Public Service Broadcasting - Every Valley (2017 Full Album Leak Download 320 MP3)

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.

 Every Valley

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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Richard Dawson - Peasant 2017

One of those pictures is the album cover. Basically, I grabbed a bunch of images and dragged them around until I got itchy. That doesn't mean anything now, but just keep going. That's what I had to do.

1) Herald - Right oh. I can get on board with a nice instrumental lead track. As the kids are saying, that's my jam. Annnnd oh.. Why. random horn burps. Okay, cut that shit out.

2) Ogre - Group singing with short reprieves of singing. This is more distracting than anything else. I'm having trouble even catching the lyrics because the group singing is not good. How many people do they need to make this rubbish sound? Hmm.. Okay, halfway through we're hearing something a bit better here. Stripping down the sound was a much better choice. Okay, this is the peasant sound. Wow. This really turned into a pleasant sound. The Sun is dying. Whahhh, I don't know about that falsetto-ish voice. It's almost like he's trying to get to falsetto, but can't quite pull it off. Overall - I like this song enough that I want to listen to it again. Maybe my second listen will re-shape my ideas about the beginning of the song.

3) Soldier - The singer's voice is just shakey enough to give that authentic type of feel. Maybe his singing isn't his strength, but that makes me think that with this type of album that the writing has to be exceptional to make it worth an album. Sometimes, with writing there's the catch of a verse or song that can give the impression, but whole albums can be slapped together because an artist had one great song. The rest turns out to be rubbish and that's... well, that's when you realized you purchased an album that you only liked one song for. Thanks, Music Industry. When you really see excellence in the writing - you see it throughout. The song is just a chapter in a book. They work together in a complimentary and beautiful way. They stand alone, but the scope of the artistic piece is augmented by each other piece. Damnit, this song is ends and I haven't really written about the song. Yea, it's nice. Probably need to re-listen, but it's about the thoughts of a soldier.

4) Weaver - Hmmm this reminds me of something... Something I liked that does this better. Is it Phosphorescent? Damnit, this is going to bother me. Wait. I think it's Fire on Fire. I can't remember if that's what I'm thinking of. The way this song is playing the guitar on loose strings or something. I really want to check to see if I'm right, but there's no time for that! Onward and upward!

5) Prostitute - Damn, okay I think he should really consider giving up the falsetto attempt. It's not good. Also, I think this is about child sex trafficking and not really about prostitution. I don't have a lot to say about this song. It's meh.

6) Shapeshifter - I'm wondering what the title Peasant has to do with these song titles. When I think peasant, I think of a feudal serf. Like maybe they just think these things. I mean, an ogre, a soldier, a weaver, prostitute... then... a shapeshifter. I don't really understand what the hell is going on or why this would be built this way. I don't really have any qualms about disclosing that I can't stand Captain Beefheart (though it's been years since I've tried to listen to that rubbish), and this isn't that, but there's elements to that this reminds me of. That's not a good thing.

7) Scientist - guitar picking into a heavy handed string assortment. Yea, okay this guy has got to be thinking of "What kind of music could we make if we were peasants"? I guess he's nailing it? Which makes me think, that I don't want anything to do with peasant music. This was recommended as "Avant-Folk". For such an enticing sounding label, I want to murder this album so we can try something different to fit there.

8) Hob - I just checked. There's 4 more songs including this one. It's too much. I want to end this now, but for the sake of a full live review, I will continue. I suffer, so that you, dear reader, won't have to. This song is much the same as the previous. Except... yea, more falsetto attempts. Wow, I really hate this guy now. || Wow, I had to stop listening for a while, but came back... Still hate this. There is a very low priority on enunciation. That's not a bad thing in a lot of cases, 

9) Beggar - Apparently some music happened here. I didn't even notice it. Probably for the best.

10) No-one - This has to stop. How does this kind of thing get made. Someone thinks, "Yea, this track is necessary to the album. put it in there." "but it's just some droning noise." "just get it done."

11) Masseuse - This might be the least awful song on the album, but it's not good enough to warrant listening to the rest of the album. Maybe the strategy should have been to start here at Masseuse. Then work on the rest of the album. Similar to what an author might do. A rough draft starts, a lot of work, and then you realize after you've written thousands of words, that the story that wants to be told didn't manifest itself until tens or hundreds of hours had already been invested. 

Overall I give this album 2 stars out of a possible 15. I recommend it for someone that hasn't listened to any sounds for over a year and they are re-discovering their ability to hear.