Sunday, February 21, 2010

Brian Dronestown

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THE Brian Jonestown Massacre, although led by one man, Anton Newcombe, have had more than 40 members in their 20 year run - so as you can imagine there's no shortage of ideas here.
In fact it's rare on Who Killed Sgt Pepper? to find two similar songs back to back.
Opener Tempo 116.7 (reaching for dangerous levels of sobriety) is bongo-led primal dance, followed by Tunger Hnifur's psyche rock, ambient in White Music, the soiled jangle pop of This Is The First Of Your Last Warning (Icelandic), and so on.
The problem with Who Killed Sgt Pepper? is that despite this inventive streak, most tracks have one thing in common - they all start off promisingly but become a dirge very quickly, adding up to a monotonous feeling overall.
As a result despite the album being a killer on paper, Brian Jonestown Massacre's latest just ends up poking and prodding you a bit.

2 comments:

  1. i have to thank you for being honest...
    i think if you spoke russian or icelandic etc...you might have a different perspective..

    best wishes,
    a

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for dropping by, as I said, the album's far from bad, it's just not quite as good as it promises to be.
    I'll still be checking out a bit more of your back catalogue after listening to it a few times.

    ReplyDelete

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