Radiohead - In Limbows

Hi Peoples,

Okay. So for this entry I'm going to post a little bit of a review on Radiohead's New album "The King Of Limbs" (aka In Limbos, cause ya know...who can tell the difference.) When I say review I'm probably not going to go into too much detail. Like anything Radiohead put out these days, it takes a little while to digest. I also apoligise for some of the shitty formatting that might take place, I wrote this in Notepad, and went through and quickly fixed  up fingers crossed.

I was at some point in time, in the past, a massive Radiohead fan. It all started with the first three albums which I would always listen to on high rotation ("Pablo Honey", "The Bends", which isstill one of favourite albums ever. and "OK Computer") So you can probably see where this review is going, by the time I got around to listen to Kid A, this was a totally different band, and I didn't, and still haven't found it as easy to love.I can't say I rarely care for "Amnesiac" and "Hail To The Theif" But that as they say, is another story!

Radiohead won me back a little bit with "In Rainbows" The album isn't the second coming of christ, but its a "15-step" back in the right direcion, in terms of the Radiohead I used to love. King of Limbs is a little bit of a step in the wrong direction, but not all is lost.

We Begin.....

As I write this review on my lunch break at work, someone has decided to cut up concrete on the street. Awesome timing. Its more annoying than the sound of Thom Yorke's voice (at times...)

"Bloom" kicks us off. On first listen, I had really disliked this track, I did love the little piano intro, that was cool. It has grown on me a little bit, but like quite a few of the bands "new direction" (since Kid A) for me, some of the songs go nowhere at all. Bloom kinda gets off the ground towards the end, a solid start to the album however.

"Good Morning, Mr. Magpie" is next, and the whole band are...er.."in bloom" here. This is a good track, but I again find it going nowhere. Radiohead certainly aren't a band that I expect to be lifted off the ground on EVERY TRACK. I'm just saying.

"Little By Little" is third, after my first listen, this was by far my favourite song. I found myselfbopping along in the wee hours (about 4am on a Saturday morning). The album hits lift off. Away we go right?

Maybe.

"Feral" is next....hmmm. Okay, In my opinon the album was just starting to get into the groove. "Little By Little was the "Reckoner" of this album, and I felt we were going somewhere....eh. Feral is a really really crap version of the song "Mofo" by U2. Thats the best way to describe it, it sounds a little similar to the studio version of mofo, but man I think it stinks, honestly.

Not that Radiohead release singles or anything like that...but err the first "Single" (lets use that  term as lossley as possible) from TKOL is "Lotus Flower" I didn't really appericate the song on first listen, but have come to love it after a few spins. (Is it still leagal to use the term "spins" when I don't often use Cd's or Records anymore?) Anywho, this song takes off from the business "Little By Little" started. Its got a great grove, the lyrics and Thom's voice are listenable. Maybe they didn't list this track start after Little, because they are quiet a like. (I'm sure if you dig deep and some radiohead die hard will demand I define every possible meaning to this track, but meh) The Song runs for 5:00 exactly, and is possibly the best five minutes on the album, Its the Radiohead of the 2000's running at full tilt.

Ah More piano-ey stuff. "Codex" follows as we start to get to the latter end of the album. I'm starting to like this song more with each listen also (I don't mean to sound like a broken record.) Its a really good tune, at any chance could its a wonder it hasn't ended up on anything Thom Yorke as done solo. It sounds like a really good chill out tune. A real grower also.

Huzzah! The annoying sounds of concrete being destroyed outside have stopped!


Birds, we have reached "Unknown Caller" Acoustic Guitar! we have reached "Give Up The Ghost"  This along with Codex and the final track "Separator" bring the chilled out feel to close out the album. While I wouldn't rate the other two tracks as high as I would Codex, they work very well to bring the album to a close. Or does it?

The conspiracy theories are out already, the lyrics in Separator are "If you think this over, you're wrong" It leaves me a little anxious as to see whats going to happen when the physical release of the album happens.

All in all, the album may only run for just under 38 minutes, but any longer and I think it would lose everything it has going for itself. IMO its not too long, not too short, lenghth wise, its just right. Its the style that still doesn't wanna make me grab my balls and say "FUCK YEH! RADIOHEAD RULES" but its a decent album. In Rainbows was going to be hard to follow up, and they've done a good job. For me, it lacks straight up "rock" songs that 90's Radiohead, and theres nothing really wrong with that they will still always have a massive following, its just something I don't "get", heck I'll follow Tori Amos to the grave (had to get a mention in) but I think you either get "it" or you don't....and thats the way some music will always be.

To your average music Joe this really is just any other album release by a band you may have heard your best friend mention. To the die hards this way very well be your Sgt Peppers, or the continuous sound of a few Englishmen who chopped down their Joshua Tree in 2000.

Bring back at least a rocking guitar tune. Otherwise a very good album to chill out to 

6.5/10.

R.I.P - The White Stripes

Before I start here, I'll admit that I am two weeks late with this post. But for this entry I'll be talking about the white stripes, their breakup, and how their music kinda changed my world.

Honestly, I knew of the White Stripes for a long time before I actually became a fan. I probably didn't catch onto them properly until early 2006, when I was introduced to Last.FM and "Elephant" To put things more into perspective I'm a massive U2 fan. U2 dominated my music listening from November 2001 till sometime in 2006 when I set foot into a whole new world. Yeah I owned a U2 iPod, and it thats exactly what it was, It would have been rare to find something else actually on it! So Enter 2006, with a whole new world of music early on I discovered a small band from england (Muse)  and one of my good friends from high school recommends I finally give the white stripes a proper listen. 

I already knew "Seven Nation Army" (but who didn't at the stage) It was the anthem for just about everything, and one of the only stripes songs I've heard on commercial radio in Australia. (if not the only) "Black Math" is classic stripes. Straight up rock n' roll. But before this turns into an album review...my mind is getting blown away by this awesome new style of music I'm hearing for the first time. I'm a little hazy on what happens next but, I'm pretty sure I race out and buy the rest of their albums (back in the days where one would do such a thing, nowdays I'd probably look for a torrent of the discography) "White Blood Cells" is probably my favourite album after going through and listening to everything (multiple times) My next purchase is, at the time, the white stripes only concert dvd. ("Under Blackpool Lights") Wow. Jaw dropping stuff, I love this DVD. The White Stripes are one of those bands who sound amazing enough on the CD, but when it goes into the live setting, everything goes up a couple of notches, and something amazing happens. They never wrote setlists for shows, it was more just walk out and open with this, throw in that oh and lets play this as well. 

That's enough a reason to me. A band that would get sick and probably kill themselves if they played the same boring setlist night after night. Tori Amos, Pearl Jam and Bruce Springsteen are among others who would be in the same boat. . I missed out on seeing them live and I will probably never get the privilege to do so.  Come the end of 2006 my musical tastes are still flying all over the shop, I start to give the stripes a little less airtime in favour of other new and old interests. (Muse were absouletly massive for about a 12 month stretch following the release of ("Black holes and revelations")

The White Stripes returned in June 2007 with the release of "Icky Thump" the title track of the same name signaled a return to the bands early garage-ey rock sounds. Once again the stripes captured my attention, and I was again hooked. I had my fingers crossed for a tour of Australia, which never happened due to Meg coming down with an axietey disorder, cancelling a few shows and the band never really performed live, again. Unless you count an appearance on the Conan O'Brien show before he finished his run at the tonight show.

There was definitley something special when Jack and Meg made music, they'd lock themseleves in the studio for two weeks and produce something amazing, and as good or even better than bands that spend 2-3 years on making a record. Their music was never over the top, or even groundbreaking really, it was simple in your face bluesy rock and roll. I still disagree that Meg isn't a good drummer. Maybe she wouldn't make a great drummer in a different band, but that is what the white stripes were all about, keep it simple. 

So I'm definitely going to miss my favourite "brother and sister" Detroit two piece. I actually don't believe they will record/tour together again, perhaps a one off performance here and there, but never what it was once like. I only say this because thats the way Jack is. He has always stated that this band was something that wouldn't last forever, and maybe they knew it was time. My onlt regret is, never seeing them live.

I got a letter this morning, what do you reckon it read? It said the band you love is dead. 

At least we will always have the music.

Weekend Happenings...

Hey Folks,

Hope you all had a good weekend. I had a pretty standard weekend. Trip to Melbourne to visit Fiancé's family, among a few other small adventrues.

Friday after work is always a rush when a trip to Melbourne is ahead. Even though I've been doing these trips to Melbourne (most weekends) for the better part of 4 years now, It doesn't get any easier packing and tidying up my room to hopefully make sure I get no unwanted intruders during the weekend. All of this whilst trying to unwind from what was a pretty busy week at work. But we got into gear, leaving Shepp by about 7 and we were off....Or well not quite.

Mum need a lift into town and I agreed to drive her in. About 2 kilmoters into the drive she asks "Are you still going to see Tim Finn this weekend?" ..."Oh shit"..."I left the bloody ticket at home, thanks mum". I was pretty lucky she reminded me. Otherwise I'd have been two hours away, and no ticket. Probably just would have purchased a new one at the gate. Anywho, we turn around, I get my ticket and we are now OFFICIALLY off. Stopping for dinner (Maccas & KFC, oh so classy!) and arrive at Nicole's place well and truly later than either of us wanted to be.

Saturday night I went to see Tim Finn. (Tum Funn) at the Corner hotel. It was my first time ever at a gig at the corner hotel, quite a nice little venue, one I wish to hopefully venture to again in the near future. I didn't really know the support acts that well (I forget the first guy) but he was pretty good....good acoustic guitar stuff, kinda up my alley. The second band ("The Chemists") totally sounded like someone dropped a brick on the lead singers foot during the second song (this would go on to happen in at least every second song in their set) The drummer guy who also played keyboard was only coordinanted enough to play the one note while slamming down the bass drum. It was pretty funny. Perhaps my standards are too high :P

So the opening acts started at 9, and were both done by 10:45, giving us 15 minutes before Tum Funn arrived on stage, strangely, right on time at 11pm! He was only scheduled to play till Midnight, but went through till 12:30ish. setlist avaliable here . All in all a great night, was good to catch up with some folks from the Interfernce forums, whom I haven't seen since U2 were downunder.

Got back out to croydon hills by about 1:45, where I was unable to get in the door..as my key is sometimes a bit strange, I sat at the door for about 5 minutes trying to get the prick of a thing to open and had no success, so I gave up...didn't want to wake anyone up as it was about 2am, and decided to sleep in the back of my car. Okay, so that sounds crazy ....and it was a pretty cold night, but I suruvived. I'm going to give 'bear' from man vs wild a fair old run now. But it was one of those stupid moments where I should have just gone and woken someone up, but eh...I survivied.

***now pause for a montage of times I've slept in a car***

Happy now? It was only one other time, by the way. Which was when Mum and I queued up for all night for U2 tickets before the Vertigo tour came downunder in December 2005. I had my drivers license test the next day and barely passed due to lack of awakeness.

Onto Sunday, well I awoke out of my car at about 6:30 and re-tried to get into the house, with still no successs, thanks to nicoles mum who was hopefully already awake let me in, and couldn't believe I'd actually spent the night in my car. (I would still like to point out at this stage I WAS FINE! and had not been rapped by a pack of wild St.Kilda players or anything, no.

The rest of the day I pretty much spent in bed or in a car. We went up Mt.Dandenong, well not all the way up...I can't remember the name of the town we stopped at, but had nice woodfire pizza for lunch. Back to shepp by about 10pm last night. Still haven't totally unpacked or tidyed up my new room from my 'room swap' we had last week with my sister, I'll get to it one day....hopefully.

This evening is apparently Valentines day, and my fiance and I are having a terribly romantic re-heated roast from last night, before she goes off to gym. I might settle in for some PS3 or a Blu-Ray/DVD of some kind. Ah, like sands through an hourglass!

Well harrow Blogspot

Firstly introductions out of the way,

My name is Daniel. I like music, movies, playstation, my friends...and I love my fiance.

Likelyhood is I'll keep this blog updated regularly for a while, before I forget about it. I used to run a journal on live-journal until I reckon that site has become totally rubbish. So we shall see how we go.

I have no real aim about what to talk about and stuff, so topics will be pretty random and mostly about whats going down in life. Hoping to get my act together and post some Music reviews...maybe talk about some gaming, sports stuff....nothing greatly out of the ordinary.

I have recently completed a bit of a tour of Australia following U2 around (Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney) So I'll try and post a bit about that, perhaps to kick off the next topic.

Till next time....