March 2008 What's on the player

OK – I did this for February, and here is the March roundup. This is a brief take on what my opinion is on a few albums that I have been listening to recently i.e. the current albums rotating through my player.

Radiohead – In Rainbows

I had this on frequent rotation in February, and still cannot bring myself to remove it from the CD player. I really like this album!

Muse – Black Holes and Revelations

As in my previous posting where I reported on seeing Muse live at the My Coke Fest, I mentioned that I had the Black Holes and Revelations album (my only Muse album) on heavy rotation for the remainder of that weekend, and up until now as well. It is a strong offering that survives repeated listening with ease. At the concert they also played ‘Feelin’ Good’ which really impressed me and I hope to get a copy of that soon. Speaking of which I have ordered a copy of HAARP from Amazon and I expect it to arrive this week (if it arrives at all – over Xmas I ordered some CD’s and books from Amazon that never arrived, some South African Customs employees family members are now grooving to Robert Plant and Alison Krauss’s new album while reading the complete Michelle Paver ‘Chronicles of Ancient Darkness’ series, and I can’t bring myself to buy it all again – so I still haven’t heard the afore-mentioned album). I will provide my thoughts on HAARP in time.

Pearl Jam – Rearviewmirror

This was my first ever digital download of an album bought through the OD service. I must say, I still much prefer buying the physical CD’s. When it comes to Pearl Jam there is even more reason to buy the CD as their packaging is often quite different and fun. Well, what I find interesting about this one is that I seemed to have mellowed a bit since buying it. It has always been an album of two discs, and by that I mean that the first is the ‘heavy’ one and the second more ‘mellow’. When I first got the album I preferred the first disc, now I am tending more towards the second. My view is that the second discs songs are stronger.

Scars (Gary Moore) – Scars

This album is quite a curiosity. It is Gary Moore’s version of the power trio and it works very well. I believe that Mr. Moore should be much more successful than he is – not that he is struggling, but it could be even better. Perhaps he has been missing a constant creative partner much in the way Jagger - Richards or Page - Plant were writing teams. I recently listened to some of his early eighties output and found it quite cringe-worthy. I would call it Cheese-rock i.e. cheesy rock. But compare that to his work with Thin Lizzy, then to his Blues-era material and then to Scars and you can forgive him for that. Scars influences to me are Cream era Clapton, Hendrix and even, now that I think about it, more modern bands such as …..Muse. It is a solid album with strong songs, excellent guitar, and Moore’s vocals sounding strong. I wish he would do another Scars project. By the way one of my favourite DVD’s for a long time has to be ‘Gary Moore and friends – A tribute to Phil Lynott’, if you can get a copy of that grab it I guarantee you will love it. Something else worth mention is the StratPack DVD. This DVD contains a host of very average performances, until Mr. Moore takes the stage. Wow he outclasses everybody else with his version of ‘Red House’.