Cake - Fashion Nugget

"Fashion Nugget is the second album by Cake, here's a review , I actually was going to write my own review but its a Tuesday night and im watching football.... you know how it yea ?

This Album is purely sensational, although sensational's probably not the right word. It's great anyhow and you should buy it, here are some reasons why:

1. It's like nothing you've heard before.

2. It's Rock, Funk, Latin, Country, and bits of other flavours all rolled into one.

3. You'll like it too and you'll tell all your friends about it and then write an on-line review of it like this saying how I was right.

4. The lyrics are amazing. It could take years to fully understand what they really mean. There are so many metaphors and complicated words that if John McCrea (Lead Singer) came up to you and said "hello" you'd spend half an hour trying to think about it.

5. You won't put it down. It won't fall to the back of your CD collecion. It'll always be there for you.

6. I haven't seen a single bad review of it.

7. You should read the Amazon.com reviews. The Americans can't get enough of it.

8. I'm sick of commercial bands and although you wouldn't usually associate this with Indie bands like Stereophonics etc. because their music is so different, that's just what it is.

9. It's only rock and roll but I like it.

10. Admit it you can afford it. You never know, it might become you're desert island disc.

Your birthday cake's usually gone within a week but this will last for a long long time.

LISTEN NOW!

Frank Sinatra

The Distance

Friend Is A Four Letter Word

Open Book

Daria

Race Car Ya-Yas

I Will Survive [Cover]

Stickshifts and Safetybelts

Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps [Cover]

It's Coming Down

Nugget

She'll Come Back To Me

Italian Leather Sofa

Sad Songs and Waltzes

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Mazzy Star - So Tonight That I Might See

People tend to confuse the band Mazzy Star with it's singer Hope Sandoval. Truth be told, they've been right all along. Sandoval's languid, weeping willow voice is Mazzy Star; the name is a mere formality. With nods to Nico and the Velvet Underground, So Tonight that I Might See is vintage Mazzy. Remarkably, the recording produced a strikingly undanceable single, "Fade into You". The rest of the album sticks close to the single's plaintive, retro balladry. Though Sandoval rarely raises her voice above a sultry whisper, it's bright enough to hold your attention all night

There is absolutely no point in beating about the bush over the fact that Mazzy Star’s second record includes – nay commences with – what must stand as dream-pop’s crowning moment. Fade Into You is a song that has been described many times, forced into romantic context in many a big or small screen venture, yet somehow defies any real attempt to bind it with words.

“I look to you and I see nothing / I look to you to see the truth”; if this really is a love song – and a lot of people have taken that view over the years – then Hope Sandoval’s haunting lyrics posit love as a black, coma-like obliteration. This isn’t a fade into one perfect whole; it’s erasure of the self. Truthfully, though, it’s not clear what Fade Into You is about: Sandoval’s words are cryptic, speaking of emptiness and shadows, some grand psychological disappearing act. It's enigmatic, but almost unutterably beautiful, a languorously uplifting piano figure played over and over, shimmering under lambent slide guitars, something close to yearning in Sandoval’s oft dissonant voice.

It does, of course, unbalance the album, and has certainly given enormous numbers of people the wrong idea about Mazzy Star. Though woozy country trappings and soporific tempos characterise all Sandoval and David Roback’s work, they’re a far artier, more abrasive prospect than the totemic track suggests. So Tonight That I Might See may have less of a bad acid trip Doors vibe than debut She Hangs Brightly, but still: skip to the seven-and-a-half minute title song’s menacing guitar motif, erratic beds of feedback, and Sandoval’s diffuse mumble, and you’re got something more suited to soundtracking Apocalypse Now than The OC.

A cover of Love’s Five String Serenade is the only hooky moment to speak of beyond Fade Into You; this record’s heart lies with the foggy American gothic of Mary of Silence and Blue Light, the woozy, half-asleep country of Bells Ring and Blue Light. It’s an obtuse, atmospheric record, and if it’s inescapably overshadowed by its opening song, then that’s fair enough: nobody writes two of those in a lifetime

Oh and by the way i absolutely hate the words "dream Pop". Thanks :)

Fade into you

Bells ring

Mary of silence

Five string serenade

Blue light

She's my baby

Unreflected

Wasted

Into dust

So tonight that i might see

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Kitchens Of Distinction - Strange Free World

The forerunners of shoegaze????

This is one where persistence really pays off. The thick, swirling, dreamy waves of guitar are prominent on each of Strange Free World's 10 songs and this can be extremely overwhelming on the first listen. However, there are a selection of more immediate, striking numbers within the haze such as Railwayed, Quick As Rainbows and Drive That Fast that will keep drawing you back in and you gradually fall under the spell of the album's remaining tracks. 

Each massive swirl of the oceanic Hypnogogic and Aspray and the sharper, angrier edges of Polaroids will all become the best kind of ear candy, as well as the soundtrack to a perfect summer afternoon view Under The Sky, Inside The Sea. Matures like a good wine and there are no poor or uninspired tracks. For me, this is their best record. (followed by The Death Of Cool which is probably even more of a grower!) If you love to hear how the electric guitar can re-invent itself and tear up the rulebook then give this a go. 

A great record.

Railwayed

Quick as Rainbows

Hypnogogic

He Holds Her, He Needs Her

Polaroids

Gorgeous Love

Aspray

Drive That Fast

Within the Daze of Passion

Under the Sky, Inside the Sea

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