I like this style of review, mentioning general aspects of the album rather than specific songs gets across much more useful information + is more fun to read.
Then again my favourite reviewer on teh intarwebs writes stuff like this:
Quote:
Hank Taylor snuck another weary glance at his watch. The prosecution's closing statement had rambled on for well over half an hour, but even he had to admit that they certainly had a compelling argument. Hank, on the other hand, did not. If this case had gone to trial a year ago then he might have stood a chance, but in light of fresh evidence his own argument seemed flawed and desperate. This was not due to his inneffectual abilities as an attorney in a court of law, Hank had been, at one time, the highest paid lawyer in all of Texas. What was letting him down were his own clients, the defendants. He looked at them with the same weariness with which he looked at his watch. They looked like some kind of genetically enhanced twins; one had the look of the kind of geeky kid that got his dinner tray smashed from out of his hands every lunch time in the school cafeteria, and the other was beginning to take on the appearence of a goat. Both of them sported huge afros, the like of which is almost an anomoly amongst white people. They looked bored and Hank despised them.
He had been let down by a client only once before, back in the spring of '94. His client, a woman named Delilah, had been trying to sue her husband for three quarters of his earthly fortune, which amounted to roughly a cool $23 million, on the grounds that he wrongfully accused her of multiple infidelities and subsequently cut her out of his will and divorced her. She had turned up to the courtroom looking like a hooker come straight from a shift on Sunset Strip and stinking of perfume against Hank's better advice. The judge had raised an eyebrow but remained neutral, as a judge must. His opinion was dramatically swayed, however, when Delilah made an attempt to seduce her husband's attorney in the male bathrooms during a brief recess. Hank felt that she just wasn't working with him.
The prosecution was still delivering it's final statement. This was going on far longer than was necessary. A number of times it seemed as though the end was in sight, but then a new point was raised and another hyperbolic speech ensued that stretched out to infinity. Hank looked at his clients, but they were playing that damned game again with their hands that only they understood the rules to. He coughed and slammed his hand down sharply on the bench to stop them and they giggled like naughty schoolkids but eventually went quiet.
Hank mused over the proceedings that had taken place in the little court room over the last week, trying to ensure that any crucial last minute adjustments to his own closing statement were made before taking the to floor. The incidents he would try and gloss over and not dwell on, if mention at all, were numerous.
Firstly, the reply Omar (the geeky twin) gave to the prosecutor when he was in the dock would be stricken from all consciousness.
"Omar, would you say that you were overly excessive with regards your guitar techniques, in particular the solos?"
"No, not really. I don't actually like the guitar, it is just an instrument I use to compose. I guess my solos are an expression of what I am feeling at that time, it's the most personal touch I can give to the music."
"So if you were working on a song that was upbeat and snappy, but you were in a foul mood, your solo, would you say, would express your mood, but not compliment the song?"
"We try not to make our songs too upbeat and happy."
"Okay, what if you were in an upbeat and happy mood, but the music demanded you be down beat and glum? Your solo would just be self indulgent and would take away from, rather than add to the music, would it not?"
"Yeah, but in that situation I'd probably just cram a cocktail of drugs down by thorax until everything seemed at one when looked at with my inner eye."
Hank had slapped his forehead at this point and sunk low into his chair hoping that it might swallow him. The jury had seen this and he had quickly uprighted himself. However he repeated this body language again when Cedric (goat) was taking his turn in the line of fire.
"So Cedric, nice beard by the way. Cedric, were you an English major?"
"Objection, irrelavent."
"Part of a line of questioning Your Honour."
"Overruled, but get to the point counsellor."
"Cedric, were you an English major?"
"No."
"Then what gives you the right to butcher the English language like you do? I mean, Meccamputechture? What in God's name is that?"
"Objection Your Honour, calls for speculation!"
At this point Cedric had turned to Hank and said calmly, "No, I'll take this one." He then went on to a fifteen minute ramble about how language was an unnecessary construct and it's existence shouldn't be determined by such binding rules as "real words" or "grammar". This may have been an interesting essay for a philosophy college course, but when used in defence of a band facing their critics, it was tantamount to suicide.
A year ago Frank could have defended many of the finer points that the prosecution brought up; song structure could be expansive and linear provided the shift in mood was gradual, consistent and natural. But, when the prosecution presented Exhibit C - Amputechture, this argument was no longer backed up by strong evidence and it was only the schizophrenics who could enjoy the rapid and disjointed changes in the music, and the jury had been screened so that it wouldn't contain any schizo's or manic depressives despite Hank's insistance that the three bums he had found and brought in from the street were reliable human beings of sound mind.
A year ago he could have argued that, okay, these unusual twins liked rolling around in the muck of ambient soundscapes, but the pacing of their records was extraordinary and their strong sense of rhythm and pulse sustained listener's interests, but again, Exhibit C - Amputechture - had proved to be his undoing. Not only did it begin with a slow, ocean-like expanse of sound, guitar noodling and vocal heroics which nobody could remember after they had passed, it also ended on a similar note and so it was as though the record had drifted in from and returned into nothingness.
A year ago the sound was fresh, but now the only attempt to be different seemed to take the shape of slowing the whole thing down and drenching it in effects, most abrasively the harmonizer effect on the geeky one's extortionate effects unit.
No, Hank was going to have to concentrate on the strengths and hope that the weaknesses were too unmemorable to sway the juror's decisions. The strengths were a strong rhythm section which created and sustained a solid groove whilst Hank's clients strutted like roosters over the top of everything. Unfortunately, the goat-like one had mentioned to him earlier in the day that the drummer had now left the band; Hank decided to gloss over this point too.
But how was he going to compete with the length of the prosecution's closing address? If he was up for less than twenty minutes then his argument would seem weak in comparison and the case would be lost for sure. Although, maybe the jurors would be grateful of a respite from such lectures, they had sat there for - Hank checked his watch again - well over an hour now. An hour! The case against was stacked, Hank would have to use a lot of dramatic pauses to flesh out his speech....but then people don't like sitting around waiting for something to end.
"Mr. Taylor!" roared the Judge, and it was only then that Hank realised that his name had been called twice already by this point, he had been too absorbed in thought to notice. He turned to his clients, both grinning inanely having just finished another round of their hand game, and sighed.
"Listen boys," he said softly, trying to sound as fartherly as possible. "I don't think this is looking too good for us. The best we can hope for is a retrial, so I'm going to go out there and feign a heart attack. Should buy us some time. In the meantime, you boys had better put out something a bit more substantial, or else I don't see any hope for you in the long run."
And with that, Hank took to the stage, and prepared to play the biggest role of his professional career....
