RockWatch  - - X - -  RockWatch
- -  CD Reviews  - -
 A Good Time Promotional Journal

+ + +
Zinthra CD Reviews
Placebo and Staind
 

Artist : Placebo

Album : “Sleeping with ghosts”

Date Released : 2003

Type Of Music : rock, alternative

Track Listing :

  1. bulletproof cupid
  2. English summer rain
  3. this picture
  4. sleeping with ghosts
  5. the bitter end
  6. something rotten
  1. plasticine
  2. special needs
  3. I’ll be yours
  4. second sight
  5. protect me from what I want
  6. centerfolds

Review : The picture on this cd I find interesting because it shows the singer with his head tilted down standing up holding a half faded naked women…if you know anything about the vocalist for this band you will understand what I am talking about. Anyhow this album begins with a nice placebo-isk guitar speedy built up for the first track to get the new-be listener excited…as you should be….unknowing of the vocals until the second track when Brian Molko decides to start of by singing about things staying the same and some thing about holding your breath and counting to ten in a up beat English summer way tune. It is not till the 4th track that they decided to have there signature mallow dramatic type of love song “sleeping with ghost” (name of cd) …he repeats threw out the song about how soul mates never die, and that you need to hush and dry your eyes…yet the drummer as always half way through the song decides that it still needs to be up beat while the guitars are steamily mellow for most of the it. Anyhow for the rest of the cd it is speedy and catchy as there last two albums have been, however I remember when I picked this up a year ago I had problems listing to it because I did not feel for some reason that they did not put as much effort in to this one as they did in to “Black Market Music” . Now I feel that this cd was just different because things are flowing more in one direction and is less chaotic as the other ones. By no means is it elevator music (*insert pun-one of the labels that put this disk out is called elevator music), but this is something that would make for a good cd to listing to when you're at the beach by your self when you are trying to forget the past, yet all you seem to really be doing is sitting and thinking about it. I suggest putting the player on repeat for the 11 track titled “protect me from what I want.”

Rating: * * *

By Zinthra

- - - - - - 

Artist : Staind

Album : “14 shades of grey”

Date Released : 2003

Type Of Music : radio rock, a little moody

Track Listing :

  1. price to play
  2. how about you
  3. so far away
  4. yesterday
  5. fray
  6. zoe jane
  7. fill me up
  1. layne
  2. falling down
  3. reality
  4. tonight
  5. could it be
  6. blow away
  7. intro
 

Review : If you enjoyed “dysfunction” by these guys I worn you not to buy this if you only liked when he was being emotional. By no means is the lyrical content of this album falling short, however what it is, is behind the lyrics there’s a feeling of over production (not watered down) and 10 feet tall barbwire fences have been built up between the band and the audience. I personally feel that by no way were they purposely trying to do this after “Brake the Cycle” being a little boring, however you need to take into consideration that they blow up so fast that there was a lot of request going to radio stations that they simply could not play of the first cd because of the lyrics and how the music was composed. Thus they must have been a little pushed to “clean” up their act of “hard rocking emo hardcore-ness”. It’s not like they were way out there on their earlier material or anything, but the really fun songs off the cd were not played on the radio.

Now I will quit being a negative Nance and talk about the good things about their new cd. First if you bought this cd right when it was released there is a chance that you got one of the double disk cd’s..that were not marked. I was one of the lucky people to get the double disk cd’s. The second disk that came with it was called “homegrown” and it was a DVD that had a bunch of behind the scenes footage that covered just about the beginning of their career up till the point of  when the new cd was released. It was very long as well, must have been over an hour, some of the footage was yes shity, but it gives you a good idea what the band is like…the band…not the singer, they don’t really show him talking much. Then the art work that went along with the cd was a good idea by having a picture of an individual in the band and over their picture they got to write who they thanked on top of it. So over all I guess if you are looking for a cd that is mellow and has a possible DVD with it, get it.

Rating : * * 1/2
By Zinthra

www.staindmusic.com


+ + +

 
www.rockwatch.org