Customer Reviews

10,000 Years

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is one of the best albums you'll ever hear. The songwriting is tight, the musicians at the top of their game, and the lyrics are smart and poignant. I can't get it out of my head, and I don't want to. "Panhandler's Serenade" is an instant classic. "Poor Little Sugar" comes from a place I can't imagine, so it transports me there. "The Rake's Progress" is a disturbing but catchy ode to the violent loss of innocence. The title track is a charged plea for the age of ignorance and hate to come to a swift end. "Were The Heavens Standing Blindly?" recalls the best of Squirrel Nut Zippers musically, but the dark, agnostic lyrics could not be more appropriate to the world we live in and the events that shaped it. "23rd Chromosome" paints an unsettling vision of the future with a hooky bossanova brush. All told, the album wraps angst and frustration in a colorful musical wrapper, a gift you won't soon forget and will treasure long after the garbage on the radio has faded from memory. One of the best albums of this or any other year.

I know Adam Levy intended to make this a solo album, but score one for the Honeydogs as a band. I love the rich sound they get here--definitely beyond ordinary pop. It just goes to show they're evolving their talents and growing as a band. The CD release concert was great fun, too. I hope I hope I hope that someone there was recording it for a live album. My DH is a big Michael Penn fan, so this was the best combo. My absolute fave on the album is Were the Heavens Standing Blindly? The words and music move you in two different ways.

Do you ever buy a CD only to find yourself "cherry picking" through the filler and ending up with 3-4 good tunes out of the 12 that came on the disc??? Good for making mixes, but not a CD that ever comes off the shelf again. This, my friends is NOT that! In fact, this disc can be enjoyed without ever skipping a single tune - from post to post it is THAT GOOD! Add a compelling storyline/theme to the disc and there is even more reason to enjoy the complete experience.

Adam Levy is an amazing talent and has assembled a group that plays inspired music. I honestly do not know how this disc can be bettered! Pick it up and enjoy simply the best CD I have purchased in the last 10 years (and I have over 1,200 in my collection)! This is the best band around since the days of Jellyfish...

enjoy!!!

This cd is really great. I'm listening this one over and over again and everytime there's something new to hear. It reminds me a bit of Elvis Costello's Mighty like a rose. Highly recommended!

An unexpected triumph from these experienced minneapolis rockers. A beautiful rock opera, although all the songs stand proudly on their own as well. A departure from their alt-country roots, this album shows the maturation of Adam Levy and serves as a testament to what an album 3 years in the making can turn out to be. An absolute must-have.

This recording is a many-paneled masterpiece, bewildering in breadth. The Honeydogs previous recordings are excellent, but on this outing they have musically and lyrically spanned eons and leaped light-years. The songs are catchy and accessible but also deep and thought provoking. Wanting to learn more, I found myself digging out references for many of the intriguing words and phrases. For example the phrase "the hand maimed know Leopold's Ghost" in the epic "Last War Lullaby"; a search here on Amazon hit on a fascinating book "King Leopold's Ghost" about a little known pre-WWI holocaust in Africa's Congo. All this weltschmerz and deep lyrical content floats on a river of tuneful optimism buoyed by impeccable musicianship and production. Buy this CD and see the Honeydogs live, you will not be disappointed.

I sincerely regard this as probably the best album of popular music since the Beatles. The imaginative range could have been an embarrassment in less musically gifted hands - after all this is a concept album- but no-one puts a foot wrong in production or lyrical terms.
Some bands have a sound and write in that idiom. Here Levi chooses whatever musical palette he needs to produce a song cycle that is complex yet emotionally direct and affecting.
It seems though that it will remain a hidden masterpiece and that is a very great loss to popular culture. This is the real deal.

It is hard to write a short review that captures the spirit of this album. You know how every once and a while you find an album that is so good that you cannot get enough of it. This is one of those. The songs are catchy and stand alone as masterpieces. On top of that the lyrics are multilayered and thought provocing. This is one of my favorites of all time and will accompany me to a desert island if it should ever come to that.

My wife and I saw Aimee Mann in Chicago this summer. The warm up band for Aimee was The Honeydogs. Well, most of them. A few members weren't there. Still, I was intrigued. The songs were clever and catchy, delivered with wit and emotion. The chord progressions were often unpredictable. And the vocalist had a good voice.

In short, I found myself liking The Honeydogs.

When Aimee took the stage and thanked The Honeydogs by saying, "They're great, aren't they? I just love their 10,000 Years album. I listened to it for, like, a year straight" I immediately walked to the merchandise table and bought it. I figured anything Aimee Mann recommends so highly has to be good.

She's right. But I'm not completely sold yet. The Honeydogs are clever, but somewhat repetetive. The songs all tend to sound alike after awhile.

However, I'm not giving up on 10,000 Years. I intend to keep listening. If it grabs me by the throat one of these days I'll revise my review. As it stands now, I'm liking what I'm hearing. But I can't give it more than three stars at this time. It's just not in the "classic" category yet.

Great album. I won't waste time in describing the specifics but it's a stunningly well-crafted album. The Honeydogs probably lean most heavily on the Beatles for this album but they also occupy a space of their own. At times, "10,000 Years" dives a little too close to the Counting Crowes or some other feces-heel band. But the Honeydogs pull out of that deathdive and make it something else entirely. Andy Sturmer's apperance on this album should make it obvious that it's well-crafted and pop-o-licious...

Good stuff. Buy it.