted it the next day. Not the bands best work at all!

Aside from the track Spitfire, which I still love, I didn't care too much for this groups last album, Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned. I then heard the first single off this album, being Omen, and thought I'd give this new one a shot. I listened to samples from each of the tracks and I liked them enough to buy the CD. I wasn't disapointed in it when I finally got to play the whole thing. There's some really good old school sounding material on here and it made me actually smile at times because it brought me back to when this group was kicking ass in the early 90's. I still think they have an original sound too and of all the tracks on this album I think my favourite is Run With the Wolves. This is one disc that you must have blasting in your car when your crusing slowly down the street with the windows open. So much bass and kick and synth lines on here. I only rate it a 3.5/5 because I'm not much of a techno fan to begin with but if your into that genre this is a disc you'd probably like for sure. Only negative about it is that the track, Omen Reprise, is pointless. I could see it as a B2 track if it was on vinyl. Otherwise it's pointless having it on this album.

This is one awesome track by a band that knows how to kicks some major ass when they push the right buttons. The lyrics are simple, as with most of their tracks, but I love them so! The girl chanting vocals add an ambiance to the deadly beats and the synths frigg'n rule. The Future Funk Squad remix is actually not that bad and does a good job building up but I found the Nightbreed one is a garbbled up mess that makes me keep this single at a 4/5 instead of a perfect 5. Overall I'd get this single the second I saw it even though I have it downloaded.

This is one awesome album from the violin master. It was my 2nd exposure to Jean-Luc and I've been hooked on this guy ever since. I still need to hear more of his older material but I really like what he's done to keep with current times. It's still jazz but on some tracks, like Signals from Planet Earth, he has added some soft drum and bass drums. It fits so well with this fast violin playing and the xylophone gives it a very atmospheric mood as well. One of my favourite tracks by him.

There's also some creepy slower tracks, like Lonely Among All. There's a drone overlayed and some chimes as well. Something to listen to in the dark. Although the electric violin does take away the feeling abit but I don't believe his intention was to make the track creepy anyway, just spacey I guess. Like Planet Earth is lonely among all the other ones. Pizzy Cat follows along the same lines as well. Damn good slow piece!

I wouldn't say this album is perfect but it's one I can listen to over and over again. The last four tracks aren't as good as the others but it's still good jazz none-the-less. It's a shame more people haven't heard this album because it truely is a great example of jazz for the newer generation.

A pretty forgetable release. Sure there's interesting random beats and samples but it feels like one long song broken up into parts. There isn't much change at times and tracks like Mindless Brutal Apparatus with it's cheesy spoken words doesn't work at all. Good for a listen or two but nothing special.