Enemies Abound In Twin Peaks "The Return Part 10!"

The Good: Good performances, Moments of character, Plot moves forward, Direction, Good use of humor and mood
The Bad: Still some pointless tangents that do not feel they work
The Basics: The table truly feels set for the back half of Twin Peaks's new season with "The Return Part 10" setting Dougie Jones in mortal peril and possibly seeding the next incarnation of Bob!


As the new season of Twin Peaks progresses towards its end, the show has a burden on it to pay off all of the seeds that have been planted in the first half of the season. The show is moving toward a somewhat obvious and sensible resolution, but for all of the surprising aspects of Twin Peaks the logical direction of the plot seems more obvious than audacious. That same direction also seems to be setting up a massive "okay, what next?!" moment. Twin Peaks is rapidly moving toward Agent Cooper and Cooper both returning to Twin Peaks and if Agent Cooper is fully restored following his twenty-five year ordeal inside the Black Lodge, how the real-world will accept his return becomes a thorny situation to deal with, especially if it comes only as a denouement.

That, however, is not quite where "The Return Part 10" is yet. Instead, "The Return Part 10" follows on the events of "The Return Part 9" (reviewed here!), which featured the long-deceased Major Briggs providing messages to the Twin Peaks Sheriff's Department and his son. Cooper had set up the murder of the Warden whom he extorted for freedom and Dougie Jones and his wife learned that there had been an attempt on Doug's life by the police investigating the explosion of his car. "The Return Part 10" does a decent job of blending the old with some of the new elements and it seems to be setting up the next major plot surrounding Doug Jones as much of the plot belabors moving people to a point where they will kill the insurance adjuster.

Richard arrives at the remote home of Marion, the woman who knows that he killed the boy with his truck. Richard kills Marion and calls his contact in Twin Peaks to intercept the letter Marion sent. Dougie and Janey finally go to see a doctor, with the Doctor noticing the extreme changes in Dougie's body. At the casino, the gangsters who have taken over the casino learn that Ike has been captured and that Doug Jones is still alive. After returning home from the Doctor's, Janey gets hot for Doug and they make love.

Near Twin Peaks, Dr. Jacoby performs his latest anti-government podcast, which Nadine eagerly devours. Richard makes it to his grandmother's house, where Johnny is tied up, and he robs the place. The insurance executive pins the blame for an unpaid claim on Doug and sends the representative for the company to the Casino to rile the Mitchum brothers up to get them to take Doug out.

"The Return Part 10" features the usual amount of scenes that seem to have no apparent purpose within the main narrative. At the casino, a server - Candy - is hunting a fly when she smacks the mobster brother in the head and the joke is telegraphed and does not actually connect with the rest of the story. Similarly, Richard's place in the story seems like a random additional antagonist and why viewers are supposed to care (other than the fact that there is the possibility he is the delinquent son of Audrey Horne) remains a mystery in "The Return Part 10." As well, Nadine's scene again seems utterly unattached to anything else in the story.

Kyle MacLachlan once again gives a great, if subtle, performance as Dougie Jones and John Billingsley yet again plays a doctor on television. Eamon Farron is terrifying as Richard Horne; between seeing the effects of his attack on Marion and watching the way Richard mugs his own grandmother, Farron moves his new to the season character forward in leaps and bounds.

The most impressive aspect of "The Return Part 10" is that Twin Peaks starts paying off its network of villains. In "The Return Part 10," the viewer realizes there is a mole in the Twin Peaks Sheriff Department, Albert and Gordon figure out there is an enemy in their own ranks and we see the rest of the villains who are now set on hunting Doug Jones. Cooper had twenty-five years to build up a network of people who will protect his existence in our world; "The Return Part 10" illustrates that quite effectively.

"The Return Part 10" effectively blends menace and humor, with David Lynch's distinctive use of color and music. This is one of the best episodes of the rebooted Twin Peaks yet . . . even if it continues an escalation to a moment that viewers have to be wary of.

For other works with Jane Adams, please visit my reviews of:
Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
Orange County
Frasier - Season 8
Frasier - Season 7
Wonder Boys
Songcatcher
You've Got Mail

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Twin Peaks - The Complete Third Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the temporally displaced season of the surreal show here!
Thanks!]

8/10

For other television reviews, please visit my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Mary Had A Little Amp, The Listener Chose No

The Good: Some decent tracks
The Bad: Some lame tracks, terrible execution of the stated concept
The Basics: Disorganized and esoteric, Mary Had A Little Amp fails to live up to its promise and offers instead a poorly executed musical experience.


I'm out. I began this month with the pledge to alternate my media reviews with non-media items and I'm out. I've no more electronics, no cars, no restaurants, no beauty products, no obscure household items left to review. Until I return from the trip I'm about to take, I'm all non-media'ed out! :( With that in mind, I sat down with a new disc that came across my desk called Mary Had A Little Amp. Every now and then as I explore a musical artist whose body of work I'm looking to review, I come across a weird citation for them. So, for example, when I hunted down the works of Liz Phair some months ago, I found her as the primary artist cited for Saturday Morning Cartoons' Greatest Hits (reviewed here!). Similarly, as I looked around for the many works of Madonna, I found Mary Had A Little Amp.

The by-line for Mary Had A Little Amp is "Music's Biggest Stars, Childhood's Greatest Songs." Because of the subjective nature of a disc that features Moby, Roseanne Cash, and Graham Nash alongside Madonna, Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson and R.E.M., I'll not dispute the first part. This is a pretty impressive collection of musical artists. Where the concept fails is with the second part. For all that it is or is not, Mary Had A Little Amp is hardly "childhood's greatest songs."

I write this because I was once a child and I loved listening to music. When I picked up this disc, the only songs I knew from childhood were "Pure Imagination" (many will remember Gene Wilder singing it in "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory"), "The Rainbow Connection" (from "The Muppet Movie"), and "When You Wish Upon A Star" (from "Pinnoccio," I believe). Outside that, only three of the tracks were songs I had heard as an adult. Graham Nash's classic "Teach Your Children," R.E.M.'s esoteric "We Walk" (which I had only heard for the first time earlier this year on their Best of the I.R.S. years album - reviewed here!), and "Little Star" a Madonna song from her Ray Of Light c.d. Out of fourteen songs, three were covers of songs I knew from childhood and three I encountered as an adult. This is hardly "childhood's greatest songs."

Indeed, there is a distinctly un-childlike take on several of the songs. Opening with Maroon 5's version of "Pure Imagination," the listener feels more menaced than enlightened. Maroon 5 uses reverb, creepy keyboards, and stark percussion to create a "big room" feel that has an undertone of sinister to the sound of the song. It's wonderfully dark in this presentation, but hardly wonderful for children.

Similarly, I can only believe that the musings on conformity that are struck out by the Blue Man Group and Dave Matthews on "Sing Along" are included because of the singsong rhymes presented in the song. After all, lyrically, it is an innocuous song as Matthews sings "If I pretend to be strong / Will you play along" ("Sing Along") over and over again. The thing is, he sings it with the voice of The Man, crushing individuality with conformity. This has a march quality to it that is draining, foreboding, again menacing.

That's not to say the entire album is not geared toward children. The Dixie Chicks do an upbeat sounding rendition of "The Rainbow Connection" that is wonderfully articulate and fresh. With the use of the pedal steel in the song, it takes on a distinctive flavor that is less stark than when it's been presented other times. And there's nothing wrong with Bonnie Raitt and Was (Not Was) performing "Baby Mine." It's a quiet, sad tribute to love or a child and from an adult perspective it's beautiful, though likely to go over the head of preschooler (this disc was produced to benefit preschool education).

I'll admit I winced hearing the Indigo Girls making animal noises on "Wild, Wild Party In The Loquat Tree" that were reminiscent of the B-52's "Rock Lobster." It's a fine folk tune, but again, not one I'd heard before nor would consider one of childhood's greatest songs.

And some of it is just plain pointless. Madonna's "Little Star" is a rock ballad that did not stand out on Ray Of Light and doesn't blow the roof off this disc either. "We Walk" is a weird R.E.M. tune, but also far too obscure to be considered much by children. And even my favorite track on the album, Moby's "Anchovie" a techno recreation like the many Moby has made in the past, doesn't inspire the listener to turn the disc over to a child.

Ultimately, this is a hit or miss collection of singles that vary greatly in sound and quality. We have the wonderful folk melody "Teach Your Children" which closes the album which has the utterly unmemorable "Gentle Breeze" (performed by Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson). You have Madonna's pure pop following on the Dixie Chick's country-slanted classic. The best songs reinterpret classics (like Maroon 5's creepy "Pure Imagination"), the lesser songs seem to simply be songs culled from artists that have singsong lyrics.

Indeed, checking out the liner notes, most of these songs (judging by the copyright dates) are available elsewhere. I'm not knocking the concept of either famous artists presenting childhood songs or a benefit to raise money for preschool education. The problem here is this mix. It's completely inconsistent. It is mixing recognizable songs from childhood (like "When You Wish Upon A Star") with (apparently) whatever work an artist was willing to donate to the cause (like Madonna's "Little Star") with songs that don't really relate to children ("Sing Along").

A good mix that has a theme comes together, this one does not. While it may have various styles on it: from country to techno, pop to folk, rock and roll to classical, the arrangement has to flow, one song to another in a way that makes the album come together. This does not. Cover song abuts quirky original work, folk follows folk follows folk, it's not well assembled.

Because some of these tracks may not be available elsewhere, die hard fans might have to pick this up. As a service, this is what the disc contains:
"Pure Imagination" - Maroon 5
"We Walk" - R.E.M.
"The Rainbow Connection" - Dixie Chicks
"Little Star" - Madonna
"Sing Along" - Blue Man Group featuring Dave Matthews
"Baby Mine" - Bonnie Raitt & Was (Not Was)
"The 3 R's" - Jack Johnson (it's a recycling jingle!)
"Anchovie" - Moby
"Life Line" - Nancy and Ann Wilson with the Brian Wilson Band
"Gentle Breeze" - Lou Reed & Laurie Anderson
"Wild, Wild Party In The Loquat Tree" - Indigo Girls
"How To Be Strong" - Roseanne Cash
"When You Wish Upon A Star" - Joe Henry
"Teach Your Children" - Graham Nash

Unfortunately, this disc does not execute what it promises and even without its stated purpose, it does not hold together as a meaningful musical collection. The best track is "Anchovie," the weakest part song is "Gentle Breeze."

For other compilation albums, please visit my reviews of:
Millennium ‘80’s New Wave Party - Various Artists
An Inconvenient Truth Soundtrack
Where Have All The Flowers Gone?: The Music Of Pete Seeger - Various Artists

3/10

For other music reviews, please visit my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Moby Might Like To Score, But . . . Oh, I Get It!

The Good: Decent Music, Some memorable musical moments
The Bad: SHORT!, Feels more like a collection of singles, Nothing superlative
The Basics: Better as a collection of singles than when considered as an album, Moby's I Like To Score is interesting, but erratic.


There is an episode of The Simpsons where Homer Simpson describes joining a barbershop quartet with Skinner, Apu and Barney and when they are choosing their name, they want one that is memorable and amusing, but becomes progressively less amusing each time it is repeated. They settle on "The B-Sharps." It works well as a joke. I think Moby might have seen that episode right before naming his album I Like To Score. The obvious response is, "Well, duh, who doesn't?!" After a few moments of considering Moby as a composer, the double entendre becomes evident and the listener feels somewhat silly for not realizing the pun earlier.

With twelve tracks, clocking in at a meager 48 minutes (I want more from my Moby!), I Like To Score is subtitled "Music From Films Vol. 1" and it has the distinct feeling of being a collection of singles as opposed to a cohesive album that is designed to say something or emote a series of emotions. As a result, the listening experience is somewhat more erratic than other Moby works and the end result is slightly less satisfying.

For those unfamiliar with the music of Moby, he is in many ways a genius composer of our day. Having created a rare perfect album with Play (reviewed here!) and Play - The B-Sides (reviewed here!), Moby has won a loyal core audience of listeners who are drawn to his creation of a new classical music that transcends pop-rock and techno-dance and becomes intimately concerned with the assembly of music as an art form. This is something largely lost in the mainstream musical scene today, which is also probably why Moby has never had huge commercial success in the United States. On I Like To Score, Moby reveals his abilities in a more straightforward dance-techno sensibility as opposed to challenging the boundaries of genre as he does on many of this other works.

The result then are twelve tracks culled from (or inspired by) nine different movies and Moby only has vocals on "New Dawn Fades" (one of the few songs he did not write). The lyrics are intriguing as a Moby sings along to murky guitars and heavy drumming, creating a wonderful post-apocalyptic feel to the song. The lines are simple, but compelling as he sings, "A change of scenes / A change of style / . . . A chance to watch / Admire the distance / Still occupied though you forget / Different colors, different shapes / Over each mistakes were made / I took the blame" ("New Dawn Fades"). Perhaps what makes the track so powerful is that it is the only song on the album with actual lyrics, but it sounds well-constructed. The listener feels a very definite sense of time, place and mood from the music well before the lyrics come in. (There are vocals on "Novio," sung by a choir, but they are virtually indistinguishable and operatic as opposed to emphasized.)

Unfortunately, some of the music is too tied to the media from which it comes. The second track on the album is the "James Bond Theme (Moby's Re-version)" and it's basically a synthed up James Bond Theme with clips from Goldfinger and/or Goldeneye thrown in. Is it interesting? Yes. Does it do anything truly new with the composition? No, not really. Instead, it's just a different orchestration to the song, upping the tempo a touch and replacing some of the brass with guitars and synths. It's fine, but it's nothing extraordinary.

Similarly, a tracks like I Like To Score and "Love Theme" sound like they must have come from a porno (I've never seen "Double Tap" nor "Joe's Apartment" so I don't know the actual context, but the tracks sound like porn music!). "Ah-Ha" and "First Cool Hive" embody somewhat generic instrumental musical places that have the sound of coming off a soundtrack to a movie, though as singles they lack context. In short, songs like the fast, danceable "Ah-Ha" and the slower, weirder synth-driven "First Cool Hive" sound like they could be part of a film (which they were), but as musical tracks, they don't stand well on their own.

So, while they might be evocative for those who have seen those films, they don't stand well on their own as musical compositions. And the lone-guitar driven track "Nash" is underdeveloped on its own, sitting as a musical setup to a payoff that is not evident on the song (it's less than a minute and a half long)!

"God Moving Over The Face Of The Waters" is pretty classic Moby, a beautiful orchestral track that creates a type of music that I call the new classical. There are no lyrics, the instrumentations are beautiful and conventional; this has a piano playing against a full string section with the themes playing off one another. It is slow, contemplative and clever, like much of the best classical music. He creates similar pieces on his two "Play" albums, so this becomes something of a harbinger to his later direction.

It's certainly not pop music, though and tracks like "God Moving Over The Face Of The Waters" are not what one expects out of techno, and there's not a bit of danceability (unless one considers slow dancing in the moonlight and rain) to the track either. This makes it difficult to categorize outside new classical, though it becomes instantly believable for its presence in a film.

The final two tracks on the album, "Love Theme" and "Grace" are more traditional orchestral pieces that remind the viewer of the full scope of cinema with their long, slow strings and building crescendos. They have a generic feel that allows the listener to envision and imagine, which is usually the best one may hope for from classical music (either traditional or contemporary).

But my recommendation falls heavily toward the enjoyment of individual tracks on this work, as opposed to honestly recommending it as an album. The dance-tempo tracks like "Ah-Ha" seem out of place and . . . well, obvious and forced in comparison to the more clever orchestral tracks. It has the feel of being thrown on the album because that was what people might expect of Moby when this album was produced.

The best track is "New Dawn Fades," the low point for me was the unmemorable and musically dull "Oil 1" (which also could have been a porno soundtrack song!).

For other inventive musicians, please check out my reviews of:
Opiate - Tool
Real Gone - Tom Waits
Flood - They Might Be Giants

6/10

For other music reviews, please check out my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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And Then He Played Again . . . Moby's Play: The B-Sides

The Good: 2 music-packed discs, Great original music, Fun
The Bad: One quasi-weak track on the first album
The Basics: Moby continues his synthesizers-laden, vocally dissonant album Play with just shy of a dozen truly original, equally classic tracks.


It's a pretty rare thing when NPR (National Public Radio) plays an artist who currently has a Top 40 hit. Yet, last year, as I was driving home from Cleveland, I heard a hypnotic tune late at night on NPR outside Rochester, NY and I thought "That sounds like Moby." The d.j. that night came on when the songs were done and gave their title and album. One of them was the one I had heard and it was identified as "Whispering Wind" by Moby. "It's off Play The B-Sides." And then my quest began.

Play - The B-Sides is a two disc set of Moby's finest music. The first disc, Play (reviewed here!) is a modern classic. That's a term I don't throw around often. In the truest sense, Moby is making classical music, innovating in a way that Mozart or Chopin once did.

For the purposes of this review, it makes sense to focus on the exclusive album. Play - The B-Sides is a collection of eleven songs that Moby has included on the c.d. singles for various tracks from Play and apparently some unreleased tracks. According to the liner notes, these are SOME of the additional tracks on the c.d. singles. Bummer. If these are evidence of the quality of his back up material, then I'd love to hear the whole lot of them.

So, what is the point of Play - The B-Sides? It's a chance for those people who where blown away by Play to get some more. That's not to say that this companion album is simply a rehashing of the first. Far from it. In fact, Play - The B Sides works best when listened to immediately after Play. Why? Play - The B Sides has much the same flavor and style as the first album, but it progresses them beyond where Play ended. Allow me to explain.

"Flower," the first track on Play - The B-Sides is a repetitive-lyricked ditty much the same way that "Honey" or "Find My Baby" were. But, it's not the same. There's more of a flow to it, there's more of a progress to its sound. It's like the beginning tracks of Play were warm ups, while the first track of Play - The B Sides is ready already and it's off and going.

The whole album is like that. Fans of Play will find the same diverse instrumentals, the continuation of wonderful looping and the eerie produced vocals Moby did on Play. But here, there's a sense of evolution. So while Moby's other albums might go in different directions, Play - The B Sides is further down the tangent that Play began.

In fact, if anything, this second album is better arranged. Track to track, the flow is often more developed. On Play, I found the dance-track, techno mix "Machete" out of place. The B Sides has "Running" and it fits both its title and its place in the album. Coming over the melancholy instrumental "Flying Over the Dateline," "Running" resumes out auditory interest and wears the listener out, tiring them for the final track, "The Sun Never Stops Setting."

That last track is a gem that reminds me of the film "Legend." I'm not sure why yet, it just evokes images in my mind like pegasi and fantasy adventures. Go figure.

Say nothing else about Moby, but one must acknowledge that he has the very best titles for his songs. And they all fit. "Memory Gospel," for example, is a track that, like "My Weakness," seems to have words in the instrumentals. And it's appropriate. Perhaps The B-Sides is about what you hear in it, what you bring to it.

Simply put, Play - The B-Sides solves even the problems of Play; it lacks a distracting obvious techno song like "Machete" and focuses on doing what Moby does best. "Whispering Wind" remains an enigmatic anthem of haunting longing that rivals Moby's great songs "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?" and "Everloving."

And thankfully, this is a two album set. It deserves to be listened to as such. With that in mind, the extra tracks pull up the deficiency on Play, making this set a perfect album. And the perfect Moby experience.

In closing, some reviewers don't like Play - The B-Sides because it doesn't do what Moby did on Play, which most of those critics adored universally. I say that it's better this way; these tracks progress beyond Play, illustrating growth and movement. After all, we listened to Moby in the first place to get away from what was everywhere else, the "common," overdone, "thing" on the airwaves. Thank Moby for this continued gift.

And oh, no matter how highly I recommend Play - The B Sides, and I do ("Memory Gospel" alone is worth the price of admission, though I'm so glad to be able to hear "Whispering Wind" when I'm fully awake and "The Sun Never Stops Setting" every night before bed!), good luck finding this album. After I had enjoyed a friend's copy of Play long enough to realize I wanted Play - The B Sides in my permanent collection, it took six months before I could track down a mint copy of this gem. My recommendation: get Play - The B-Sides any way you can find it. It's that good.

For other creative albums, please check out my reviews of:
Opiate (EP) - Tool
God Shuffled His Feet - Crash Test Dummies
Yes, Virginia - The Dresden Dolls

10/10

For other music reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2007, 2002 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The New Face of Classical Music: Play By Moby Holds Up!

The Good: Intriguing, Excellent sound, Well mixed, Emotive
The Bad: Subjective, Capitalistic in presentation
The Basics: A wonderful creation that deserves several listens, Play is emotive, so be open-minded. A triumph for originality; a truly classic album.


Sometimes, when I rate something so high, but have more than one negative aspect to the work, I want to start right out by explaining it. I wrote "capitalistic in presentation" above and while I stand by it, it is not a fault of this c.d. per se. The idea of this complaint is that the music inspires spin-offs that become problematic and expensive. In this case, the perfect example is the single "Southside." The radio airplay on the Gwen Stefani mix of the Moby song "Southside" was in the high to very high range on Top 40 stations when I originally wrote the review. That might encourage one to buy the c.d, but those buyers would not find that mix on the album. The idea of mixing and remixing music like Moby does inspires far too much investment capital. . . .

. . . Especially if one finds something they like.

And I have. I am very impressed by Play by Moby, more so by the fact that I've unwittingly heard most of it already! Clips of the album appear on commercials ("Bodyrock"), The X-Files (the amazing "My Weakness"), and the radio ("Southside," even if it isn't the same mix).

Moby's Play is an impressive work and I'd like to explain it. I'm rating Play so highly and it bears noting that I'm not rating it on a completely different scale from my other ratings. Play is a work of art, but not in a flaky, hippie dippy way. It combines Moby's lyrics and music and samples from folk, and spiritual songs. Some years ago, the group Primitive Radio Gods put out a song called "Standing Outside a Broken Phonebooth With Money In My Hands" and if you ever heard it, you have the basics to understand the best of new techno. You have themes and emotions of old combined with poetry and music of new. What I'm calling new techno is, in its purest sense, classical music.

Music, in its most basic sense is a series of musical notes that either go up or down in pitch. All that separates one piece of music from another is the direction of the notes at any given time and the speed at which those notes move. This is an oversimplification equivalent to saying all that separates different books is the words. It is not entirely disanalogous, though. Popular music, especially, is notorious for not sounding different. It's hard to do something new in pop-rock. It's hard to have a sound that hasn't been heard before at some point.

And for that, we go back to classical music. Classical music is the defining standard of those notes and the directions they go in. If you want to hear something from which much else is derived, listen to some Chopin or Mozart, etc. One of the greatest compliments a musical artist may receive is to be evaluated as as original as a classical musician.

Moby's Play is one such example. He's painting something completely new. That he samples from other artists (Bessie Jones, Shining Light Gospel Choir, et al.) is incidental; he's painting something new with them. That is, like a visual artist, Moby uses clips of other music as a paint, a medium. It serves to become something entirely new. He is not simply reusing and remixing, he is recreating. He is creating.

Opening with the upbeat "Honey," Moby takes the listener on a wild ride that becomes more analogous to classical music. How? I don't think the album is a perfect album, but it's so close, I am able to understand part of the reason it's not a perfect album is because some of the songs fail to cause me to feel. That is, there's a simple basic emotional reaction lacking in some of the pieces. It's a relative thing; like classical music. The best classical music becomes something emotive and while a piece may be wonderful, it becomes so subjective that the listener must interface on an emotional level and failure to have an emotional reaction helps define it.

"Honey" and "Run On" have classical upbeat jazz/folk sounds and the new techno context works perfectly, creating catchy tunes that are intriguing and get the toes tapping. Literally. "Find My Baby" works as an excellent example of turning a small clip into something completely new. "Porcelain" and "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad" are two of the most heartwrenching, emotive tracks and simply wonderful songs in their own right. From "Porcelain" we get the lyric "In my dreams I'm dying all the time . . ." sung passionately and dissonantly. It works on so many levels. They might be the most unique songs put on an album in the last few years. They are amazing and passionate and it's impossible to listen to them and not have an emotional reaction.

We bring our own experiences to this album, our own impressions. Listening to "Inside," for instance may evoke images of a womb, lovemaking, blood, running, any number of things, wholly dependent on individual experiences.

The album often becomes about sound and emotion over pure lyrics. "Southside" for example, says very little in its lyrics. However, the sound is bigger, it's a powerful song, full of feeling.

Part of what keeps this album from being a perfect album is in its pandering to the dance genre of techno. The nightmarishly fast dance tune "Machete" invokes images of sweaty nightclubs with strobe lights. Not appealing in emotion or sound. At least, not to me.

Want something different? This album is it! From the essays in the lyric book (no lyrics, some of the essays actually are interesting, not all do I agree with) to the pure emotion of the album, this is something incredible.

A wonderful, emotive album! The strongest tracks are "My Weakness" and "Porcelain". The weak link is "Machete."

For other creative works, please check out my reviews of:
Fundamental- Pet Shop Boys
Then: The Early Years - They Might Be Giants
God Shuffled His Feet - Crash Test Dummies

9/10

For other music reviews, please check out my index page!

© 2010, 2001 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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