Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Burnt By The Sun - 2003 - The Perfect Is The Enemy Of The Good

You ever had that feeling where you take way too many uppers and it is physically impossible to focus on anything for more than 30 seconds? Where the only thing you wanna do is to listen to the most insane music in existence? Well, I found myself in that predicament one recent evening at 4 in morning and I made a bee-line for this album. Put succinctly, this album fucking owns. I remember hearing the tune 'Forlani' back when it came out and absolutely hating it. But it somehow reemerged in my life this last year, and thank god it did. I probably listen to this at least once a week. Its pretty much just an string of awesome fucking riff after awesome fucking riff, brilliantly arranged to keep you on your toes. The first three tracks alone are worth the price (shhhh...) of the album. This is one of the only albums that leaves me wanting more every time.

'purchase'

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Pink Floyd - 1970 - Atom Heart Mother


Though I love their earliest material, I still think their work from Atom Heart Mother [1970] through The Dark Side of the Moon [1973] is the best and most exciting work of their career. These albums sweep around the listener, melodies and themes creep in and out, changing and morphing during the journey through the albums' bloodstreams. Atom Heart Mother is a jollier, sillier album than others, but that doesn't mean it isn't serious. Kind of in an opposite mode from Meddle, the longest song is first, followed by a series of (relatively) shorter songs. This title first track is huge, epic and awesome. It's typical Pink Floyd fare and that's awesome—it's really good. But I think the middle three songs are where this album really shines. They're low-key and downplayed...even the last track, an epic noise-filled, psychedelic ramble loses the epic feel of the first track. "Summer '68" is a great ode to free love and psychedelia. "If" is a heartbreaking ballad about losing love and friends. "Fat Old Sun" is just a beautiful little song that brings back some of the themes from the first track. A smash hit of an album and the first to really move away from their more psychedelic leanings (though still preserving much of that).

Pink Floyd - 1970 - Atom Heart Mother