Well, for what it's worth, here's my review of the album. I've not done a
long review like this before, I hope it's of some use.
Rob.
David Holmes' album is called "This film's crap, let's slash the seats"
and it's out now on Go! Discs.
Track listing as follows:
No Man's Land
Slash The Seats
Shake Ya Brain
Got Fucked Up Along The Way
Gone
The Atom And You
Minus 61 In Detroit
Inspired By Leyburn
Coming Home To The Sun
No Man's Land was inspired by In the Name of the Father, the film
starring Daniel Day-Lewis about the IRA, apparently. It starts with a
bell chiming, and a prison door clanging shut, and a loud heartbeat,
which moves the track along. Synth lines build claustrophobically, and a
haunting refrain permeates the track. The synths cut out, only to be
replaced with military drums, and a touch of an acid line towards the end.
This is a spooky track which has "sadness" written all over it.
Slash The Seats starts with a computer announcing that "the target planet
has been destroyed". An acid line comes in straight away, accompanied
slightly later by a beat which reminds me of the Chemical Bros. The
changes in this track come from the drums, the rest being fairly
constant, and it's got a groove to it.
Shake Ya Brain is more of a club anthem. It starts with the title as a
distorted vocal, and hi-hats. The drums build to a fast beat, and acid
stabs become more fluid. The track stops about 4 mins in for a breath,
the drums pick up again and it's straight back into it, full-on. Another
break after about 7 mins, and once again, straight back and down to
business. I like this one lots.
Got Fucked Up Along the Way starts slowly, but then this ultra-loud bass
kicks in (co-written by Jah Wobble, what did you expect?). The top stuff
sounds a bit Sabres-ish at points (Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns were
the backroom boys), but this track has more meat on it than most of the
stuff on Haunted Dancehall. And that bass gives it a sense of motion,
although there aren't enough changes during the track to hold my
attention for the duration.
Gone sounds like a Bjork, or better still, a Portishead track. Sarah
Cracknell sings, accompanied by slowed-down, hip-hop style beats, quite
minimal and not as "busy" as Portishead's rhythms. If it weren't for the
booming drums, I'd say this was easy listening. Which isn't an insult, I
probably like easy listening more than the next man :-)
The Atom And You opens with slow washes of noise and sounds fairly
ambient. A drum beats from time to time, but fades almost as soon as it
starts. The track turns into a slow hip-hop number with an acid line
spiralling up repeatedly, as if trying to reach for something just beyond
it's grasp. The vocal sample played with is something about radio valves
and loudspeakers. This is another track on the mellow tip.
Minus 61 In Detroit has probably been heard by everyone by now, but just
in case... Well, I haven't heard Detroit stuff myself, but I read
somewhere that this was his "tribute" to the Detroit sound. It starts
with minimal acid and drum lines, a pumping bass kicks in, lots of hi-hat
and even some handclaps. After the beat sorts itself out it turns into a
fairly repetitive track, keeping a minimal approach. The beat cuts out
for a bit, leaving the acid to go on alone, and then it returns. I would
probably love this in a club, I'm just not listening to it loud enough.
Inspired By Leyburn begins with slow guitar by Steve Hillage, and slow
washes again, like a heavenly chorus or something. An acid line soon
dominates, and keeps swapping pole position with the guitar. The beat is a
slow hip-hop, which sounds busy, but the song stays relaxed because of
the guitar. Gets quite mellow at the end, the guitar finishing things
off on a repeating two notes, which sounds like it's rocking to an fro.
Coming Home to The Sun is a reprise of No Man's Land, it's got the door
slamming and the same sad melody (if that's the word), but this is a much
warmer track, the rich drums and bass supporting mellower synth stuff and
Cara Robinson's virtually unintelligible vocals. Quite a nice last track.