March of the Lukewarm Reviews

Amos Lee –  The sound,  musicianship and vocals are technically superb, but there isn’t much soul.  The disc gets repetitive after 4 songs, and even Lucinda and Willie don’t help.  An electric guitar or tempo change once in a while would have gone miles.  Mellow is cool, but when something mellows too long it rots.  2.5 stars

Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band – Reminded me a lot of Modest Mouse, whom I don’t care for.  I liked the atmospherics on “Leaving Trails” and “The Roof”.  A couple of other songs were ok, but stylistically, most of it didn’t trip my trigger. 2.5 stars

Wire –  It’s competent in just about every way, but I didn’t connect with it.  The guitar work is fine, lyrics have a punk snotiness to them, but there just wasn’t a lot that grabbed me.   Hated the drum sound.  2.5 stars

Riot – Not a style I can render an intelligent opinion about. Indistinguishable from almost any other ‘80’s metal band to my ears. Nothing good enough on it to stand out, nothing bad enough to get my panties in a twist about, either. 2.5 stars

Todd Rundgren – The dreaded double album problem.  “I Saw the Light”, “Couldn’t I Just Tell You” and “Hello Its Me” are as good as pop singles get. But there’s far too much self-indulgent nonsense, particularly on the second half of the first disc, and the attempts at Zappa-esque humor fall flat.  There’s a 10 song 4 star disc in there somewhere, but as a whole, it’s way too bloated.  2 stars.

Accordion – The old schedule showed a Dec meeting, so I rushed this to get it in hand for Nov meeting.  If I’d known I had 5 more months to do it, it would have been better. I missed a couple of good ones, notably Slobberbone and the Decemberists. The mental exercise was fun, and I thought it held together pretty well.

My Optimistic 4 star minimum Submissions

AC/DC – Back In Black
Led Zeppelin – Houses of the Holy
Beatles – Rubber Soul/Revolver
Clash – London Calling
Elton John – Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Matthew Sweet – Girlfriend
Fountains of Wayne – Welcome Interstate Managers
Queen – News of the World
The Who – Whos Next
Prince – Purple Rain
Van Halen - I