Here's a reply to the message "[idm] Orbital - The Altogether" written
on Thu, 03 May 2001 01:06:05 -0400:
quoted 2 lines I've always been a big fan of Orbital, but I just have to say that this
>I've always been a big fan of Orbital, but I just have to say that this
>album is just terrible.
It's certainly their most poppy album to date. Gone are small handful
of towering, blistering epics -- instead we've got about a dozen
shorter, more compact efforts. I'm still absorbing it all at the
moment. I like it more *now*, four days after I bought it, than I
initially did, but it's still far from their best work.
Album highlights for me are "Tension" (pounding, relentless, dark),
"Illuminate" (yes, the David Gray one -- I'm not really a fan of his
stuff, but his vocals in an Orbital context work extremely well and
it's just a nice summery pop song -- if this isn't a future Top 10 UK
single, I'll buy a hat and then eat it) and "Meltdown" (odd that we
didn't get the full 17 minute version -- there's enough room on the CD
-- perhaps just a cunning marketing ploy to get us to all buy the DVD
as well).
The rest of the tracks are all pretty much Orbital Lite.
Listen-to-able but not particularly outstanding. Overall, a bit of a
disappointment. It's not going to win Orbital any new fans (the
"Orbital are shite" posse have new ammo here), but if you already dig
Orbital then you'll at least get something out of it.
As for their Doctor Who track -- well, the fans begged them to put it
on a CD, so we can't really complain about its inclusion here. If
you're a fan of the various incarnations of the Doctor Who theme tune
over the years, then it's actually a *very* good version of the theme.
Certainly much better than David Arnold's recent effort. I stuck an
mp3 up somewhere, slapped a URL down in a Doctor Who mailing list and
all the Who fans seem to love it -- some are even going to buy the
whole album -- so I guess Orbital did something right.
Hmm, back to "Confield" I go... (Am I the only person who like this?)
--
Mark Stevens
http://www.headspin.clara.net/
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