What with the recent spate of power outages that have seemed to affect my street only lately, and the fact that I have been out of the country for a week, my music blogging has suffered a bit. As a travel tip, I can say that when landing in Rome it is not advised to speak to anybody about taxi’s while still in the terminal – you get whisked away to unscrupulous taxi services who then charge the earth. Go outside to the official taxi rank, choose a taxi that looks official, and expect to pay about 40 Euros to get from the airport to the city centre of Rome.
Now, on to the CD Review!
My first impression of this album is that it is Lo-Fi. Meaning that things are stripped pretty much to the bone. It sounds like the Breeders are using old and worn out guitars, drums, amps, tape, bass guitars and Kim Deal’s lungs. Not that this is a bad thing, if the songs are strong.
When the Pixies reunited in 2004 I was a little worried. No matter how much one wants more and more of a good thing – in this case a new Pixies album, there is a lot to be said for quitting while you are winning too. My worrying caused me to avidly scan every little snippet I could find to try to determine whether they were recording again, and if so how it was going. In the end they only managed a couple of songs, which I have not heard as I have never managed to figure out Itunes (they don’t seem to service South Africa), which was the only place that they were released. At the time Frank Black commented that they had had problems getting Kim out of her house and into a recording environment. As always there was probably more to the situation than meets the eye, because she has clearly been channelling energy into the Breeders.
Battle Mountain is an album that I believe belongs in a context. It does not play that well in my car where the low-end is lost to the rumblings of the road (and most of the album is pretty much low-end). You can’t play it with the kids around as they consider it boring, and you probably could not play it with guests around as it might be considered too gloomy/moody. So my dilemma is that it sounds like a good album and what I hear I like, but in my natural surroundings the response to it by the co-inhabitants is cool (a bit like Grinderman’s excellent offering). So maybe the context for the album is sneaking off to a nice quiet place with a pair of good head-phones!
Let me try that out before continuing with the review……
Hmmm, this only goes to show how dangerous first impressions can be. The album is definitely fairly low-key in the sense of an un-hurried and simplified type of offering. But that does not mean it is not exciting. There are great songs on this album, my favourite being ‘Istanbul’ which displays how to create something that is complex and fun with a minimum of technology. The single ‘We’re Gonna Rise’ is also strong, while ‘It’s the Love’ is another strong favourite of mine.
This is also one track in German and one in Spanish, I have no idea what they are about, but I really like the German one. All the way through the bass playing is really good.
Listening to this album reminds me of bands like The Breeders (Doh!), Pixies (Doh!), PJ Harvey (not a band I know), and Throwing Muses. If you like these bands, and want some music that comes across as warm and cosy, you will enjoy this album.
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