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| Track List: 1. It Was... 2. '88 AKA Come Down On Me 3. '68 AKA Only Time 4. '93 AKA Don't Stop Now 5. '95 AKA Make Things Right 6. '79 AKA The Shouty Track 7. '75 AKA Stay With You 8. '76 AKA The Slow Train 9. '90 AKA Man Like Me 10. '64 AKA Go Running Time: 53 minutes Released: 2005 |
I held off getting this album for a very long time. I was warned against getting this album by my brother who worked with (or moved in circles with) Lemon Jelly back when he was an audio engineer and still has artwork produced by Fred Deakin's art studio adorning his living room wall - received as a gift from Deakin, I think. Come to think of it, there may be a second (and possibly third?) piece too.
I loved Lemonjelly.ky and Lost Horizons so I gave in eventually and picked this up. Last FM suggests only 3 listens to tracks from this album though, so bought and appreciated are certainly not the same thing.
It Was... is just a short intro, so there are really only 9 tracks here. With a 50+ minute runtime they're long ones. Each samples a song from 19XX where XX is the year at the beginning of the title. None of them are recognisible to me, though track 10 has Shatner on vocal. The Shat will appear a couple more times before I am done.
I can see from Come Down On Me why there was not much enthusiasm for this one. It is a complete departure from the sounds of their earlier work. Bland, repetitive and boring. Only Time is, on the face of it, more like Lost Horizons era Lemon Jelly but it is one quite short loop repeated ad nauseum which is old before the track is half done, but continues still. It is a relief when it cuts out, but what replaces it does not have much to recommend it either and the distorted vocal is disturbing rather than tuneful. It peters out then segues into Don't Stop Now which has a very weak beginning. The backing for this gets a little more interesting, but the base loop is quite unpleasant and the oft-repeated vocal is really not musical. It is a shame, there is a half decent tune in the constituent parts, but it feels like they have been assembled in the wrong order, like IKEA furniture put together by a blind man and his guide dog. This is, so far, a tremendous fall from grace and I am ruing my decision to go against the grain.
Make Things Right has enough of the old magic to raise a smile. A solid loop and enough variation over it to keep it moving and from getting too staid. That said, keeping it going for 6 minutes seems like it will be a stretch. I have got past 3 and the variation is just dying to the point of gone when it drops out and changes, saved from the edge by an interlude. Half-decent song this, but it is no Ramblin' Man or Tune for Jack.
A title like "The Shouty Track" worries me, but whilst it starts with a louder sound than you might expect from Lemon Jelly it is not immediately shouty or horrid. Quite bland though, and I am glad it is short. Not a fan. The odd shouts here and there are just that... odd. At this stage, I am thinking that this album fits the "casualty" tag nicely, but I reckon I should keep Make Things Right at least.
Stay With You starts to feel a bit like Quantic. It has the air of shuffle about it. Pleasant enough, a lighter sound, but it quickly devolves to boredom and a feeling of "can the music start now please?" In general I feel that this album relies far too strongly on repetition - of beat loops, of vocal samples, of general tone. Each track feels very samey as a result, a problem exacerbated by their length. Once or twice this is broken up mid-tune but overall it is left to linger too long to the detriment of the overall effect. I am hoping that Shatner can alleviate this, but there are a couple more tracks to get through first. Slow Train again starts reasonably positively, but drifts into stasis. By the time it gets a bit more life the track is almost half done, and that life is lost as quickly as it was slow to arrive. Too much of a pattern to deny. I have to say that given this, I am glad Lemon Jelly stopped producing music together when they did so I did not pick up any more than 1 album's worth of dross.
Man Like Me feels like a re-hash of Come Down On Me, adding further still to the sense of repeated content. Like many of the other tracks there are some interesting sounds captured. Like many of the other tracks this does not help to cast off the perception of a homogenous blancmange that simply cannot really be enjoyed. It is almost as if they lost their magic touch and started mixing the same ingredients together but coming up with divergent results.
I wonder how much of my opinion is based on loving the other discs too much, and thus anything that strayed too far was doomed to mediocrity in my eyes? Preconception also does not help, and having been warned off, I certainly had that. And yet, I do not think that alone explains the disparity. Shatner is talking now but the levels seem off. Backing too loud, vocal too low. Backing too... ugh. No, this post is becoming like the album, overdoing one theme, and not even Shatner could save it.
Casualty definitely fits, even if I do keep Make Things Right. And hang on to the physical disc.
It Was... is just a short intro, so there are really only 9 tracks here. With a 50+ minute runtime they're long ones. Each samples a song from 19XX where XX is the year at the beginning of the title. None of them are recognisible to me, though track 10 has Shatner on vocal. The Shat will appear a couple more times before I am done.
I can see from Come Down On Me why there was not much enthusiasm for this one. It is a complete departure from the sounds of their earlier work. Bland, repetitive and boring. Only Time is, on the face of it, more like Lost Horizons era Lemon Jelly but it is one quite short loop repeated ad nauseum which is old before the track is half done, but continues still. It is a relief when it cuts out, but what replaces it does not have much to recommend it either and the distorted vocal is disturbing rather than tuneful. It peters out then segues into Don't Stop Now which has a very weak beginning. The backing for this gets a little more interesting, but the base loop is quite unpleasant and the oft-repeated vocal is really not musical. It is a shame, there is a half decent tune in the constituent parts, but it feels like they have been assembled in the wrong order, like IKEA furniture put together by a blind man and his guide dog. This is, so far, a tremendous fall from grace and I am ruing my decision to go against the grain.
Make Things Right has enough of the old magic to raise a smile. A solid loop and enough variation over it to keep it moving and from getting too staid. That said, keeping it going for 6 minutes seems like it will be a stretch. I have got past 3 and the variation is just dying to the point of gone when it drops out and changes, saved from the edge by an interlude. Half-decent song this, but it is no Ramblin' Man or Tune for Jack.
A title like "The Shouty Track" worries me, but whilst it starts with a louder sound than you might expect from Lemon Jelly it is not immediately shouty or horrid. Quite bland though, and I am glad it is short. Not a fan. The odd shouts here and there are just that... odd. At this stage, I am thinking that this album fits the "casualty" tag nicely, but I reckon I should keep Make Things Right at least.
Stay With You starts to feel a bit like Quantic. It has the air of shuffle about it. Pleasant enough, a lighter sound, but it quickly devolves to boredom and a feeling of "can the music start now please?" In general I feel that this album relies far too strongly on repetition - of beat loops, of vocal samples, of general tone. Each track feels very samey as a result, a problem exacerbated by their length. Once or twice this is broken up mid-tune but overall it is left to linger too long to the detriment of the overall effect. I am hoping that Shatner can alleviate this, but there are a couple more tracks to get through first. Slow Train again starts reasonably positively, but drifts into stasis. By the time it gets a bit more life the track is almost half done, and that life is lost as quickly as it was slow to arrive. Too much of a pattern to deny. I have to say that given this, I am glad Lemon Jelly stopped producing music together when they did so I did not pick up any more than 1 album's worth of dross.
Man Like Me feels like a re-hash of Come Down On Me, adding further still to the sense of repeated content. Like many of the other tracks there are some interesting sounds captured. Like many of the other tracks this does not help to cast off the perception of a homogenous blancmange that simply cannot really be enjoyed. It is almost as if they lost their magic touch and started mixing the same ingredients together but coming up with divergent results.
I wonder how much of my opinion is based on loving the other discs too much, and thus anything that strayed too far was doomed to mediocrity in my eyes? Preconception also does not help, and having been warned off, I certainly had that. And yet, I do not think that alone explains the disparity. Shatner is talking now but the levels seem off. Backing too loud, vocal too low. Backing too... ugh. No, this post is becoming like the album, overdoing one theme, and not even Shatner could save it.
Casualty definitely fits, even if I do keep Make Things Right. And hang on to the physical disc.
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