I Love Rich - Season of The Rich

I Love Rich “Season Of The Rich”, 2009

Chicago band I Love Rich channel Kiss both musically and lyrically. Discerning whether they’re serious or stretching a band parody as far as it can go when they only thank themselves for being so fucking awesome because everyone else go paid and boldly declare “All lyrics by RICH because honestly, only he could come with lyrics this bad ass”.   Sleepless nights spent thinking out the lyrics to the homage  “Let’s fuck all night” are highly doubtful.    The tongue in cheek “I’m Only Here Because Your Sister Said No” easily wins the best song title.  A knife with a serated punk edge gently cuts through still leaving a heavy chunk of glam metal in “Everybody’s Getting Laid Tonight”. The rawness of the procution here and a couple of the later songs weakens the overall sound bringing the words: filler material to mind.  Whilst it’s not difficult to appreciate the lack of seriousness on the five songs on this EP, I Love Rich come across as nothing more than a coattail riding novelty act.

2/5

I love rich website

Oceansize- Home and Minor

OCEANSIZE “Home and Minor”, 2009
(Superball)

When I was a kid my parents subscribed to National Geographic and the magazine would sometimes come with a flexi-disc with animal sounds intended to give the listener a fuller experience of articles about humpback whales.  UK band Oceansize have stripped their sound down by solely going for a quiet showgazer sound.  Opener Album opener “Legal Teens” is bland Radiohead/Coldplay fodder.  “Monodrones” is an ambient drumless piece with tranquil whirling guitar sound that pulls a listener into the pool so that they find themselves giddy from recurring circles.  Fooling the unwary, the beginning of the title track is difficult to tell from its predecessor as it just blurs together until eventually after snail pace instrumentation drums come in. The band sound like they’re more than a little familiar with The Red House Painters with slow quiet building guitar and half-whispered male and female backing vocals.  

A couple of tracks on this album are unnecessarily long and just bore.  The album won’t melt any faces off but would be the perfect for a coffee shop owner looking for unobtrusive inoffensive mellow background music.

2.5/5

Oceansize website

Ritual - Widow

Ritual – “Widow”, 2008 reissue
(Shadow Kingdom)

Originally during the NWOBHM period “Widow” had 2000 copies released but due to a printing error the band logo was left off the album cover of 1500 albums which were stored by the band. At some point in time, a light-fingered body liberated the misprinted albums and the logoless albums can likely be found on auction sites and record fairs going for top dollar. Often there’s a good reason a record should be a limited edition and the appeal is only to those more interested in re-sale value than the music.  Thankfully this isn’t the case here.  This re-issue features a new album cover with artwork reminiscent of DC Vertigo comics, Death character.  Serious collectors won’t just be buying something they all ready own in another format as they’ll also get some previously unreleased tracks .

 “Widow” features both smooth clean vocals that bring  “Heaven and Hell” to mind and melodic guitar passages from Gypsy Re Bethe. The six-minute mark of the title track could make a “Maneater” of a Hall and Oates lawsuit and then leads to a lengthy outro.  “Rebecca” also has very long outro that could have been cut.  “Come to the Ritual” keeps it shorter at just under four minutes and has guitar work not unlike early Maiden.  The repeated use of rainstorms and thundercracks on various tracks over the album assist in conveying a dark bleak wintery mood.  “Never for Evil” is a tight fast paced rocking track that really gives Ritual a chance to shine as a trio rather than just following around after Re Bethe.  The quiet voyage of “Journey”’ centres around Re Bethe’s guitar leads, which could easily draw in a listener more used to a more mainstream rock guitar style.   While an awful lot of bonus tracks on re-releases are often unnecessary filler tacked on the end of an album only to wear out a CD player’s skip button but those on offer here not only fit the flow of the album but enhance the overall re-playability of this album.

3.5/5

Ritual on myspace

Easter special

According to blogger, this is my 400th and with it being Easter I'm in something of a lazy mood due to being in holiday mode.  I thought I'd just post a couple of my favourite youtube music videos.

First up Killdozer, who have had a great claymation tribute made to "Hi There".





Next The Violent Femmes who have had an animation made for "Country Death Song"



And then back to New Zealand, where there's no video but you can stare at one of the best New Zealand pieces of vinyl pressed in the form of the single by The Henchmen and listen to both sides of the single.