From: jonathan@sdg.dra.com
Newsgroups: rec.music.misc
Subject: Various disc mini-reviews.
Date: 31 Aug 92 16:39:00 CDT
Organization: Data Research Associates, St. Louis MO

It's been a couple weeks since I've picked these up, so I thought I'd do some
mini-reviews.

Scale:

*****	exceptional
****	very good
***	good
**	average.  still a keeper.
*	wouldn't have bought, if I'd previewed.
(0)	Gets traded.


All the Discs I bought one Tuesday (summary):

****	Satriani - The Extremist
****	Los Lobos - Kiko
***	Tom Verlaine - Warm and Cool
***	The Breeders - Pod
**	The Golden Palominos - a history (1982-1985)
*	Sylvian and Czukay - Plight and Premonition
	Helios Creed - Boxing the Clown


****	Satriani - The Extremist

	A return to his all-instrumental work.  If you've liked what he's
	done before, you'll like this.  Nothing earth-shattering, just good
	mainstream rock guitar music.


****	Los Lobos - Kiko

	A lot like the Neigborhood, but perhaps a little less mainstream.
	Very good stuff.  I'll have to try some of their earlier releases
	now.


***	Tom Verlaine - Warm and Cool

	I picked this one up based on a write-up in CD Review.
	I think you have to be in a certain mood for this one.  It's
	all instrumental guitar-based and kind of moody.  Not depressing
	exactly, but certainly not what you'd call uplifting.  Very well
	performed though and getting better with each listen.  I keep
	thinking this style sounds familiar, but I don't know why.  


***	The Breeders - Pod

	I'd been looking for this ever since I'd heard it was being 
	re-released in the U.S. and finally found it.  It's a good
	disk but only about 30 minutes long.

	Sounds more like early pixies than pixies do now.  I can't help
	but feel that Kim Deal had more input on the 'Surfer Rosa' than
	the writing credits indicate.  Or perhaps it's Albini's presence?
	Still there seems to be something missing here that I can't put my
	finger on.  Maybe I'll grow to like this more (like I did w/ pixies).
	Still pretty good.  Happiness is a warm gun my favorite so far.

	IMO Better than 'Trompe' or 'Doolittle' but worse than 'Surfer Rosa'
	or 'Bossanova', but everybody seems to have their own Pixies scale.


**	The Golden Palominos - a history (1982-1985)

	This is the first of two that I saw and contains stuff from
	'The Golden Palominos' (debut album, I assume) and 'Visions of 
	Excess'.  I couldn't get into the first half much at all.  I guess
	'Two Sided Fist' was okay.  I liked portions of 'Visions of Excess',
	particularly the tracks w/ Stipe on vocals.  It's just more melodic
	than the first half of the disc.  Guests include Michael Stipe,
	Richard Thompson, Chris Stamey (dBs), Henry Kaiser, Jack Bruce
	and John Lydon.  I've never really liked Johnny Rotten (Lydon),
	and I didn't much care for 'The Animal Speaks' the track on which
	he appears.  The rest of it is pretty good and I suspect will get
	better with repeated listening.  If so, I'll try the other disc
	which I believe covers 1986-89, since they seem to have started
	heading in a direction I like.


*	Sylvian and Czukay - Plight and Premonition

	This is very much ambient music.  Not that it's bad or anything,
	it just isn't particularly good for active listening.  I much prefer
	'Secrets of the Beehive' or 'Gone to Earth' to this.


	Helios Creed - Boxing the Clown

	The only thing I knew about this was that Larry Spence had mentioned
	it in one of his posts.  Apparently our tastes are not as similar as
	I thought.  I'll be more careful next time.  At first I thought this
	sucks.  On second listen, I still don't like it much, but I'm pretty
	sure it doesn't suck.  I'm also pretty sure this one is not quite for
	me.  It's loud, it's obnoxious.  It contains a  bizarre version of 
	Got me floatin'.  Sister Sarah is actually pretty good.  Big Clown
	is irritating.  I'll give this a few more tries, but I think this
	will be going into my trade pile.
-- 
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Jonathan J. Moss   /   Data Research Associates   / St. Louis, MO  USA