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Truly a remarkable review. A crazy, ultra-futuristic record, dropped from the 3000s to the early 70s. I prefer it to the debut album. "Fur Immer," in my opinion, is even better than "Hallogallo": more airy, denser, more enveloping. At certain moments in the album, I believe we can already speak of industrial. Brilliant, in any case, is the work done in manipulating the rhythms and sounds.

It's clear now: Lewis Tollani has become the "official de-reviewer of the 60s bands I don't know." :-D A tasty review, once again. Just one question: was power-pop already a thing in the 60s??!!

yes.

mmm... yes, really an interesting discussion... Just one thing I didn't understand: Joan, where do you see Pollock in Reznor's compositions? "...the dripping, that is, the chaotic dripping of color...": in which tracks of the album did you notice the use of this technique? Personally, I find it a bit hard to compare Reznor to Pollock... When I think of the "Jackson Pollock of rock," other musicians come to mind (Captain Beefheart, for example). I can't see Reznor as an "informal" artist and his songs as "action painting"... Enlighten me, Regular!

Magic record, which, in my opinion, inadvertently sparked a series of glaring missteps from the (inter)national music critics. In my view, this album has almost nothing to do with so-called "post-rock," let alone with "slo-core": when Scaruffi (and not just him) hails Talk Talk as precursors of Codeine, he misses by a wide margin!!! It's difficult to find two bands more distant... In my opinion, Spirit of Eden is yet another transfiguration of "old" psychedelic rock, the kind represented by Pink Floyd (the supreme British psychedelic combo of all time). In Spirit of Eden, the insights from 30 years of music on the periphery are put to good use, from Davis' cool jazz to the Floyd's psych-rock, from the dreamy free-folk of Buckley’s Happy Sad to the ethereal kraut of Popol Vuh, not forgetting the British avant-garde of the 70s (Canterbury and Eno's ambient). Additionally, there’s a strong soul vein, expressed through Hollis' singing. You can tell that Talk Talk are nonetheless children of the new romantic movement: their tracks are "expanded songs," liquefied, evanescent, relaxed, dissolute, yet still characterized by verses and choruses (where intensity and pathos grow). Therefore, there is none of the detachment, coldness, or apathy found in various Codeine, Galaxie, RHP, Slint... Finally, unlike their greatest heirs (Bark Psychosis), theirs was a music paradoxically lo-fi and vintage, with 60s/70s fuzz and Hammond organs, warm sounds, muffled drums, and boisterous horns and strings...

Well... something tells me I prefer the second one... In a few days, I'll listen to it again and then I'll leave a comment on the related review... ;-)

Noise??!! But where do you hear noise in NIN?! Reznor's music, for being industrial, is far too accessible... His compositions are nothing more than "songs": verse, chorus, etc... They are catchy, gripping, "emotional," structured pieces... Dude, I wonder if you’ve ever listened to bands like Red Crayola, Velvet Underground, Captain Beefheart, Faust, Half Japanese, Neubauten, Royal Trux, Dead C... No, seriously, do you really find The Downward Spiral to be such an inaccessible album? It might be inaccessible compared to Bon Jovi and Aerosmith, if anything... And even if it were "just noise," don't tell me that noise can't be defined as "art"? And what about Edgar Varese??!! Dude, wake up! We’re in the 21st century! The concept of Renaissance beauty has been gone for a while now! One of the lessons of 20th-century art (partly foreshadowed in the Romantic era) is that art can also be unpleasant to our senses. Following your reasoning, even Van Gogh and Joyce shouldn’t be considered great artists!

Seminal record, even if I can't give it 5 stars. I think it's penalized by two "minor" tracks, like the sleepy Lieber Honig and Weissensee, a valuable exercise in harmonic dissolution that risks coming off as a "clumsy" version of the ethereal psychedelia of the Floydian kind. Hallogallo is perhaps the most representative track of the Neu aesthetic because it combines the obsessive rhythm (expressed in the proto-industrial clangs of Negativland) with the stillness reminiscent of Popol Vuh (which reappears in Im Gluck, a step away from new age, with sounds borrowed from nature and the guitar mimicking the chirping of birds). The black hole remains Sonderangebot, the moment of the record that moves me the most. Not a bad review.

Big D, you hit the nail on the head. I’ve always considered this album one of the most accomplished works in metal, but good luck telling my "true-metal defenders" friends, who get all worked up over yet another stinky solo in any track from the latest Maiden or Priest album (two legendary bands that really don’t have much more to say anymore). Years have gone by and (maybe) at least one of these metalhead friends has been converted by me! :-) "Into the Pandemonium" is one of the most experimental metal albums of the 80s. A seminal album for all those who, starting from the 90s, ventured into a "dark" metal (black/death/doom/gothic) realm, using an expanded instrumentation (brass, strings, electronics, female vocals, percussion, etc.). My favorites are Mesmerized, Inner Sanctum, and I Won't Dance. The review is really well done, even though you could have discussed the individual tracks a bit more in-depth. Also (since I’m feeling a bit cheeky today :-D), I’ll give you one last note: for me, Venom were anything but flat and linear (although it’s true that Frost's compositions were richer in tempo changes).

Congratulations: you managed to piss off even the calm Regular... ;-D