BOC: CotHM opinions reprise

[Alex S. Garcia]

>        And it has in fact grown on me. I do really like `Now is the
>Time', lousy Shirley lyrics with all important ideas repeated at least
>once not withstanding. The opening riff saves it, anchors itself in your
>skull and won't leave.

Oh, you mean "The old gods return"! It took me a while to figure out what
song you meant... Duh. That's definitely a great track, though, I agree.

>I'd have edited that and made it the single, nere
>mind `Pocket', might have stood out a bit more. `Pocket' I am occasionally
>seeing the point of, I think it's just not aimed at me; I'm very rarely in
>the mood to let it pick me up and bounce me about so it just skids past me
>without getting its hooks in. On the other hand, `I Just Like to be Bad'
>is still *awful*.

Neither of those two are doing anything for me. Nor "One step ahead of the
Devil", actually, which is, I think, the one I dislike most. Just too noisy
and standard-fare-ish for me, if you know what I mean.

>        To pick up a few of other people's points before I go on, I like
>Theo's point about being a kind of _Flat Out_ 2; there's a lot fo what
>sounds like Buck-pop kicking about

I don't get that. Well, not completely. I mean, it seems to me that HF had
_a lot_ more of Buck's poppish sounding material. OTOH, Cult... well, after
careful consideration, it seems to me like Buck's stuff is simply better
"integrated" into the BOC sound. What I mean is that up to now, you always
had all these BOC songs, and then once in a while you'd have a Buck tune
that would pop up and you would just _know_ it was Buck's right away. Now,
however... you can still feel it, but it's in the atmosphere. I'm not sure
how to describe it. It's like it's woven into the fabric of the album
itself. Granted, not throughout, but it's like it's _finally_ become part of
the BOC sound, getting mixed in with the rest. Am I making any sense??

>and what startles me is that Eric wrote
>some of it.

Not too surprising if you consider the above. It's all mixing together and
becoming One :-)

>Lots of people are saying it's unfair to expect another
>_Secret Treaties_ and that's fine, the band doesn't work like that any
>more, you won't get that white-hot stuff all fused together again. I was
>hoping for another _Cultosaurus Erectus_ personally... (my fourth
>favourite album easily). At least this isn't actually any of BOC's other
>albums done again, which would actually be pretty disappointing I suppose.

I agree. Besides, if I'm right on my diagnosis, and if this is an ongoing
trend, I suspect it'll get less and less likely we'll ever see them attempt
to re-do one of those old classics. Which is a good thing, IMHO. Repeating
yourself can kill a band. They're still around. Personally, I'm hoping it
lasts...

>        But my problem is still the production. As I said, it's perfect,
>almost... _too_ perfect. Important words like attack and edge that you
>couldn't leave out of any description of the early albums, hell, even out
>of a description of _Club Ninja_ (which though otherwise I do think it has
>nothing to recommend it apart from a couple of songs that might have been
>good if arranged differently or partially rewritten does at least grab you
>and growl in your face when it's not screaming for blood), are just not
>appropriate here. The problem I thus get is that it doesn't sound like a
>BOC record.

Well, again, I think the band is evolving. And it might be unfair to make
these kind of arguments. Besides, you can't blame the guys for using modern
technology and trying to attain a better sounding quality! That's just nuts :-)

Oh, and there's no such thing as "too" perfect. In my book, you can never
achieve perfection. Only strive for it. And striving for perfection is a
_good_ thing :-)

>That great one isn't on CotHM

I guess it's all in tastes. To me, that great one is there, "almost perfect"
:-) "Out of the darkness," of course... Yeah, I know, I'm repeating myself.
I just love it. It's even inspired me a story I have yet to write... not
many songs do that for me.

>`Eye
>of the Hurricane' and that one seems to grow on me with every
>play.

That one has been growing on me quite a bit, too. Very interesting track.

>and comfortable chairs; it should be coming out to get me. The other two
>BOC albums I really have trouble getting through, `Spectres' and `Mirrors'

OK, before I say what I'm going to say, a couple of disclaimers:
1) I'm not aiming this at you specifically, Jon - I've noticed the following
in many other posts too.
2) I'm not trying to upset anyone, or start an argument, so please don't
take this the wrong way :-)

Alright. This being said... It seems to me that a lot of people just get too
attached to some specific aspects of a band that they then try to see in all
further works, these becoming their sole (or almost) criteria for deciding
whether an album is good or not. Of course, you can do whatever you want
*grin* but I find this somewhat sad, as it can prevent the listener from
appreciating songs that might have, coming from another artist, been
perceived as very good, maybe even amazingly so in some cases. But just
because it's BOC (or another band, this can be applied to any) suddenly
makes the piece poor, sloppy, bad, whatnot. I don't get it.

Myself, I try to detach myself as much as possible from who plays on an
album and to just listen to the songs and take them for what they are. I
either like them or I don't, regardless of past achievements and/or offenses.

Mind you, I'm not saying this because I like Spectres or Mirrors (and, in
fact, I don't like Mirrors at all!) it's just something I've noticed on this
list, as time & posts went by, and have been wondering about it. So there
you go.

Just my two cents.



Alex.

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