Mike76

I also went through a "Scaruffi phase," especially since his site is really vast (the only quality?) and also written in Italian, but I soon realized that there were too many dramatic claims and too many contradictions and exaggerations. When there’s so much quantity, the quality is what it is. I don’t think Pierino alone has ever convinced me to buy a record (thankfully, otherwise I would have "Appetite For Destruction" or stuff from Type O Negative or Foetus at home, and I might not have the complete discographies of D.A.F., Siouxsie, and Depeche Mode), but sometimes he might have been one of the many voices in the choir that guided me to a purchase (like for "Trout Mask Replica" or "Neu! 2"). I haven’t checked his site in a while now; Rateyourmusic or even Debaser are a thousand times better.

Nine neo-kraut tracks that can also be seen as movements of a single grand mega-suite that never fails to entertain because it is dynamic and diverse.

The film indeed seems much less dated than one would expect from a movie from 1971, especially due to the pacing of the narrative. The ending feels like a joke but is unexpected and funny; it fits.

I haven't eaten anything from Kinder in quite a while either, except for the occasional leftovers from my daughters' breakfast (nothing should be wasted, down with waste). The only thing I don't like about this big Italian company is that they have promoted the slogan "+ milk - cocoa," making people believe it's the best thing when, on the contrary, the opposite would be preferable.

A controversial album that's difficult to judge, not only because it seems to have aged poorly (but you'll see that these sounds will be revived in yet another revival and suddenly become current and modern), but also because of the aura of an epochal and revolutionary record that nearly all rock encyclopedias tend to assign it, which in my humble opinion is exaggerated. This is despite the fact that the quality level of the music is decent (the only track I'd toss out is the initial "Movin' On Up," which closely resembles George Michael from the previous year, the one from "Freedom," and the cloying brit-pop standard "Damaged" that really damages the album). The rest, in my opinion, ranges from acceptable to good. In any case, I struggle to understand the revolutionary nature of this album since, among other things, the remix craze had exploded in the '80s (even traditional rock artists like Springsteen had embraced it) and by the end of the decade, there was Madchester. I find it hard to label what I hear on this album as "contamination" between rock and dance music because tracks like "Don't Fight It, Feel It," "Slip Inside The House," "Come Together," or "Higher Than the Sun (A Dub Symphony..)" could easily have appeared as-is without much fuss on a record by any of the DJs involved in the production, while "Damaged," on the other hand, is pure and untainted brit-pop. Therefore, tracks of different styles coexist within the same album, but contamination is something else, and certainly, an electronic ballad like "Higher Than the Sun" still sounds too "80s" to be seen as something new. I'll take a bold stance: the supposed greatness of this album is due to the courage of a rock band to contract out the recording of an album in their name to a group of DJs, helping to broaden the musical horizons of audiences accustomed to pop-rock, but musically, there's very little that is truly new.

A review that is more about the disc itself than the music, but nonetheless valuable. In fact, since you are knowledgeable about CDs, I wanted to ask you which edition of "Catastrophe Ballet" would be advisable to have.

I pretty much share the reviewer’s opinion, if it weren't for the fact that I never even had time to hate Pearl Jam, as whenever one of their videos came on MTV, I would change the channel no later than 10 seconds. Luckily, they didn’t make many videos. However, there’s one exception: “Spin the Black Circle” had already caught my attention positively back then; it had a nice run of fast, sharp riffs and was far removed from the standard puffy American rock they usually offered, almost as if they had realized that there was music even after 1975. And I still like the song today, even though Vedder’s voice doesn’t particularly thrill me. This one good memory pushed me to dig out the album from which it was taken, just to see, without too many expectations, what I had missed at the time. As I expected, there are plenty of those "lighter" ballads and the mediocre stadium hard rock, stuff that is as pleasant to me as wearing sandpaper underwear. Some lyrics are indeed interesting, like "Bugs" and "Better Man," for example, which deal with the theme of surrendering to one’s fate due to lack of strength or for convenience, but musically, only three or four tracks have some musical interest: besides STBC, there's also "Tremor Christ," which shows off punk-style guitars but slower and more stuttering, the vaguely beefheartian madness of "Bugs," and the vaguely zappian experimentation of "Hey Foxymophandlemama, That's Me" (not particularly successful but honor to the courage). "Not for You" also deserves a mention, a prototype-stereotype of the nirvanian grunge song, that is, verse-calm/chorus-angry: instrumentally, it’s not so bad, but the vocals... the "calm" part evokes a drunk waking up early in the morning with a thick mouth the day after a bender, while the "angry" part evokes a guy sitting on the toilet trying to overcome constipation (in a vocal style that reminds me of Trent Reznor... brrr). In short, a track that reminds me why, as a young person, I avoided "grunge" like the plague despite the media bombardment. In the end, though, it’s an album that doesn’t reach passing marks because the admiration for those three or four good tracks doesn’t outweigh the disgust and repulsion for the rest; still, credit to Pearl Jam for attempting to go beyond the audience they had built.

Good power pop album, melody and roughness well balanced, "Cannon Ball" is a nice reminder of youth and still packs a punch, but the rest is enjoyable too, even if it's all a bit "epidermic." I might have passed on "Drivin' on 9" (a variation is fine but this one is terrible).
Rating 3.5 (If 4 is too much, 3 is too little)

Ah, it was produced by Albini! Great work indeed, a heavy and powerful sound but more refined and full of nuances than one might expect. However, the songwriting doesn't leave much of a mark in memory, and the barking of "fatty" Doyle, forever set to "metal anger" mode, is flat and monotonous. Rating 2.5.

So... even though every time I hear the term "prog" I'm often struck by intestinal spasms, and although I find Wyatt's vocal register too mellifluous for my tastes (even if, compared to the first Soft Machine album, I find him significantly improved here), one cannot help but tip their hat to the refined sound research of this album, at times truly astonishing ("Alife" could have been written by Tuxedomoon five years later) but which never feels forced. I can't give a rating because it would be wrong in any case, I can only say that it's a top-notch album.