The ToonForum Album Club

[Ramone]

Next album suggestions? People can change their choice if they want.

In the hope that this great idea for a thread is going to keep going I'll make a suggestion. Something a bit different and arguably a love or hate album that has been largely ignored by the music world, but which I love. I'll throw it out there for some potential criticism.

The Blue Aeroplanes - Swagger

The vocalist

[skalpel]

The Blue Aeroplanes - Swagger

The vocalist

Going to go ahead and presume that the vocalist is good .

In the interest of (again) trying to save this thread, here's the tracks to the album in order:

Donkey Toon's Nomination: The Blue Aeroplanes - Swagger

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I'll review soon.

[skalpel]

Half marks from me: I'm probably not going to listen to it again, but it was fun while it lasted.

The riffs are bouncy and jangly and pretty damn fun. The Applicant has probably the album's winning bit of fun guitar work with a riff it plays and revives once more somewhere in the middle. In fact the Applicant is probably the best track on the album for me. It's fun.

The vocals are probably going to be divisive, but I neither love nor hate them. I don't like them either, but I suppose late 80s alternative rock often had much worse vocals so it could have been a lot worse . When he actually sings though, instead of talking, it's quite annoying. Careful Boy, for example, had a nice opening, but was spoiled for me by his attempted singing. I'm the sort of person who likes an unpretentious singing voice, I take honest vocals over affectation any day, but this guy's singing voice just didn't cut it at all.

I was pleased to hear good use of a Hammond organ (it's hard to get me to dislike anything with Hammond Organ ) and it was nicely toned. It's also something of a rarity to hear a Hammond used in 80s or 90s music, it'd been pretty much muscled out by synths entirely. That's something which demands this band a pat on the back, they sound acoustic and (forgive the cliche) organic. In fact the album was pretty varied given the era too, I liked seeing them do something different with the last track there; it sort of stomps out grandly with the kind of self awareness that a final track on an album should have.

The poorest parts of the album were the ballads. They just didn't work, really. Take Weightless, for instance, the first track to really expose the vocals as the weakest point because everything else was formulaic and, well, dull.

Overall I'd say half marks and a stamp of average is a fair result to give from my position. I genuinely am heartened to hear the Hammond too; they obviously knew that 80s synths would soon sound even more ridiculous and dated.

[skalpel]

[Ramone]

I'll review it soon you cronut, I have listened to it.

[Donkey Toon]

Thanks for posting the links and everything skalpel, much appreciated!

[Little Lion Man]

The Blue Aeroplanes - Swagger - 2.75 out of 5 (there's no quarter star smiley )

Reasonably enjoyable to listen to and the vocals are decent for the most part. May give it another listen at some point

I agree with pretty much everything that Skalpel said except for the part about the Hammond organ as I don't really know what it is

PS: Skalpel's in-depth reviews make mine look pathetic

[skalpel]

Another review .

I'll review it soon you cronut, I have listened to it.

[Ramone]

The Blue Aeroplanes - Swagger

Well constructed and produced but ultimately pretty boring for me.

I think there's some pretty interesting guitar work throughout the album and I've got nothing against the sort of sound the album is going for but the whole thing sounds like a collection of R.E.M B-sides. None of the tracks stand out as something I'd want to listen to at a later date and I don't think I could tell you how any of the songs go after having listened to this only a few days ago. Having said that I think there was only one or two tracks where I didn't like the instrumentation.

The only part of the album I actively dislike is the vocals, their only saving grace being that they are almost lost in the mix a bit and aren't particularly distinctive on any of the songs. The half-sung style can work in moderation but it's pretty much the only sort of delivery the vocalist seems to have, at times it sounded like an Adam and Joe "Song Wars" entry (which is not a compliment if you're unfamiliar with the show). He also seems to be going for the stream of conciousness approach to the lyrics which made me hate the whole thing even more because it seemed like a complete affectation.

Overall, I think it's a fairly competent album let down completely by the vocalist.

[beardface]

I'll review it tomorrow

[beardface]

Then we can have a new album

[FogOnTheRhine]

The Blue Aeroplanes - Swagger



Can't really say much more than has already been said. There's solid instrumentation obviously, and I'm a fairly big fan of The Hold Steady so the rambly talk-sung vocals didn't really bother me all that much. I think the main thing though is that none of it really caught my attention. It kind of blends into one long song, which I guess at least means they've achieved a coherent sound for the album, but I couldn't tell you which song was which or even where it came in the album if you played me them again.

Overall, a solid jangly guitar album. I probably won't listen to it again but I can't say I didn't enjoy it as a sort of background soundtrack for my morning.

[FogOnTheRhine]

Then we can have a new album

We doing another suggestions or is somebody just going to throw one out again?

[Cal]

If only a bunch of suggestions had already been made.

[FogOnTheRhine]

Oh yeah

Well if anybody wants to add some variety or change their suggestion?

[Little Lion Man]

I'd like to suggest that you add George Ezra - Wanted On Voyage (Deluxe) to the list that you randomly choose from

Probably a bit too mainstream for the residents of this forum though

[Seagull]

Oh yeah

Well if anybody wants to add some variety or change their suggestion?

[FogOnTheRhine]

I'd like to suggest that you add George Ezra - Wanted On Voyage (Deluxe) to the list that you randomly choose from

Probably a bit too mainstream for the residents of this forum though

Well I like it so it's going in the pot

Oh yeah

Well if anybody wants to add some variety or change their suggestion?

[FogOnTheRhine]

Me - Queens of the Stone Age - Era Vulgaris (1-5)
IWCH2 - Jon Hopkins - Immunity (6-10)
beatski - Various - Tidy Addict (11-15)
Amnesiac - Hell Is For Heroes - The Neon Handshake (16-20)
ALF - Kodaline - In A Perfect World (21-25)
Cal - Abdominal and the Obliques - Sitting Music (26-30)
Little Lion Man - George Ezra - Wanted On Voyage (Deluxe Version) (31-35)

And the random number was 30, so we get Cal's choice,

Sitting Music by Abdominal and the Obliques.



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[Cal]

You can also listen to it on Abs' Bandcamp - http://abdominal.bandcamp.com/album/sitting-music" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;