Bangles: All Over The Place

BANGLES: ALL OVER THE PLACE (1984)

1) Hero Takes A Fall; 2) Live; 3) James; 4) All About You; 5) Dover Beach; 6) Tell Me; 7) Restless; 8) Going Down To Liver­pool; 9) He's Got A Secret; 10) Silent Treatment; 11) More Than Meets The Eye.

We will not be remembering them for ʽEternal Flameʼ — we will remember them for this album, one of the finest treasures to come out of the «Paisley Underground» and a fine reminder for every­one that it is possible to be retro and innovative, old-fashioned and new-fangled, style-cen­tered and catchy, formulaic and emotional at the same time. Of course, its national and interna­tional fame did not really come until Prince arrived on the scene and turned them into gilt-bronze two years later, but who's to be surprised? They don't call it underground for nothing.

All Over The Place was not the Bangles' first release: two years earlier, it was preceded by a five-song self-titled EP, which some critics predictably hail as the Bangles record to abide by — not because it still features original founding mother Annette Zilinskas on bass (soon to be repla­ced by Michael Steele), but because it is still delightfully lo-fi, released on the aptly titled indie label «Faulty Products» instead of Columbia. However, other than better production, All Over The Place does not really represent any fallbacks from the aesthetics of Bangles — both the EP and the LP even share exactly one cover of an old garage «nugget» (The La De Da's ʽHow Is The Air Up There?ʼ and the Merry Go-Rounds' ʽLiveʼ, respectively), and are best taken together, which would only bring the total length to 44 minutes anyway.

So what's good about these Bangles? First, they really love their guitars: both Susanna Hoffs on rhythm and Vicki Peterson on lead have rich, thick, powerful, and colorful power-pop tones. They like to jangle that stuff (ʽLiveʼ), but they can just as well use it for crunchy purposes (ʽRest­lessʼ), or throw in wailing pop riffs that rival their idols, Big Star (ʽGoing Down To Liverpoolʼ). The two have just enough technique to think of various interesting things to do over the instru­mental breaks (like the Nashville-influenced guitar break on ʽAll About Youʼ; or the way ʽJamesʼ starts out deceptively as a funk-rocker, only to take a completely different turn ten seconds later and never go back again) — but not enough to engage in empty flash. As light and insubstantial as most of these songs are, these ladies are musicians, not «babes with guitars».

Second and most important, they are excellent B-rate songwriters: B-rate, because all the ele­ments are familiar, and they do not even try to conceal it (ʽI'm In Lineʼ off the EP is built on the ʽTaxmanʼ riff, and God knows how many Beatles or Big Star chord sequences are less openly in­volved in the other numbers), but excellent, because it never really bothers me — the ingredients are reshuffled expertly and with feeling, the tempos are lively and exciting, and the singing is... well, always nice to hear some simple, happy, ringing, innocent-sounding tones in an era when the female intellectual ideal was defined by the likes of Kate Bush or Siouxsie Sioux — not that I have anything against either, but there is always room for a Susanna Hoffs as well.

Highlights include... just about everything. ʽHero Takes A Fallʼ and ʽJamesʼ are probably the most anthemic and easily memorizable / recognizable songs, although the album as such is more frequently identified with a cover of Katrina and The Waves' ʽGoing Down To Liverpoolʼ — a song that the Bangles took up, colored up with less distortion and more treble, made a little less angry with more melodic singing (drummer Debbi Peterson carries the lead), and they still ended up with a credible rocking attitude. ʽRest­lessʼ is more in the blues-rock idiom (with the lead vocal going to the lower-pitched Vicki Peter­son here), but pulled off quite credibly; and their janglier, or their country-western-er sides (ʽDo­ver Beachʼ; ʽTell Meʼ) are also delightful.

It all works, because there is not only unbridled love for guitar-based pop rock, expressed here so freely in an age of dance beats and synthesizers, but there is also one thing that prohibits most of to­day's bands from recreating the Bangles' success: a total lack of fear of being judged too «silly», too «lightweight», too «fluffy» — these songs are innocent and simple in mood and execution, and they have no double bottom or any other secrets to slowly unravel over repeated listenings. But neither does any of this sound like an expertly calculated retro-affair — the girls have been raised on a punk bedrock, after all, and overall, an album like this would have been impossible in the pre-Ramones, or, more accurately, the pre-Patti Smith era: as retro as it is, in terms of cha­racter toughness displayed, it clearly belongs to their time.

Actually, come to think of it, All Over The Place is simply timeless — unpretentious high-qua­lity entertainment for the ages, even topped off with a little bit of chamber pop: ʽMore Than Meets The Eyeʼ is a good title to introduce the accappella opening, the Merseybeat-style har­monies, and the modest string quartet that form the album's coda, and show an additional side to the girls' versatility — they not only know their ʽTaxmanʼ but their ʽShe's Leaving Homeʼ as well. Naturally, it's all «fluff» — no deep insights are to be gained or previously unexplored paths un­locked from listening to the Bangles even at their best — but in 1984, it took brains, brawns, and guts to produce this particular kind of fluff. Thumbs up.

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Barclay James Harvest: ...And Other Short Stories

BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST: ...AND OTHER SHORT STORIES (1971)

1) Medicine Man; 2) Someone There You Know; 3) Harry's Song; 4) Ursula; 5) Little Lapwing; 6) Song With No Meaning; 7) Blue John Blues; 8) The Poet; 9) After The Day.

The key word is «short»: although ʽBlue John Bluesʼ almost reaches the seven-minute mark, the record consciously stays away from «epic sweep» this time around — almost defiantly so, what with progressive acts all around going in the opposite direction. Even if the decision was not set in stone (epic length would make a return on the next album, with rather questionable results), it was still important — BJH letting us know that they still pledge allegiance to the «art-pop» attitude of Moody Blues / Procol Harum in an era when the «art» and the «pop» components were beginning to get segregated once more.

And the results were worth it: most of the songs still work very well, on some level or other. Mel­lotrons, cellos, melodic vocal harmonies, a little baroque mixed in with a little gothic, and even the song titles and lyrics are somewhat improved, without any straightforward Tolkien references provoking accusations of cheap fanboyism or trend-hopping. At the same time, the entire album is permeated with a healthy sick world-weary spirit — nothing like a strong shot of intelligent pessimism to make a meaningful statement out of potentially empty art-pop hooks.

Of course, the Merlin-meets-Bradbury words of ʽMedicine Manʼ are not exactly a peak of «intel­ligence» per se ("oh what a cold surprise the flying horses cried"?), but the good thing is that they are vague enough to not warrant any direct analysis, just like Jon Anderson's blistering logorrhea (provided that the listener is not familiar with Something Wicked This Way Comes, which served as the chief inspiration for the song). The important thing is that the orchestral arrangements once again transform this dark folk ballad into something grand, stately, and ominous, and thus it sets the general tone for the album: softer and smoother than ʽShe Saidʼ (in general, Short Stories goes easier on screechy Lees leads, but the loss, for now, is compensated by many gains), yet just as retro-romantic.

On the other hand, ʽHarry's Songʼ, if you do not pay much attention to the words, may seem to be one of those «little man» tunes in a Ray Davies vein — actually, it is about the death of a parrot (no, there will be no gratuitous Monty Python references here), but parrot or person, it is a memo­rial song written without a gram of artificial sentimentality: in fact, it's an angry song, and the way they resolve the chorus — "something stirred today, and Harry he passed away", with the record's angriest riff echoing the pissed-off bitterness in John's voice — makes for one of the re­cord's finest hooks. Arguably the best song about the death of a parrot ever written.

The «magnum opus» of ʽBlue John Bluesʼ is allegedly a lyrical swipe at the musical industry; it may take a few listens to sink in, since its basic structures are more «rootsy» than «artsy», but it moves quite self-assuredly from a slow piano ballad format to pub-rock energetics and back, as if illustrating the public demands of cheap entertainment over introspective depth — quite a clever song, really, that makes it all the more amazing how the band would very soon lose the ability to come up with such inventive moves.

In the meantime, Beatles fans — or, rather, ELO fans — will be mighty pleased with Wolsten­holme's ʽSomeone There You Knowʼ, all of it built upon seductive Jeff Lynnian vocal modu­la­tions and power-pop guitar accompaniment; baroque folk lovers will welcome ʽUrsulaʼ and ʽSong With No Meaningʼ, two more contributions to the band's luvvable pastoral backlog; and ʽAfter The Dayʼ is «Armageddon-lite», way too melodic to properly reflect an end-of-the-world scenario, but moving all the same.

Overall, I would judge that Short Stories are tied with the self-titled debut as a solid proposition for BJH's finest half-hour: running a bit shorter on «major» hooks, perhaps, but without a single misfire or way-too-obvious rip-off — this here is a band that shows more than simply fanboy adoration of their influences, coming into its own as a markedly early 1970s guardian of mar­kedly late 1960s values, so to speak. Too bad this homely magic did not work for long, but at least the tapes are still rolling. Thumbs up.

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Bee Gees: Living Eyes

BEE GEES: LIVING EYES (1981)

1) Living Eyes; 2) He's A Liar; 3) Paradise; 4) Don't Fall In Love With Me; 5) Soldiers; 6) I Still Love You; 7) Wild­flower; 8) Nothing Could Be Good; 9) Cryin' Every Day; 10) Be Who You Are.

A classic case of post-(Saturday Night)fever fatigue syndrome — the Bee Gees' first album of the new musical decade sounds forced, tired, uninspired, and generally superfluous. The brothers had allegedly disowned the album themselves, claiming that they were pressed into recording by the studio at a time when they really needed to sit back and rethink their image: with the anti-disco backlash tearing their reputation to pieces, and the proverbial truth of «the higher the climb, the harder the fall» landing upon them in full force, it was really unclear where to go next after the spirits had flown and yesterday's mass-cultural heroes became today's mass-cultural clowns.

The biggest irony of it all is that, in the end, Living Eyes still ended up a much better album than both the one that preceded it and the «comeback» that would follow it six years later. Not having enough time to rethink anything and come up with a carefully construed «nu-image», the Bee Gees simply resorted to the one thing they usually did best — that is, writing pop songs and re­cording them. Living Eyes has no direct «affiliation»: it is not disco, it is not New Wave, it is not trendy synth-pop, it is not retro symph-pop, it is just a bunch of typically Bee Gees songs, re­corded without much forethought or gimmickry. Not particularly good Bee Gees songs, I might add — there is nothing here to suggest even a partial recovery from the disco-induced «genius' block» — but not utterly without redeem, either.

The overall sound of the album is glossy and synthetic alright (the Bee Gees would never again be able to recapture the «organic» sound of their pre-Main Course records), but the acoustic folk-pop harmonies that form the core of the Gibb style are well emphasized, and the guitars are not drowned out by the electronics (as they would be eventually), nor is the production crappy enough to infringe on the vocal harmonies. Speaking of which, Living Eyes almost completely rejects falsetto — ʽSoldiersʼ being the only serious exception — welcoming Barry Gibb back to the «world of real men», provided he still remembers what it used to look like.

So the major problem is not with the style — it is rather bland, sterile, and unadventurous, but not ugly, crassy, or cheesy — but with the songs. Things start out kind of okay with the title track, whose romantic chorus is relatively pretty and even seems to recapture a tiny spark of the «cour­teous nobility» of old. Slow it down a little bit, bring back Bill Shepherd, and it would not feel out of place on To Whom It May Concern at least. Rebirth? No, because already the second track, ʽHe's A Liarʼ, inexplicably chosen as first single, is a pointless pop-rocker, recorded in a style that could have worked for Foreigner, but not for the Bee Gees — and its main hook is a contrast between a deep baritonal and a high falsetto rendering of the song title: a silly gimmick that only confirms that yes, the well has run dry after all.

Only three songs out of ten have managed to register on my brain cells with a positive charge — these are the title track; ʽParadiseʼ, another midtempo adult contemporary ballad with a very natural and emotional flow from verse to bridge to chorus (my favourite part is the bridge — the "run a mile for the minute" part); and, out of the blue, a Maurice original — there is something odd about the wimpiness of ʽWildflowerʼ that produces an endearing effect. Everything else ei­ther comes across as an inferior copy of one of these three songs, or represents an inept attempt at «rocking out softly» (ʽCryin' Every Dayʼ is in the same vein as ʽHe's A Liarʼ, and goes in the same null void direction). Some diversity is provided by Robin taking significantly more leads than he did last time around, but with such poor songwriting, it does not matter much already who is singing what.

Maybe at least a part of the lackluster atmosphere of the record could be explained by the Gibbs firing their studio veterans at the beginning of the sessions — not only Blue Weaver, who was re­sponsible for the keyboards throughout the disco period, but even old buddy Alan Kendall, who was already hanging around in their Trafalgar days. With more than a dozen different session musicians taking their place, there is no wonder that Living Eyes has no «signature sound», or that the strictly-bread-and-butter arrangements do not offer even a single curious flourish or twist to feed the hungry ear. On the other hand — who knows if anything could be done for the Bee Gees at the time? The harder they come...

No, the only words of consolation would have to refer to the falsetto-dropping and the revival of the acoustic guitar — Living Eyes is boring alright, but it sounds like a record made by living people; people who, perhaps accidentally, did not have the time to program it into an efficient commercial proposition and just went ahead on an almost spontaneous basis. It is a dang shame they could not do better: this might have been their very last chance at making a late-period mini-masterpiece, but, after all, they did sign the contract, and the devil did honor his part of the deal — now it was up to him to ensure that the Bee Gees would never properly rise again.

Still, it seems cruel to end the review with a thumbs down, considering how, in retrospect, the record really looks like a breath of moderately fresh air in between all the methane emissions. Iro­nically, despite making history as the first album to have been printed in CD form (the brothers even got an extra BBC promotion for that, although it didn't do them any good anyway), Living Eyes has long since been out of print, and the Gibbs, dead or alive, would not go out of their way to help re-endorse it. But eventually, in a better, post-World War III world, once Bee Gees al­bums are no longer rated by the amount of copies sold, that mistake will be rectified.

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Blues Magoos: Electric Comic Book

BLUES MAGOOS: ELECTRIC COMIC BOOK (1967)

1) Pipe Dream; 2) There's A Chance We Can Make It; 3) Life Is Just A Cher O'Bowlies; 4) Gloria; 5) Intermission; 6) Albert Common Is Dead; 7) Summer Is The Man; 8) Baby, I Want You; 9) Let's Get Together; 10) Take My Love; 11) Rush Hour; 12) That's All Folks.

As bold and presumptuous as a title like ʽThere's A Chance We Can Make Itʼ might sound, the Blues Ma­goos' second album, taken in the context of its time, clearly shows that there is really no chance whatsoever of their making it. The band does find itself ready to conform to the usual re­quirements: compared to the six covers on Psychedelic Lollipop, this follow-up only has two, with every member of the band, even the drummer, joining the resident songwriters' guild — and its title and structure give it even more of a «mock-conceptual» flavor. Unfortunately, not only is this not a Sgt. Pepper, it isn't even quite on the level of second-rate 1967-style psychedelic apings by the likes of the Pretty Things or the Hollies.

The problems remain the same — lack of songwriting talent — and they are best illustrated on the opening number: ʽPipe Dreamʼ is fast, energetic, and psychedelic-tinged, but not a single in­strumental or vocal line is shaped into a decent hook. Ralph Scala's organ and Mike Esposito's «raga-blues» guitar, played Frisco-style, rub nicely against each other, but the same could be said about a million other songs from the same year. The song has neither the catchiness nor the ten­sion build-up of ʽWe Ain't Got Nothin' Yetʼ, and it is actually surprising that they managed to get as high as No. 60 on the charts with it — what with all the insane competition going around.

The other three songs that the band released as singles are even less impressive: ʽSummer Is The Manʼ is tender folk-pop in the vein of the Searchers, but without that band's competence and per­fectionism to compensate for the sappiness; ʽLife Is Just A Cher O'Bowliesʼ is a weird retro throwaway in the style of, say, Del Shannon — it probably has the catchiest vocal melody on the album, but it is not quite clear what particular business does a ballsy garage rock band cover by switching to such a «namby-pamby» style; and ʽThere's A Chanceʼ tries to melt your brain with continuous feedback and droning vocals, but since there is no hook attached, it is not clear what need there is of this song — surely, if we just want the feedback and the trippy atmosphere, we'd all rather listen to Jimi than to these guys.

Overall, the only original number here that shows potential is the very last song — ʽRush Hourʼ could have been a top-notch heavy rocker (in fact, its distorted guitar / organ duet niftily presages the classic Deep Purple pairing of Lord and Blackmore) if only the song had better... better every­thing: better production, better mix separation, better playing, better singing, better internal de­velopment, better coda... other than that, great job, really.

But there is no better proof than the band's totally successful, impressive cover of Them's ʽGloriaʼ to the statement that the lack of songwriting talent was their main problem — it is a very worthy successor to ʽTobacco Roadʼ as a psycho freakout, and one where the insane jamming section actually stays more in touch with the main sung part (on ʽTobacco Roadʼ, the basic melody and the crazy free-form section were, after all, sewn together rather crudely). This is arguably the first extended, six-minute long, interpretation of ʽGloriaʼ found on record (earlier Gants, Shadows Of Knight, and other covers ran for less than three minutes, respecting the original), and might just as well be one of the best.

Additionally, it is humorous to discover that a song called ʽLet's Get Togetherʼ, which, given the circumstances, you'd probably expect to be a Jefferson Airplane-type peace-and-love hippie an­them, is really a cover of a Jimmy Reed booze-blues number — together with a drunk, teetering-tottering imitation of Jimmy's «toothless» delivery. Nothing special, that is, but just the kind of material towards which the Blues Magoos clearly feel a more natural affection than towards all sorts of flower power stuff.

The «conceptual» nature of the record shows in the brief links — the ʽIntermissionʼ and the ele­ven second-long Looney Tunes finale (ʽThat's All Folksʼ); together with the album title, they pro­vide a «pulpy» spirit, amusing and self-ironic at the same time. But even here, the band only dips one small finger in the water — by the end of the year, The Who Sell Out would show every­body how far one can go in that direction without fear of drowning the good stuff in kitsch and parody. All in all, Electric Comic Book, listenable and modestly enjoyable as it is, still feels like a failed exam — reinforcing the feeling that ʽNothing Yetʼ was just an accidental fluke.

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Bobby Bland: Come Fly With Me

BOBBY BLAND: COME FLY WITH ME (1978)

1) Come Fly With Me; 2) Lady Lonely; 3) Night Games; 4) To Be Friends; 5) I'm Just Your Man; 6) Love To See You Smile; 7) You Can Count On Me; 8) This Bitter Earth; 9) Ain't God Something.

Well, apparently, someone thought that Bobby «Bland» was getting a bit too «acid» for a time that called for more and more mindless entertainment loaded with positive emotions. So ABC Re­cords called in a bunch of corporate songwriters, most of whom are a complete mystery to me (R&B stalwart Tyrone Davis is the only name I recognize on one of the credits), and saddled Bobby with a set that put his lonely, depressed, soulful persona in the trash bin — calling on the «ladies' man» persona. Oh well. At least it ain't disco, and at least nobody is forcing him to switch to the falsetto register.

The record is professional enough not to sound awful, and Bobby certainly has enough qualifica­tions to play the ladies' man convincingly — in fact, I'd go farther than that and say that the title track does have an uplifting funk-pop hook, and that its guitar / brass / flute / chimes / strings ar­rangement (no effort spared, so it seems) is very well done. Nor can I deny the relative catchiness and even occasional seductiveness of several other songs on here — for instance, the sexy purr of "if you feel the need, go ahead and cry" of the female backup on ʽLady Lonelyʼ, or the anthemic chorus of ʽLove To See You Smileʼ, which could almost pass for sincerity, if only it weren't so utterly dated by its late-1970s formalities.

And yet, no matter how slick, overproduced, or interchangeable one might have found Bobby's major efforts of the decade, when the man was in «tragic» mode, he was really on — demanding nothing but the smokiest from his backing band and playing the broken-hearted card for all it could be worth. In this here happy-sappy mode, though, no matter how much professionalism he keeps demanding from his backers, the songs just don't hit hard enough to merit a comeback — just one more of those albums that is okay while it lasts, then forgotten in a flash. Maybe the title track and ʽLove To See You Smileʼ are worth salvaging for anthology packages. But as for the rest, even the one lonesome gospel number, saved for last (with a somewhat sacrilegious title — doesn't ʽAin't God Somethingʼ sound just a bit... inappropriate?), feels more like a local newsreel (he was nailed to the cross and all that) than a moment of inspiration. In other words, the balance between «soul» and «craft» is completely upset in favour of the latter. No wonder, then, that the album has never been released on CD — from this point on, Bobby's records are becoming in­creasingly hard to find anywhere except for Ebay and used vinyl bins, and there is nothing co­incidental in this period being marked off by Come Fly With Me.

Broken Social Scene: Something For All Of Us...

BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE PRESENTS BRENDAN CANNING: SOMETHING FOR ALL OF US... (2008)

1) Something For All Of Us; 2) Chameleon; 3) Hit The Wall; 4) Snowballs & Icicles; 5) Churches Under The Stairs; 6) Love Is New; 7) Antique Bull; 8) All The Best Wooden Toys Come From Germany; 9) Possible Grenade; 10) Been At It So Long; 11) Take Care, Look Up.

Well, er, I suppose that Brendan Canning quickly followed up on Kevin Drew's «solo» album with his own one since he wanted us to insightfully compare his individual artistic vision with that of his partner. The trouble is, once I'd finished listening to Something For All Of Us..., I for­got absolutely everything I remembered about Spirit If..., so, what with this thing about a revie­wer's responsibility and all, I honestly went back to Spirit If... and gave it another twist. But then it turned out that, by the time the last song was over, I could not keep in mind even a single thing about Something For All Of Us... So, not wanting to disappoint my readers, I immersed myself once again in Brendan Canning's one-and-only solo oeuvre. It was not an unpleasant listen, but, needless to say, once I finally got down to the review, there was nothing in my head to compare it with. For some reason, Drew and Canning just couldn't share adjacent space in my memory cells. It was then that I finally got it — the two guys' styles are so similar that they act upon each other like two positive charges. Whatever you do, don't listen to them in a row. Put some AC/DC in between, or maybe a full CD of didgeridoo soloing.

Anyway, it's too late to be drawing serious comparisons now, so just a few quick words on whe­ther this «Broken Social Scene Presents: Brendan Canning» thing has any autonomous value, or if it can be used to generate awesome epiphanies in the brain, or if we should encourage the au­thor to develop this style even further. These few quick words, in their correct order, are: it hasn't, it cannot, and we shouldn't. Nice sound overall, though.

Apparently, Canning favours a slightly heavier sound than Drew: there are more distorted guitar parts here, more forceful percussion rhythms, and the anthem-to-ballad ratio seems a little heavier on the anthem side. But none of it matters, since most of the anthems are just straightahead «alt-pop» without any extraordinary melodic content. You know something is definitely not right here when the «element of surprise» on the album consists of unexpectedly encountering a disco bass line on one of the songs (ʽLove Is Newʼ) — as if this decision had some deep meaning (in reality, most likely, it is just part of the same old nostalgic trend, where people raised on disco, even if they thought they hated it when they were in their teens, were still surreptitiously encoded to re­turn to it twenty or thirty years later).

Of the rest, ʽChurches Under The Stairsʼ has some funny falsetto awoo-awooing; ʽAll The Best Wooden Toys Come From Germanyʼ is a short and pretty «ambient-folk» instrumental in the vein of BSS' first album; ʽPossible Grenadeʼ has a powerful riff-based coda; and that's all, folks — everything else is non-descript inasmuch as it can all be described by the small world of for­mulae long since set in stone. No better and no worse than the average BSS album, I think that Something For All Of Us... should be legally sued for moral damage by the word «something» — and honestly, I'd take something really wild, offensive, and disgusting, like Ted Nugent, over this sterile-packed «Piece Of Mass Art For The Progressively Illuminated 21st Century Art Lover» any time of day. Thumbs down.

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Bardo Pond: Ticket Crystals

BARDO POND: TICKET CRYSTALS (2006)

1) Destroying Angel; 2) Isle; 3) Lost Word; 4) Cry Baby Cry; 5) Fc II; 6) Moonshine; 7) Endurance; 8) Montana Sacra II.

Most of the reviews of this album that I have seen went the predictable way about it — preten­ding to forget about everything that Bardo Pond did since Amanita, and comparing it directly with their earliest records. Because this at least gives you an opportunity to fill the space up with something, e. g. «it is interesting to note that the heavy psychedelic guitars take a step back in or­der to make more room for Isobel Sollenberger's flute», even though the flute presence here is not really any more overwhelming than it was on their previous two records. But we do have to find progress in everything that we listen to, right?..

Well, forget it. The only thing there is on Ticket Crystals that constitutes a genuine surprise is a cover of the Beatles' ʽCry Baby Cryʼ — apparently, recorded for a John Lennon tribute album (commemorating the 25th anniversary of the murder) and placed here for fear of being wasted. It is actually quite a decent, minimalistic cover for the first three minutes: acoustic guitar, percus­sion, and vocals that are very loyal to the original phrasing and intonation. Then, once the main body is done, the number finally turns into real Bardo Pond, as waves of feedback finally hit the shore, and that which was pretty singing just a few moments ago is now blurred mumbling — «The Beatles according to Bardo Pond» indeed.

Everything else remains steadfast and true. The funereal atmosphere of Ellipse is lightened up a bit, rolled back to earlier standards: the acoustic chords and ambient flutes of ʽIsleʼ are a little melan­cholic, but «relaxing» rather than «depressing» (and feature unusually «clean» vocals from Isobel, so that not only can one finally decipher a few of the words she is singing — not that there is any need to — but also understand that getting in key is a really difficult job for her, even if she has a nice folksy soprano tone). The heavy fuzz-and-grumble is back with a vengeance on ʽDestroying Angelʼ and ʽFc IIʼ. And the band seems to have developed a real taste for backward vocals — ʽMoonshineʼ and ʽLost Wordʼ, in particular, play around with tape direction as if it were 1966 all over again.

That said, on any evaluation scale that takes Bardo Pond for a curve rather than straight line, Ticket Crystals is a bit of a disappointment. The heavy stuff is not nearly as heavy as it used to be, and the light stuff is not nearly as moody. It's not that they aren't doing anything «new», it's just that doing the «old» no longer seems to arm them with excitement. Some of these drones, particularly the closing ʽMontana Sacra IIʼ, already seem to confuse «atmosphere» with «sheer tedium». For the newly grown fan, unaware of Amanita, this can still be enchanting; but I see no reason for the seasoned veteran to award Ticket Crystals any more points than one would, for instance, award to the Rolling Stones' Black And Blue over Let It Bleed. Essentially, this is the sound of a mood-oriented band past its moody prime, tenaciously clinging to the old formula, but hardly deriving any further happiness from it — even for their own selves, let alone the listeners. Hence, I do hereby give the album a thumbs down, despite a Bardo Pond-perfect running length of seventy-seven minutes... wasted length, because the mind, already addicted to Amanita-level psychedelia, needs seriously stronger stuff than this to start reeling.

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