The Syndicate

I love the orchestration. So far, two tracks in, I can say I would like this much better if it were instrumental only. I really, really don't like the vocalist. Her (?) voice does not seem to go well with the instrumentation. Perhaps it is me; I cannot think what vocalist I might like better with this. I really like the music as an instrumental.

Also reading back on the comments, I think taste is SO subjective. Some of the judgy comments bother me a bit. Constructive criticism is good, just saying something sucks, not so much. So I made a foray into this, but maybe will back right back out

Ah, I stumbled into an inside joke.

I don't like his (her?) voice. It is jarring to me and doesn't mesh well musically with the instrumentals imo. The vocals stand out too much and it is almost discordant to my ears/taste.

Personal preference, I guess.

MovingPictures07 wrote:

S~V~S wrote:I don't like his (her?) voice. It is jarring to me and doesn't mesh well musically with the instrumentals imo. The vocals stand out too much and it is almost discordant to my ears/taste.

Personal preference, I guess.

I'm drawing an interesting parallel with you saying this right now; I remember a few folks on ProgArchives who couldn't stand The Decemberists for nearly the exact same reason you describe here. Colin Meloy's vocals never bothered me either, but now that you mention this, it was a parallel that struck me as intriguing and worth bringing up. I know you're a Decemberists fan so you likely don't feel that way about them, but perhaps it's an indie thing?

No, I like a lot of indie music. This vocalists voice actually reminds me of the vocalist for an old post punk band, Orange Juice. I liked their sound, I liked the lyrics, but I just could not get past the singers voice. Something in the tone of it. And yeah, Meloys voice is quirky and I know my husband didn't like him at all, he thought he sounded like he was whining. The first time I heard him sing before the Decemberists in a small venue in Missoula, we left that night and I was enraptured with him, and Jerry HATED him, lol. So I think it is just taste in general

thellama73 wrote:Embarking on a second listen now.

I will try again, maybe he will grow on me?

MovingPictures07 wrote:

S~V~S wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote:

S~V~S wrote:I don't like his (her?) voice. It is jarring to me and doesn't mesh well musically with the instrumentals imo. The vocals stand out too much and it is almost discordant to my ears/taste.

Personal preference, I guess.

I'm drawing an interesting parallel with you saying this right now; I remember a few folks on ProgArchives who couldn't stand The Decemberists for nearly the exact same reason you describe here. Colin Meloy's vocals never bothered me either, but now that you mention this, it was a parallel that struck me as intriguing and worth bringing up. I know you're a Decemberists fan so you likely don't feel that way about them, but perhaps it's an indie thing?

No, I like a lot of indie music. This vocalists voice actually reminds me of the vocalist for an old post punk band, Orange Juice. I liked their sound, I liked the lyrics, but I just could not get past the singers voice. Something in the tone of it. And yeah, Meloys voice is quirky and I know my husband didn't like him at all, he thought he sounded like he was whining. The first time I heard him sing before the Decemberists in a small venue in Missoula, we left that night and I was enraptured with him, and Jerry HATED him, lol. So I think it is just taste in general

Hmmm, interesting. I'm not sure what it is then exactly. I didn't seem to notice anything particularly distinct. I'll try to pay more attention to the vocalist upon second listen.

Yeah no accounting for taste. For instance I like Johnny Lydon/Rotten, and I know he's like nails on chalkboard for alot of people. One of my friends, whenever he comes on, calls Neil Young "That dog in heat" ha ha.

OK, after a second listen, I really love the lyrics,I love the arrangements, melodies and instrumentation on pretty much every track. If it had almost anyone else singing I would put this in rotation. I don't know if it's the androgynous sound of the singer, or the feel I get that he is consciously trying to sound quasiclassical, or what it is about him, but I just don't like his voice

Sorry. I will give this 50% on whatever scale we are using. I love most of it, but I found the vocals to actually be an irritant.

Epignosis wrote:

Golden wrote:

Epignosis wrote:First of all, the lead vocalist is clearly a male. I don't understand how anyone thought otherwise.

It is really androgynous.

Then check your ears. He has an incredible range. Fantastic vocalist.

Can we do this without judging other peoples opinions? I am already intimidated posting in this group as so many of you come from a music background or site. Saying things like this make people like me even less likely to join this type of discussion.

Thank You.

Oh my, I did miss that. So cool!!

Just finished the second track and I like it so far. He *IS* androgynous, but not in the same way, The other guy felt somewhat pretentious to me, almost like the pitch variation was an affectation. I don't get that feel here.

And like you, generally I prefer studio albums (although there are exceptions), but this is pretty tight. Look forward to finishing it.

I did like it alot having listened all the way through. Maybe becasue their sound was so unique, it did not have the drawbacks live albums usually have.

Someone earlier said they found the "fishman"s of the first track annoying; that was what actually hooked me to finish the album, I really liked the first track.

I love this! There is some psychedelic 60's sounds, but track three, Goathead, put me in mind of Portishead or Massive Attack. Very nice! This is going into the permanent rotation.

OK, and Track 4, Disco Fever, isn't Disco at all. It's like tribal fusion meets Grateful Dead/San Fran sound.

This is so impressive. Very original and unique.

OK, listening to the first track which I rather like. This surprises me somewhat since INH and I seem to have few tastes in common. At first I misheard the lyrics (I thought he was saying, "While *fucking* feathers..." but once I realized he was saying "plucking" it worked better for me since I stopped worrying about WTF he was talking about, was it random, did it have meaning? Once I realized it was not totally random, I could settle in to the music.

The second track came on. At first, I did not like it as much since there was less aggressive music, and the vocals were on top, but the barking drew me in.

I could live without the organic sounds, they are somewhat distracting from his voice, lol.

ebwop, the lyrics remind me in some cases of pretentious, anguished college poetry that I am guessing most of us, being creative people, indulged ourselves in writing. So I am not as impressed with his lyrics as much as he seems to be ha ha

But over all I really do like this.

edit, 4th track, zercon,

"if shit were music you'd be a brass band" ha ha ha

OK, I know this guy has a reputation for avant garde stuff, and I have never listened to anything of his before. But it really seems to me that he is almost mocking himself and his listeners. I think he is being INTENTIONALLY funny. But I could be way off base as I have not listened to anything else he has ever recorded.

I am at work, with headphones, and the norseman and the pink mint had me laugh out loud, as did the ish kabibbles. I LOVE this album, I think it is hilarious, and not in a laughing *at* it way.

I absolutely love this album. 5/5

I have to thank INH, I have discovered something I like a great deal, and I look forward to exploring his other records as you suggest, MP.

And yes, very excellent review Rico. Always educational, and I could listen to you talk all day long.

MovingPictures07 wrote:

S~V~S wrote:OK, I know this guy has a reputation for avant garde stuff, and I have never listened to anything of his before. But it really seems to me that he is almost mocking himself and his listeners. I think he is being INTENTIONALLY funny. But I could be way off base as I have not listened to anything else he has ever recorded.

I am at work, with headphones, and the norseman and the pink mint had me laugh out loud, as did the ish kabibbles. I LOVE this album, I think it is hilarious, and not in a laughing *at* it way.

I absolutely love this album. 5/5

Wow, that's outstanding. I wish I could love this album; I have the utmost respect for it, but there are just parts that are not enjoyable for me. I do love the absurdity of the lyrics though.

You absolutely must check out Tilt and The Drift, at a minimum. It'll be like going backwards through his descent into madness, since Bish Bosch is the most insane, but the quality is there. For my ears, Tilt is just awesome, like the bridge that transitions his baroque pop era to his The Drift/Bish Bosch stuff.

I did hit up Tilt today after Bish Bosch, and between the two it was a bit of sensory overload. I will check out The Drift tomorrow, and then maybe listen to them in order since as I understand it, it is a trilogy?

I never thought I would like such a thing, Bjork is about as avant as I get, but this just really spoke to me. Again, INH, thank you

That can be an important factor for me. Although Michael Jackson, for instance, was never to my taste musically, I know people who did like his music, and I actually got annoyed at family members and friends who continued to listen to his music after all that pedophile stuff came out. It bothered me alot that people thought his artistry somehow ameliorated the situation.

So far I am mixed on Arthur Brown; I think my Dad had this album when I was a kid. I am sure I never listened to it myself, but it sounds super familiar. This would have been right up my Dads alley, I will have to ask him.

I really like the vocals and lyrics.In some places I am having problems getting past the dated super 60's psychedelic instrumentation. Dat drama organ.

Rico, I give Fishmans a 3, world music a 4. Arthur Brown a 3. And I would put my Beneath the Brine rating, in this context, at a 2. It is the album I have least liked.

Some of us pretend harder than others.

I think the anxiety of Rico reviewing my submission would make me sick, lol. I would worry so over being judged by that amazing voice (I could listen to Rico talk forever, so long as he isn't talking about me), lol. I don't know if I could stand the disdain.

I found Arthur Brown to be much more dated than Chuck Berry here. The sound of AB did not age as well as Chuck did.

4 stars to Chuck Berry on a scale of 1-5.
2.5 to Arthur Brown

Artie Babes was not my cup of tea.

Ricochet wrote: ↑Sat May 27, 2017 8:52 am The Syndicate 2.0.: Nobody cares about SAW anymore

I care; I just started to feel stupid and amateurish. I don't know much about the technical parts of music, I just know what I like. It had nothing to do with Syndicate 2.0; I dropped out before that.

I will try again

I will try it tomorrow at work. I will have the office to myself so it will be a good time for it.

Ha ha, I had pretty much the opposite reaction to you so far, G Man. I am on Track 3 of Echolyn so far, Locust to Bethlehem.

I did not like the first tract at all. I found it derivative and unoriginal. The instrumentation reminded me of every Yes album I have ever heard, and the vocals made me think of "If Queen Were Prog". It was over arranged. I like prog, but there was nothing in that song that I could not get from a hundred other prog albums.

Now the next two tracks, though, I like a whole lot. They are more organic and more original, listening to them did not feel like I was listening to an over pretentious cover band. So if the rest of the tracks are more on this line (excepting the last track, which other reviews lead me to think is more like the first track), I will probably give it a four. So far "In Memorial" is a mixed bag for me (about a minute in right now)~ I like the lyrics and the vocal delivery, and the music while the singing is going on. But the bridges are (and the da da DA da in the background at times) are a bit too Yes fanboy for my taste.

I will finish listening to it hopefully today, but I wanted to get this up while it was still fresh in my mind.

OK, onto the rest of the album.

Some Memorial evened out for me. The little bits of high proggery did not detract from the rest of the song for me. Like I said, I do like prog, but Yes is my least favorite prog sound, and the parts of this album I did not care for had a very Yes-like sound to them, and this song did not. So overall, I liked this song, it was a bit peppier than the other songs in the middle of the album without being too over arranged.

Past Gravity and When Sunday Spills were both solid, and I liked them. They were original sounding and not over produced at all. The middle of this album put me in mind of Procol Harums Shine on Brightly, which is favorite of mine, Desert Island Album for sure. Lampblack was a bit meh, not bad, but not particularly memorable.

The Cardinal & I was better than I expected it to be based on other reviews, but I still kept expecting them to break out into “Close to the Edge” at points, although nowhere near as often as I did while listening to the opening track. There is a fine line IMO between being derivative and being a solid representative of your genre. The first track was clearly derivative to my ears, the last crossed the line a few times, but mostly stayed on the solid side for me.

I give it a solid 4. It is a really good album for listening to at work, for sure. I would just start it with the second track. I might go to 4.5 if the first track were not on the album, but it is, so 4.

G-Man wrote: ↑Tue Jun 13, 2017 12:35 pm

S~V~S wrote: ↑Tue Jun 13, 2017 9:49 am Ha ha, I had pretty much the opposite reaction to you so far, G Man. I am on Track 3 of Echolyn so far, Locust to Bethlehem.

Probably because you've listened to ample amounts of prog and I have not.

Possibly, but my opinion may be different to many proggers. I hate Yes, and parts of this sound too Yes-like for my taste. I liked the less proggy bits more than the proggier ones.

I stopped doing this because some of the reviews became almost intimidating in their level of expertise and completeness, but reading back it would seem that we have some more casual reviewers mixed in now, too, so I might try again.

It helps that I used to love this album (I believe I picked it up from a list of MP's on maybe 8Tracks or Facebook), and haven't listened to it in a while so am looking forward to it.

Thank you

I had not listened to this in a while, and had forgotten how much I liked it. I'm a binger, I will find a thing I like and play it all the time, then some other new shiny thing will catch my eye, and things I really like get pushed to the side.

I did a preliminary listen to this last night for feel and it was like I never left. For all the disparate elements, it all works together as a unit. I do not know that i would like any individual piece taken out of context, but the whole is beautiful, and I think listening to it otherwise doesn't do it justice.

For all the disparate elements, it has an almost jazzy feel, the way they work together. It gives me the same type of feeling I might get from jazz that pushes the bar.

I will listen again tonight after work for lyrics and just a bit more in depth in general.

I did not leave a final rating on Madvillainy. I give it an overall 4.5 out of 5. There are only a few albums I give a full 5 to. Hip Hop is not my favorite genre, and when I do like it it tends to be old NYC stuff like Grandmaster Flash, Fab Five Freddy and Kool Moe Dee.

This album puts me in mind of Fab Five Freddy quite a bit; it has the same speed and ambiance (if you are not familiar with Fab Five Freddy, check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w34wa6E-rTE ). The rapping is smart and the samples are original and not what is generally expected from hip hop.

So 4.5 out of 5.

G-Man wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2018 1:13 pm I'd like to hear people's thoughts and reflections on how the final piece of this ballet concludes. It's so muted and downtrodden that it almost leaves me feeling uncomfortable. Rather than a grand finale, this album seems to end with an intentional whimper. It's unsettling but (for me at least) not in a bad way. Thoughts?

Do you know the story? It's not a happy ending. Will listen to it tonight.

G-Man wrote: ↑Thu Mar 01, 2018 1:23 pm

S~V~S wrote: ↑Thu Mar 01, 2018 5:55 am

G-Man wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2018 1:13 pm I'd like to hear people's thoughts and reflections on how the final piece of this ballet concludes. It's so muted and downtrodden that it almost leaves me feeling uncomfortable. Rather than a grand finale, this album seems to end with an intentional whimper. It's unsettling but (for me at least) not in a bad way. Thoughts?

Do you know the story? It's not a happy ending. Will listen to it tonight.

I read through the plot last night. I'll have to listen to it again with the story in mind. Or perhaps there's a video of a live performance on YouTube.

This one is pretty good.

I tend to like ballets/opera better when I *see* them. When I watched a performance (I actually watched a few) I liked it alot. I found the music worked well in the context of the story. Ballet and opera are different than regular classical music as they were meant to work as an accompaniment to a performance piece aspart of a whole, as opposed to symphonic or orchestral music which is supposed to stand on it's own.

I liked it alot for what it is, but I prefer to see this kind of thing as a live performance, so I will give it a 2.5 out of 5 as an album. It is not something I would listen to on it's own, like some other performance pieces like parts of Peer Gynt or Die Walküre.

After one listening as background music while I was working, I liked it quite a bit. They put me in mind of Noah and the Whale a bit, maybe even Modest Mouse. I definitely liked the vocals.

I will listen to it again later paying more attention to lyrics, not just to the general feel of it.

Final verdict on Los Campesinos, I liked it as background music, if it shows up in my background rotation, I would be ok with it. But it doesn't stand out; I tend to play mellower indy as life background, and nothing about this would make me say, when a song came on, "Wow! This is Los Campesinos!". It's kind of blendy to my ear.

A 3 out of 5. I liked it enough that I did not erase it from my playlist history, but not enough to seek out another album by this group.

I am afraid to submit an album, I am afraid I will be laughed out of the place

Like the thing I am most into right now is Jazz bagpipes, something I think NO ONE else likes

I will try it again tonight, I was distracted by politics when I was listening to it last night. I loved the instrumentals, but I find that I am verrrryy fussy about female singers. With the exception of Bjork, I have very little in my playlists that has female singers, except some fairly old punkish/post punkish things like Siouxie or Blondie.

I tend to judge "ethereal" by Bjork, and i found the vocals too bland to really catch my attention. But as I said, I was distracted, and that is me. Objectively, I could see why others would like this.

dunya wrote: ↑Wed Mar 14, 2018 10:57 am

S~V~S wrote: ↑Wed Mar 14, 2018 6:19 am With the exception of Bjork, I have very little in my playlists that has female singers

do you like PJ Harvey?

Actually I do. I like Patti Smith, too. I think that, for the most part, I find the female voice bland unless it covers alot of range.

speedchuck wrote: ↑Wed Mar 14, 2018 11:25 am A New Nature

I just knew... I just knew from the warm guitar and bass tones at the start of this album that I was going to like it. As the music picked up more and more, I liked it more and more. It edged toward being drone-y at times, which I don't generally like, but the muddy tones were just clear enough for me to pick out.
But the vocals weren't clear. They weren't clean, or pleasant. They were moaning, groaning, alternately weak and soft and faltering and bleh. I do not want to hear a woman droning words repeatedly over the music. It wasn't all bad, I suppose. I found myself thinking several times that I was overreacting. And then the singer would draw out some line waaaay longer than it needed to be, sounding horribly drone-y and almost in pain. It was just on and off, the whole time.
Had to get that off my chest.
If this music were just the same, but instrumental, I'd probably give it a 3.5 or 4. The tone build and fall successfully, turning a sound I'd usually hear from an unmixed 'artistic' garage band playing in a smoke-filled venue into music, passion, warmth, and energy. When the music really picks up, especially during the instrumental parts, I feel like I could just listen to these musicians warble on for hours.

3/5

Yes! I loved the instrumentals, I could listen to this all the time... with a different singer. Maybe I was blaming it on the female voice in general, whereas it actually was more THIS specific female voice.

As I said, I will try again without distraction tonight.

dunya wrote: ↑Wed Mar 14, 2018 12:40 pm

S~V~S wrote: ↑Wed Mar 14, 2018 11:10 am

dunya wrote: ↑Wed Mar 14, 2018 10:57 am

S~V~S wrote: ↑Wed Mar 14, 2018 6:19 am With the exception of Bjork, I have very little in my playlists that has female singers

do you like PJ Harvey?

Actually I do. I like Patti Smith, too. I think that, for the most part, I find the female voice bland unless it covers alot of range.

PJ Harvey and Kate Bush are my fav female singers. I love Nico's voice too.

I think you might like Emiliana Torrini.. (:

Nico is like whiskey and cigarettes, like someone I used to know a long time ago, and recall fondly. Thanks for the suggestion, I will check her out

[mention]dunya[/mention] Thank You for introducing me to something I already know I love, Emiliana Torrini is awesome!!

She has a beautiful voice, and she plays it like an instrument, she doesn't just sing.

Love it, will always be grateful to Dunya for introducing me to her music.

5 out of 5

It is nice background music. I felt it needed more context to elicit much emotional content on its own. It was pleasant, but after it was over, I did not really recall much of it.

3 out of 5