Reviewing a few albums

An Awesome Wave - Alt-J
So I got this for Christmas and have to say for all the hype I'd heard it get, it didn't live it up to it. There's a few things I'll say to elaborate.
- In spite of a lot of people praising the originality of this LP; to me it sounds like a band that at some point in 2011 got together and said 'I know, we like Bombay Bicycle Club, Everything Everything and we like bass fairly heavy. Let's see what we can do with that.' They don't sound original, they sound like the fruit of the last few years' trends in indie music.
- The lyrics are that pretentious, it means you can't take a lot of this music seriously. First time I listened to 'Tesselate' I heard the words 'Triangles are my favourite shape, three points where two lines meet' and thought that's just silly.
- It's an album that would be much better as an instrumental album, the interesting variation of the instrumentation is let down by the vocals, they're sang in a dull, uninterested, nasal manner and as I've already said, the lyrics don't help as well.
- The interludes really kill any momentum created, they could probably be developed into songs but don't go anywhere. The Intro is probably the best sounding thing on the album, its problem is it's not a full song and the vibe it creates is killed by the next track being a capella. Moreover it doesn't serve the album well to begin with two tracks that are so different whichdon't even last four minutes together.
Overall, it's still a reasonable album, it's generally pleasant to listen to but I think is let down in so far as Alt-J have just tried too hard and hence compromised what they did well.



Portishead - Portishead
So Portishead's second album: not nearly as good as Dummy. The first thing I think it misses is the intimacy that I took for granted with their first album. It felt like you were sat in the same room as Beth Gibbons as you listened to Dummy, but with Portishead it feels like you're watching her in B/W on a cinema screen. In tracks like 'Cowboys' and 'Seven Months' she sounds like she could be a classic female movie villain like the witch from The Wizard of Oz. Nonetheless there are some really great sounding moments where the music and vocals work together to really portray doubt, uncertainty, dependence and fear. Compared with Dummy which kept a fairly consistent air about it, the intensity seems to be noticeably more polarised, with the quieter moments being in my view the better part of the album. The closer, 'Western Eyes' is probably my favorite song on the album. It's a somber but very well put together number with evocative strings and piano alongside Gibbons' tender vocals; then concluded with a interesting sample of a soul song from of their own making.



Controlling Crowds - Archive
I've taken to this album very much as it is a superb combination of two of my favourite genres: Trip-Hop and Progressive Rock. Originally a trip-hop act, Controlling Crowds incorporates some heavier guitar riffs with catchy and isn't afraid to take its time to build up well and create great anthemic moments such as at the end of 'Bullets'. While there is a good tempo and beat kept throughout as is natural with trip-hop and electronica, it doesn't impede the creation of dramatic yet catchy alternative rock. There's also a great mix of vocals as well, with male and female singing and rapping featuring noticeably but without one dominating. 'Controlling Crowds' is the title track and opens the album making plenty of impact while displaying a very patient temperament.



Eye In The Sky - The Alan Parsons Project
A classic 80s progressive rock album, nonetheless there's certainly quite a lot of fun moments with catchy pop rock songs like 'You're Gonna Get Your Fingers Burned' and 'Step By Step'. Influenced by Orwell's 1984, the LP deals with the themes of surveillance within the context of government and religion. 'Silence and I' is an fantastic ballad with heavy orchestration making a great finishing instrumental.