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sophiaserpentiaSo, back in the 80's when i was an angst-y teenage shut-in trying to sort out things like gender and reality, i found the music of Depeche Mode and Siouxsie and the Banshees very soothing. So it's kind of neat to know that every once in a while there is still new music being sung by those familiar voices.
Dave Gahan and Siouxsie Sioux both released albums this month, and both are notable.
Gahan's Hourglass is a better album than Paper Monsters was. The previous album was, i thought, listenable with some great moments, but overall too conventional and too plodding. Gahan wanted to stake out some new ground musically, but i don't think it really worked. Hourglass is a return to a bit more familiar territory, which is code for "it sounds like Depeche Mode, but you know, i don't have a problem with that." The first two songs, "Saw Something" and "Kingdom," are fantastic and bolt straight to my list of all-time DM/Gahan favorite songs. It then hits kind of a doldrum (i didn't care for "Deeper and Deeper," and the next two songs are mediocre) but the remainder of the album is quite good, and ends on a strong note with "Endless," "Little Lie" and "Down."
Siouxsie's Mantaray has drawn comparisons to Garbage, which i think is apt. Musically it's kind of all over the place - it's like we're getting a peek at Siouxsie's musical exploration journal now that her 25-year collaboration (and marriage) with Budgie have ended. So the songs come in different styles, but there's an overall bounce which is optimistic and contagious. Play it loud for best effect. "Like a Swan" and "About to Happen" open the album with good momentum. The rest affected me differently on subsequent listenings, so my comments might be premature. But the songs which seem to be drawing the most praise ("Here Comes that Day," "Drone Zone," and "Heaven and Alchemy") were my least favorite. "Loveless," "If It Doesn't Kill You," and "One Mile Below" were favorites, reminiscent of previous work but drawn in a new light.
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cowgrrl and i have finished watching Babylon 5 (i should really write about that someday, it's beyond the scope of this) we have moved on to watching Torchwood season 1 so we'll be ready for Doctor Who season 3. I want to like this show, i really do. It got off to a good start: textbook melodrama, interesting, campy, mindless, and a lot of fun, very much like the show of which it is a spinoff. I'm still willing to give it the benefit of the doubt, but after two awful episodes in a row, we're underwhelmed.
At a Halloween party this weekend, i caught most of Hostel Part 2. I wasn't intending to, but it was appropriate enough Halloween party fare (and the "let's tie up Sabrina" portion of the evening hadn't happened yet). I had read a fair bit about how "torture porn" is the most recent sign of the decline of western civilization, blah blah blah, but... okay, what i want to know is, how is Hostel Part 2 fundamentally different from what Troma Entertainment has been doing for 30 years now?
ETA. Another recent listen was the new Hooverphonic album, The President of the LSD Golf Club. I suppose they've been listening to critics who have complained they were too eclectic. They shouldn't have; they gave up some of the elements of their sound that really worked in favor of a more limited, and more predictable, downtempo retro kind of feel. At points i thought i was listening to the Moody Blues. All of the songs are good, but only good; two ("Stranger" and "Strictly Out of Phase") stand out as superb.
Dave Gahan and Siouxsie Sioux both released albums this month, and both are notable.
Gahan's Hourglass is a better album than Paper Monsters was. The previous album was, i thought, listenable with some great moments, but overall too conventional and too plodding. Gahan wanted to stake out some new ground musically, but i don't think it really worked. Hourglass is a return to a bit more familiar territory, which is code for "it sounds like Depeche Mode, but you know, i don't have a problem with that." The first two songs, "Saw Something" and "Kingdom," are fantastic and bolt straight to my list of all-time DM/Gahan favorite songs. It then hits kind of a doldrum (i didn't care for "Deeper and Deeper," and the next two songs are mediocre) but the remainder of the album is quite good, and ends on a strong note with "Endless," "Little Lie" and "Down."
Siouxsie's Mantaray has drawn comparisons to Garbage, which i think is apt. Musically it's kind of all over the place - it's like we're getting a peek at Siouxsie's musical exploration journal now that her 25-year collaboration (and marriage) with Budgie have ended. So the songs come in different styles, but there's an overall bounce which is optimistic and contagious. Play it loud for best effect. "Like a Swan" and "About to Happen" open the album with good momentum. The rest affected me differently on subsequent listenings, so my comments might be premature. But the songs which seem to be drawing the most praise ("Here Comes that Day," "Drone Zone," and "Heaven and Alchemy") were my least favorite. "Loveless," "If It Doesn't Kill You," and "One Mile Below" were favorites, reminiscent of previous work but drawn in a new light.
In completely other news, now that
cowgrrl and i have finished watching Babylon 5 (i should really write about that someday, it's beyond the scope of this) we have moved on to watching Torchwood season 1 so we'll be ready for Doctor Who season 3. I want to like this show, i really do. It got off to a good start: textbook melodrama, interesting, campy, mindless, and a lot of fun, very much like the show of which it is a spinoff. I'm still willing to give it the benefit of the doubt, but after two awful episodes in a row, we're underwhelmed. At a Halloween party this weekend, i caught most of Hostel Part 2. I wasn't intending to, but it was appropriate enough Halloween party fare (and the "let's tie up Sabrina" portion of the evening hadn't happened yet). I had read a fair bit about how "torture porn" is the most recent sign of the decline of western civilization, blah blah blah, but... okay, what i want to know is, how is Hostel Part 2 fundamentally different from what Troma Entertainment has been doing for 30 years now?
ETA. Another recent listen was the new Hooverphonic album, The President of the LSD Golf Club. I suppose they've been listening to critics who have complained they were too eclectic. They shouldn't have; they gave up some of the elements of their sound that really worked in favor of a more limited, and more predictable, downtempo retro kind of feel. At points i thought i was listening to the Moody Blues. All of the songs are good, but only good; two ("Stranger" and "Strictly Out of Phase") stand out as superb.
