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never liked them, too soft...

extraordinary Pietrangeli...

for me grunge really existed: I have always found many correspondences (in the riffs, in the melodies, in the moods, in the structures, in the sound) among the various bands of Sub Pop... but the Green River know nothing about it...

@ajeje: in my opinion, the BP were anything but playful... the cover doesn't matter... I find them damn serious... I believe they were one of the greatest rock bands in history, one of the few who explored, without any inhibiting restraint or intellectual mystification, the depths of the human soul... among the leading exponents of that lush strand of primitivist blues-rock, inaugurated in the 60's by Donald Van Vliet and culminating in the 90's with the Jesus Lizard (an exquisite and inimitable band on a formal level, but absolutely indebted to the Birthday Party in terms of substance)... the ancestral rituals, the brutal pain that has always gripped humanity and is transformed in the masks of daily absurdity finds its fullest representation in albums like Junkyard... compared to the wonderful Prayers On Fire, it comes off as much less baroque and chromatic, being centered on the perverse intertwining of guitars and chameleonic rhythms... Dead Joe is one of the bleakest and most "hardcore" tracks ever released by a blues band and was paraphrased by Big Black in Bazooka Joe... but the whole album is full of brilliant anticipations of 10 years of abyssal noise-blues...

This is the album that invented the faux-illiterate American underground rock: from Butthole Surfers to Jon Spencer, from Royal Trux to Big Black... all the great noise-makers of the '80s seem to have drawn inspiration from this overlooked work of one of the most snubbed English bands ever... Hex is an impeccably played album, anarchic in spirit but not in form… compared to their minimalist beginnings, there’s a greater articulation of the tracks, a deeper exploration of (poly)rhythm, and a scientific approach to generating cacophonies (layers upon layers of dissonant guitars, like in the more extreme Pussy Galore; not to mention Fortress Deer Park, with a guitar that sounds exactly like Albini before Albini and a structure reminiscent of Passing Complexion, or the shape-shifting Jawbone, with that trail of sharp blades that swallows Sonic Youth in one gulp)... there are countless details to dissect in this album... the quantity and quality of the ideas contained in Hex are innumerable: we are at the level of the best Pere Ubu; on the other hand, with Hex, the Fall abandon new-wave legacies and, through the filter of garage rock, forge modern noise, indie, lo-fi… an album as entertaining as it is intelligent, where humor and neurosis go hand in hand…

I checked...the song is called All Saints...I wonder why I was thinking of Stars On Stars...I was confusing it with Echo & The Bunnymen...

No comments on this review? Incredible... really a beautiful piece of writing, feel... I stop by to say hello, it’s been since February that we haven’t seen each other... and I take the chance to talk about this album, so strange... many would want to call it the godfather of new wave, but I don’t agree: it’s not enough to have a few funky accents, an aseptic vocal style, and a blend of guitars immersed in a broth of synthesizers to make it new wave... I think that Low is a case apart, one of those hybrid works where different inspirations blend together... it’s true that Eno’s touch is quite noticeable and, in a way, Low reminds me a lot of Before And After Science, considering how it’s structured (the first part is lively, the second part is more relaxed)... the track that struck me the most (but it might be a bonus track) is one of the last: Stars On Stars, I think it’s called (but I’m not sure), it’s a thunderous compendium of kraut-rock, a full-blown magnetic storm...

This album makes me think of titanic achievements like the discovery of America, rather than epic works like the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Aeneid... epic sagas... it’s a majestic, stoic record, marked by that fullness and roundness typical of every classical form... a simple and universal language, like that of a Kurosawa... a clear style where piano, orchestra, marimba, and the warmest, most vigorous, and most titanic choirs converge like never before... almost all the tracks on Good Son are contemplative ballads, impetuous yet fundamentally serene... then there’s the diabolical Hammer Song, which stands alone... ultimately, it’s an album that possesses the breath of the best adventurous cinema and the depth of the best Greek philosophy: you truly feel like you’re facing the most exhilarating of epics that humanity has ever (or has not yet) taken part in...

revised and, in part, re-evaluated... I still believe that Petri is neither Bunuel nor the best Ferreri nor the best Bellocchio; otherwise, this film could have been an absolute masterpiece... the film's message is very clear, perhaps too clear... it is a film that does not escape the rough schematism typical of so much Italian civil cinema... stylistically, despite some excesses of virtuosity, it is admirable for its experimentation on all fronts (narration, editing, camera movements, framing, actors' direction, sound)... the dream sequence of the trial mixes surrealism, Brecht, and psychoanalysis in an hyperbolic way... the ghost character of Florinda Bolkan is spot on, a mere projection of the protagonist's desires and neuroses...

awful review... good record, even though at times the parade of grotesquely deformed rock classics turns out to be a bit sterile... there are certainly some nice ideas, but we are quite far from both the impeccable balance of Not Available and the irresistible barrage of gags from Meet The Residents... much better are the bonus tracks, especially the relentless Loser=Weed and the devastating cover of Satisfaction, on which the Butthole Surfers practically built their career (especially the albums from the late '80s)...