Reviews by markjazz

This is my least favourite from the solo albums of cEvin Key. It seems to scattered to me and doesn't have enough catchy tunes to keep me coming back. The only one I really keep playing is Sklang because the effects are so damn trippy. 15th Shade is also a pretty cool track that features vocals from Edward Ka-Spel. Frozen Sky, because it features ohGr on vocals, works very well as a Skinny Puppy track and sounds pretty cool, but it's nothing special, like the rest of the album. There's isn't much to say about the album really, it's neat to hear but it's nothing great and I much prefer his other two solo albums over this one.

I'm still convinced that, at the time of this release, Jewel had one of the most angelic female vocals on the market. The proof is in tracks like Angel Standing By, Don't and Morning Song. Her voice just lifts up your heart and is very operaic at times. Another great thing about this album is the range of lyrics from happy stories about not getting up in the morning to tales about an abusive father. Her lyrics are very poetic and the guitar is played very well. It has a little girl inperfection to its play as well. The ironic thing about this album is I really didn't care much for her singles that came out from this release and a lot of people never got to hear the other jewels hidden away I think because the singles were played to death. Still her best after all these years.

I'm not really fond of solo jazz works but this one is pretty damn good and even though I've only rated it a 3.5/5 I do consider it a classic for solo piano jazz. Most of the time I'm left breathless listening to this while other times I just want to skip to a better part of the track, but I never do. I have to be in a certain mood to listen to a record like this one and for the most part it just ends up being background music for me, which isn't really a bad thing. I prefer jazz that I can listen to in my car and when I can do that then, to me, it's awesome!

I do like the fact that Keith isn't really trying to play anything typical in this, as far as jazz goes. It's live improv all the way and I hope none of the notes were written down. When I listen to this I think of Charles Mingus right away and I imagen he might have played something similar if he had been more of a piano player in his career. Even though it's not a perfect album to me it is a great example of jazz turned into modern classical music...and sometimes all at once.

To me, this is your typical Hocico album. Strong start with an ok finish. I like the first half of this album and if it was just those tracks this would be an easy 4/5. Having said that though I don't hate any of the other tracks and the ones I like aren't the best they've ever done. What I do love about this album is there's nothing I want to skip. This makes for a good album for me to listen to in my car and I had though Hocico was tailing off with their last album but this one brought me back. The Dog Eat Dog EP and Bite Me! single are pretty good too with awesome tracks like Escape the Spell and Embraced by the Light. Both should have been on this album.

One thing I find interesting about this album is the track Hey... It's Me. It's not long and there isn't much lyrics but the melody is so damn catchy it sticks in my brain and I must have played it over and over again half a dozen times for three days straight. It plays like a nursery rhyme and I wish it was worked out more so it could be a longer track.

This was recorded back in 1957 in Paris over two nights and apparently Earl had a problem with the playing conditions but you wouldn't know it from his sounds that he bops out on these recordings. It's bebop jazz at it's finest and the band, featuring Guy Pedersen and Gus Wallez, are extremely tight together. As good as anything the Oscar Peterson Trio put out as well. This is the perfect type of jazz to relax to or have a nice dinner with as well. It's fairly standard but played perfectly.

To me this is a perfect jazz album. It has so much variation in the styles that one can never get bored listening to it. We have some hard bop tracks; Hash Down and Once Upon a Time, then we get some slow modals with Fantastic, That's You, some blues with The Blues in My Flat, even a spaghetti western type jazz with Black and Tan Fantasy. The only other Earl Hines disc I own was recorded in 1957 and that was just as amazing as this one, 9 years apart. On this recording you can tell that the band seemed to have a lot of fun playing these sessions simply because I can almost see the smiles on thier faces while the players each do thier own solos, which are marvelous. I'm a big Impulse! fan and this one stands out by far in my collection and sadly it was the only recording he did with the label. If you ever at a wedding and feel like the need to dance to a jazz track, get the DJ to slap on Hash Brown and the whole crowd will get up and move!

I love this release. There are so many different styles of music that Hilt adds in each release, this one in particular, that one can not hate this band and there seems to be a track for everyone. A good example: You have the slow tracks such as "Birdwatcher" and "The Ride" that set the feel for the whole album overall. There are tracks like "Superhoney" and "Way Out There" that any lady-fan of the pop world would fall in love with, that's right, love ballads! Then there are tracks like "222", "950", "314", "Crazy For You" that any punk fan would get a kick out of. Industrial? I don't know. This is one of cEvin Key's side projects that I think is just him experimenting with sounds and styles and seeing what he can get away with. Ended up being a success in my book.

This band has one of the most unique sounds and it's no surprise, being a side project of cEvin Key. There's a ton of variety in this album with the punk fast paced style tracks of Back to Insanity and Down on Mommy's Farm, the melodic teen heart throb tracks like Baby Fly Away and Wood Soup and the just plain weird, like Jah Mon Rasta and Squeltch. I don't really think there's a "bad" track on this album but there are points where I can't imagine what they were smoking when they wrote some of these tracks and knowing cEvin Key's crew it was probably a lot of it! I like the fact that this group can manage to blend acoustic guitar with hard pounding beats and even some good organ notes. This album isn't for everyone but if your a fan of Skinny Puppy's older stuff or even the stuff from their side projects then there's probably something you'll like on here. Like I said before, there's a lot of variation in here and that keeps me playing this one since I bought it 10 years ago.

This turned out to be better than I thought it would. I had only ever heard of two tracks from this group, both from compilations. Those being Delusions and an awesome remix of Vampire. There isn't really any bad tracks on this album but it is pretty average sounding overall. Good beats, good production and lots of movie samples too. This album is over 77 minutes and that had me worried that it might be filled with crap but like I said earlier, there isn't any bad tracks on here. Another thing I like are the vocals. There's both male and female on here and they sound great. Good electro-industrial for sure! If you like early material from Front Line Assembly and Haujobb you'd probably like this album too.

This was my introduction to Haujobb and I think it was a good choice for me to find out exactly what this project represents. There are the two 'normal' versions of the title track, plus the instrumental, whichs give a great example of the style of his music. Hard techno rhythms with odd sampling, classical music sounding too. The remixes are great as well and I've never been disappointed at the odd way Forma Tadre manages to remix other artists. This is a very unique release, even by Haujobb standards.