Snow Patrol - Final Straw

This was the first album I heard/bought from the Irish band Snow Patrol. Of course, the follow-up album included the international smash hit Chasing Cars, but it was the singles from this album that first caught my ear.

However, the singles seem to be the only good part of this album on this re-listen. The first four tracks on the disc were bland, comprised of pop-rock cliches and I really couldn't tell where one ended or the next began.  Then, the a trio of tracks that caught my ear arrived (see "Recommended track(s)" below).  And then the rest of the album felt tired and unimaginative again, to the point where I kept looking at my iPod to see how many tracks were left in the album.

The singles were okay, but nothing spectacular. Any comparisons to Coldplay or other UK/Irish bands don't jump out at me on this re-listen. It was very much a stereotypical pop-rock album which sounded a touch over-produced and lacked any sort of energy, as if this was the one hundredth time they'd played these tracks in the studio.  I don't know what I heard to make me think I should give this album another listen, but this might have been it's last listen from me; I'll have to see sometime if their follow-up was any better.

Recommended track(s):	Spitting Games; Chocolate; Run
Worth another listen?	~Maybe
Overall rating:	Two-and-a-Half Stars

Girl Talk - Feed the Animals

I was finally able to track down a copy of All Day late last night (the day of it's free release), but in honour of Gregg Gillis' new album, I thought it was only fitting to review Girl Talk's previous album today.

Less of an album, meaning a collection of songs put together one heading, as it is a 53 minute experience; an on-going mash-up of song snippets that have been masterfully put together into something new. Similar in style to The Avalanches' album, Since I Left You, but somehow different... and no, I can't put my finger on how or why (although I don't believe that either artist got the rights to all of the samples used on their albums). Looking at the Wikipedia entry for Feed the Animals, you can see that we're not talking about 'a few samples' that have been mashed together. We're talking about hundreds, from all eras and genres.

I have no idea how someone would go about putting something like this together, or how it would ever occur to someone that having Busta Rhymes rap over top of the groove from Phil Collins' In The Air Tonight would be great. But it is, and Gillis was the one with the vision to make this happen. It could be that, on the first few listens, it was just the idea of putting something together like this that kept me coming back, but I've heard this album countless times now and it still gets me going. There aren't any choruses, verses, bridges, etc., here, it's just a single stream of music that has been cut into 'tracks' for ease of access more than anything else.

Sure, some of it is a little crass lyrically in places, but I don't normally listen to a lot of the rap artists that are sampled here, so maybe that's my bias. Otherwise, the fun of identifying songs or artists is still there for me, the energy is still super-high on this album, and it's just a great album to drive to or have on in the background.

Recommended track(s):	Shut the Club Down; What It's All About; Hands in the Air
Worth another listen?	Yes!
Overall rating:	Four Stars

K's Choice - Almost Happy

Remember back in the summer of '96 there was a song called Not An Addict that was played on seemingly every radio station? Do you remember the name of the band that performed the song? Can you name the album the track appeared on? Does any of this sound familiar to you?

Probably not... in Canada, K's Choice were something of a one-hit wonder, however, in Europe this brother-sister duo went on to release a total of five albums including their 2010 reunion release, Echo Mountain. Almost Happy was the band's fourth album which, in North America, was released as a two-CD set: a studio album plus a live album.

The studio album is a bit more laid-back than their previous two LPs, but still has it's more rockin' moments. I've always been a fan of Sarah Bettens' vocals and they're just as strong on this album as they were on the other albums. The lyrics are personal and emotional, talking about love and loss, regret and hope, making "Almost Happy" a very appropriate title for the album. As a studio album, it's perhaps not their best, but it's a solid three-stars.

The live album shows them as more upbeat, featuring most (if not all) of their singles/big hits from their previous albums: Cocoon Crash, Not an Addict, Mr. Freeze, Everything for Free, Butterflies Instead, etc.  It's quite a good live album on the whole, even if you're not a long-time fan of the band.

Recommended track(s):	Almost Happy; Live for Real; Always Everywhere
Worth another listen?	Yes!
Overall rating:	Three Stars

Barenaked Ladies - Rock Spectacle

I don't plan to review multiple albums from the same band, back-to-back, very often, but I'm not making any rules against doing so either. So, as a follow-up to yesterday's review, here is one for the Barenaked Ladies only live (non-bootleg, digital, legal or otherwise) album.

This album really disappointed me. It's one that I remember really enjoying and listening to over and over again. I was very excited to have put this in the CD player, especially after enjoying Stunt the day before. These live versions seem really restrained and clunky; they don't have a lot of life in them and seem to be heavy on the psudo- acoustic side of things. I've seen BNL in concert a few times -- including once in my high school gymnasium after the school had won the concert as a part of some milk promotion -- and they're usually very upbeat, involved, high-energy affairs. This album captures none of that, until about the last two or three tracks. Maybe.

I also don't understand the almost total lack or between song banter on the disc. The Ladies, especially at this point in their career, were known for on-stage improvisation and humourous commentary between the band, between songs. The only time this does appear on the album is, oddly enough, at the very end, after the last song. This is extra weird/annoying because, during their If I Had a $1000000 performance, they make reference to this stage banter... but you have no idea what it's all about until after the song is over!

For a band with such a great stage presence and upbeat catalogue of music, this album didn't do them justice.

Recommended track(s):	Life, in a Nutshell
Worth another listen?	No.
Overall rating:	Two-and-a-Half Stars

Barenaked Ladies - Stunt

There was no rhyme or reason to review this album first. It might be just because it was one of the most recent albums that I'd put into my iTunes library in anticipation of starting this project.

This is the fourth studio album for the Barenaked Ladies and, I believe, the one that really broke them in the US market. While we'd known about them for years up here in Canada, international success had been hard to come by. It's also the last/most recent studio album that I own by the band. Their follow-up, Maroon, never really connected with me and I stopped buying their albums after that. Listening to this album, and the joint vocals of both Ed Robertson and Steven Page, I can't imagine their sound today without Page (who left the band in 2009).

Lyrically, the album is much darker than I remember it being, and significantly darker in lyrical tone than Gordon (although, in hindsight, Maybe You Should Drive may also have darker undertones; I'll have to listen for that when I review that album in the future). Musically, however, it's still a fun, poppy album with lots of highlights. Next to Gordon, this is very likely my favourite BNL album and a pleasure to have heard again.

Recommended track(s):	One Week; Light Up My Room; Who Needs Sleep?
Worth another listen?	Yes!
Overall rating:	Four Stars