Eldritch

...but surely this merits at least 8/10? It is after all a comprehensive collection from an iconic and important band containing at least half a dozen classic singles.

A very well-written review of a traumatically vapid album. Head Music was the polar opposite of a grower -- I remember when I found it impressive on the first listen, disppointing on the fourth listen and totally unpalatable on the seventh listen. The b-sides on the other hand were forgettable even in 1999 and I haven't listened to neither them nor the main dish for 12 years. It will be interesting to re-assess the whole era next week when I get the album.

If one wants to re-jig Coming Up, surely Lazy and Starcrazy should be first to go and not the sublime Chemistry.

...that the above post is spam. But then again, it could be a Scritti lyric.

You're right that a fair few reviews are written in a rush, but I think the problem is more with those hasty reviews than the fact that Radiohead are given special treatment. Plus naturally different records ask for different reactions. If for instance a new Vaccines, a new Robyn or the Beady Eye debut (ha!) don't strike you on the third listen, it's pretty safe to say that the albums have not succeeded in what they are trying to do. Some other albums like The King Of Limbs demand a different kind of listening process -- and the listener is naturally perfectly free to either not bother or realize after eight listens that, nah, this isn't very good.

This is by far the best Hurts review I have read so far. Although I must say that I really like the album - almost every track on it is a very well-crafted pop song, despite banal lyrics. They really should have left Blood, Tears And Gold out though.

Like everything else he has done since 69 Love Songs. Just listened to his old stuff the other day: Get Lost, Charm Of The Highway Strip and the first Future Bible Heroes album are all brilliant, but after the extravaganza Merritt has just recycled past glories. Every song on Realism instantly recalls something he has done before and the lyrics, while still formally faultless, have lost the undercurrent of genuine depth and feeling.

The link from the Hadouken! entry actually leads to Charles Uhbags's review of their debut album in 2008, also rated 3/10.

A die-hard Stars fan, that is. One of the best bands of the last ten years, definitely. Won't be getting this though, because Amy's first solo album was quite dull and this seems to be in the same category. You should check out Torqui's project Dead Child Star on MySpace though.

...at least some people are nowadays criticizing them of sounding just like the old Editors and not you-know-who.

The bonus cd Cuttings 2 is also recommended. I was expecting them to sound like b-sides to the songs from the album, but the 5 songs on it are like the next step forward for Editors: more abrasive and industrial, heavier than anything they have done before. A Life As A Ghost should have definitely have been on the proper album.

...are the cancer of music journalism and all cultural critique. They encourage people just to look at the score, take it as a fact and not bother to read what the critic has to say – and only after that decide whether (s)he is worth trusting.

However, Still Night is a big disappointment for me. Not only have they not moved forward one bit, there is no one song here as strong as The Lucky One or A Violent Yet Flammable World.

...the song also references another Bret Easton Ellis novel: Glamorama, in which the words "disappear here" serve a central purpose to the plot.

...they have also an 8-track electrofolk album in the bag. They intended to release it as a companion piece to this one, but decided to postpone it a bit. Velocifero means "a bringer of speed", so that's why they wanted to make a consistently uptempo album. But yes, I agree, a couple of slower tracks would have improved it even more. Still, it's a very good album, even though there's not one song as stunning as Destroy Everything You Touch or International Dateline on it.

That is indeed a much better tracklisting, although I personally think Last Of The Famous International Playboys and November Spawned A Monster should be on any proper Morrissey "best of" compilation.

I agree with the review, but can't resist pointing out that Quarry came out in 2004 and not in 2000.

I truly hope he's saving the better new songs for the next studio album and therefore giving this lacklustre offering to a needless "greatest hits".

Things seem to be going too well for Morrissey these days. Whenever he's on the ropes, he usually comes up with an Vauxhall & I or an You Are The Quarry (the b-sides of which were better than most of Ringleader). But when things are going swimmingly, we get a single like this: a song title looking in vain for a tune or even a memorable couplet.

I thought i was a very bland rehashing of past glories. Bar I Thought You Were My Boyfriend, which is probably the best synthpop song ever to not actually feature any synths. The Gothic Archies album had its moments, but it's easy to follow Merritt's decline, since the songs have been recorded in chronological order, one every year. He keeps recycling melodies and the lyrics feel like empty excercises in formalism: all wordplay, no heart.

For me this is Stephin's last time to show that he didn't shoot his load with 69 Love Songs. Nearly everything before that (Get Lost, Charm Of The Highway Strip, the first Future Bible Heroes album) was excellent, yet everything after that magnum opus has been disappointing, listless and even unlistenable (Showtunes).

It's a tremendous album. Their debut was fine, but they have really taken a great leap forward with this new album. The title track is the best song I have heard for a long time, and The Weight Of The World has me in tears every time I hear it.

album is utterly disappointing. I really liked about half of the debut and wished that would come up with a killer secoond album to spite all the haters. But this is just utterly bland and insipid: gone are the fun new wave syths, in are a newfound maturity and a watered down Britpop sound. On the whole album there is not one even remotely as good a song as Unconditional, Tyrant, Give in, No Brakes or Honest Mistake. And the acoustic ballad Tragedy Bound just beggars belief.