I am so excited. EXCITED. In all the ways, but especially
the way you’re thinking. This album will change my mind, my life, and my mind
about life. Let’s drop our voices low and do this.
That guitar sounds like my neighbor’s car alarm. Uh oh…a
fuzzy-sounding recording of someone talking playing underneath. That’s one of
my art/music pet peeves. DON’T START AN ALBUM THAT WAY! I like the musical
music so far and I’ll tolerate the crunchy guitar in exchange for the shimmery…whatever
that is. String? I can’t tell. But dammit do I ever hate recordings of people
talking in music, especially if it goes on for longer than a phrase. Drummy
drummy, clap clap, hand hand fingers thumb, this is how my monkeys drum. I
really like the build and repetition of what’s happening in the last few
minutes when the talking finally stops. Budda budda monkey bumps. I read too
many children’s books.
The Pit
Is every song going to have this stupid guy talking? Nope,
now there’s a different stupid British guy. This one doesn’t sound as old. I
would like to request the remix version of this album with the “vocals”
removed. The ominous horn things are back and it works. I actually hadn’t seen
the name of the song but I felt like I was in a tunnel with lights flashing and
flood alarms going off. That’s better than a pit. I will write the band a
letter and demand they change the name of this song to “The Tunnel”. The guitar
is pretty standard instrumental rock fare but the heavy low drumming really
helps to set this apart.
People Will Always
Need Coal
I have no nostalgia for the 70s so the fake commercial (or
real…who cares) plus the disco boogie guitar do nothing for me. I have no
nostalgia for anything. Especially not this old talky British guy. This song is
a nice change of pace from the last two though and the drummer is off having
bananas with the other monkeys so it feels much lighter. I think the last
minute got more 80s than 70s and there are lots of synth notes and snare drums.
Is this taking me through a section of musical history or does the band just
not know what happened when? STOP TALKING TO ME, OLD MAN
Progress
I hate the way this song starts. It’s like a Bryan Adams
song or something dumb, plus that guy is talking. WHOA THERE IS ALMOST REAL
SINGING Not very good singing, but pretty real. I could do without all of this
song. It feels really amateur and misguided. I love robots but I’ll take
Tubeway Army over this every time. And that woman really cannot sing.
Go To The Road
Something tells me they’re sticking with this talking thing.
At least it was a woman’s voice to open this song. I just don’t get the fake
distorted talking. At all. This song is very, very straightforward outside of
the bouncing synth horns or whatever in the background. This is the third song
in a row to push me away from what the first two songs did so well. I was ready
for a small break from the thumping monkey drummers but this has gone on too
long. BRING BACK THE MONKEYS
All Out
GO DISTORTION GUITAR GO Driving snare drum is fine as long
as it changes up the dragginess of the last three songs. This still sounds
pretty standard “instrumental rock” to me and TIME SIGNATURE CHANGE? YUCK I
hate that I have a thing in my head called “standard instrumental rock” but it’s
there so deal with it you sexually attractive Public Broadcasting Service.
Adding talking over the top isn’t actually changing that you’re just repeating
the same three songs over and over that every instrumental rock band has
already performed. Please go recapture what you were doing on the first two
songs. Those were a lot more “all out” than this song. The only difference here
is that there’s some distortion and the last minute is a hollow imitation of
mid-90s hard rock.
Turn No More
Ooh…I like the muted drumming to open this song. But I
really feel like we’re…Oh my god…what is that singing? I was going to say we
were moving into Helmet cover territory but these might be the worst vocals I’ve
heard in a long time. WHAT THE HELL IS THIS SONG? It feels like it came from a
different album. An album that was on cassette in my friend’s trailer in 1992
because his hard rock lesbian mom liked it. This is just awful. I will take
talky old man over this. I’m sorry about what I said, old man. Come back and
save me from HARD ROCK SINGER MAN Holy crap it actually gets worse. Or maybe
equally bad, just different bad.
They Gave Me A Lamp
I don’t even know or care what’s happening in this song but
it’s like breathing air after drowning for just long enough to cause moderate
brain death. Enough brain damage that I thought the talking woman was speaking
another language but that seems to actually be English. This song is fine on its
own. The horn-like sounds are back (for some reason they don’t sound like real
horns to me) and there’s reasonable structure. It’s not the best song ever or
even on the album but it’s solid. I’ve resigned myself to just accept the
talking so having a different talker is a nice change of pace.
You + Me
I don’t think you should be allowed to use “+” in a song
title. The only mathematical symbol I’ll accept is parenthesis. This song is
some kind of halfhearted easy jazz and it feels like that other half a heart
would really make a big difference. The singer is…fine. Not great. And whatever
language she’s speaking has lots of throat clearing and spitting. Oh hey…male
vocalist too. And he’s bad. And totally disjointed from the female vocalist. I
like male/female duets a lot but this just feels like two different songs, not
two people singing a song together. One minute before the end the strings come
in but I’m just not sold on the fact that this woman loves this man’s bad
singing so much that she’s going to stop spitting on him. Too bad, because with
better singers this might have actually worked.
Mother of the Village
It’s fine. I guess. This song really does make me feel like
I’m watching PBS and I promise that it didn’t occur to me until after I wrote
that that the band is named after PBS. So that’s probably where all the talking
comes from on the whole album. And like watching PBS, sometimes you get
something unique and wonderful (the first two songs/Red Dwarf), sometimes you
get something that is just fine that you leave on but don’t really care about
(this song/Antiques Roadshow), and sometimes you get something boring or stupid
that wasn’t good enough for regular TV (all the rest of the songs/everything
else on PBS). The only thing missing is programming for kids and I’m now especially
disappointed in the band for glossing over that part of PBS.
Take Me Home
This would be in the category of “stuff I’d leave on but not
love” programming. This sounds like a sea chanty to me, which would probably
make people who love sea chanties mad because of some rule or another but you
know what? I’M NOT AN OLD-TIMEY SAILOR AND I DON’T HAVE SCURVY. I wonder if
this is traditional or if they just did a good job faking it. Hmm…I can only
find “Goombay Dance Band - TAKE ME HOME TO JAMAICA”. That sounds traditional.
Good job.
Final Nielsen Rating:
This is a weak two talking old British
men out of five. If it was just the first two and last two songs with each
stretched to at least 10 minutes I could see this at three or even 3.75 old men
(one leg missing) but as it stands I don’t ever want to hear the full album
again. Arousal level zero. ALSO What is with the band name? It's PSB and not PBS? Minus one old man limb for that.
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