Customer Reviews

All The King's Men

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

 

 

All The Kings Men is part two to follow a masterpiece ALL THE KINGS HORSES - Not listed and I don't Understand why. But to review All The Kings Men is easy - A very pleasent trip with TLPD's once again filled with fun lyrics and imaginary instrumentals - But please try and find ALL THE KINGS HORSES before this one. You will love it - Its by far the best music written in the new millenium and I have collected all the LPD's cd's since the start and KINGS HORSES is the best ever. Belongs in the the halls of music for the gods. Cheers.

"All The King's Men," along with its sister album "All The King's Horses" is the latest
studio release from the ever-prolific Legendary Pink Dots. While it really is a good album
if you think about it, ultimately it comes off as a bit unsatisfying and disappointing. "All
The King's Horses" I would say is the superior album, and to compare "...Men" to
relatively recent releases, it ranks in my estimation quite a ways below "A Perfect
Mystery," and "Nemesis Online." Going back chronologically, I'd say it's the worst
full-length album of new material since 1988's "The Golden Age," which I didn't think
was that great.

Sounds bad, but didn't I just say it's a good album? Allowing for what I expect from a
Dots' release, it is a good album. The quality threshold of Dots' albums is so high that
even their bad ones are better than the best works of other bands in my view. No other
band has for so long so consistently put out great albums in my opinion.

One of my problems with this album is that out of 10 tracks, 3 of them are instrumentals.
Despite the fact that one of them is very good, generally I think the Dots' instrumental
tracks tend to veer toward experimental throwaways.

What's worse is that the technically mixing of this album is very strange. It's not bad in
the lo-fi 80s Dots way, but it does interfere with the enjoyment of this album. The vocals
on some tracks tend to be far too much louder than the instruments. To give you an
example, on my stereo to obtain an optimal listening level for "Hallway of the Gods" (a
Dots album with stellar mixing) I usually have to turn up to 4 1/2. For "All The King's
Men" I had to turn it up to 6 or 7, and then the vocals blew me away. This problem is
somewhat alleviated if you have a very good surround-sound system or listen to the album
on good headphones (I highly recommend either one).

Now, onto a run-down of the songs:

Cross Of Fire - Honestly, there's not much to say about this song. It strikes me as being
ultimately forgettable. It's not bad, but it's not very good or memorable.

The Warden - This song is the highlight of the album. If I was a record promoter, I would
choose this song as the single; it is by far the most commercially viable song on the album.
It starts out with a great organ piece that sounds like it could have come from the
soundtrack of the excellent video game series Castlevania, and then leads into a soaring,
singularly haunting lament. A very good track.

Touched By The Midnight Sun - Another great track, probably my second favorite on the
album. It's very spacey, like something from "9 Lives to Wonder" or "Chemical
Playschool 8-9." In fact, it reminds me most of "The Artificial Silence" from the latter
album. A stripped down piece, consisting primarily of out-in-space vocals, spacey effects
and birds singing, as you can imagine, this is a nice song to listen to after a
marijuana-smoking session.

Rash - An instrumental, but a great one. Very mechanical sounding, very neat, and a bit
spooky, with some great background effects. This song reminds me of "Invaders in the
Raita," also from Chemical Playschool 8-9."

The Day Before It Happened - After Rash, the song quality of the album begins to take
quite the nose-dive. A poppy piece that starts off timid and quiet, but picks up and gets
better in the second half. I didn't much care for this track.

Brighter Now - "Brighter Now" is a grand, sweeping track that leads into an orchestral
march, resplendent with very emotional vocals. I know, it sounds good, and usually I
absolutely love Dots' songs answering to that description; yet this one falls very flat with
me and makes no connection whatsoever. I can't explain it, I feel like I should like this
track, but I don't. It has all the ingredients, but doesn't come through.

Marz Attacks - I've listened to this song quite a few times to give it a chance, but it

remains essentially a throwaway instrumental.

Sabres At Dawn - The album begins to pick up again a little! Sabres At Dawn, while not
as good as tracks 2-4, is a delightfully little piece, an electronic waltz reminiscent of those
you'll find more commonly on Edward Ka Spel's solo works. Quite nice! Takes a while
to grow on you.

"All The King's Men" - An 11+ minute opus... these types of Dots' songs are sketchy.
You have your magnificent ones like "Hallway," "Andromeda Suite," and "Premonition
13" to name a few and then some forgettable ones, like those on "Chemical Playschool
10" or "Malachai." This one, however, is quite good. It starts out very techno-like, and
progressively gets heavier until its almost industrial; after a while it degenerates into
chaotic noise, and then goes back to techno.

However, the effects of this song are tremendous! The first two times I listened to it, I
thought it was simply good. Then, one day after smoking a copious amount of marijuana,
I put my headphones and cranked this track up. The way the instruments and sound
effects dance circles around your head when listening to this song on headphones or with a
good surround sound hook up, is quite the feat of aural engineering. When the vocals
kick in toward the latter part of the song, I nearly jumped out of my seat. The vocals are
sufficiently unsettling, but when you listen to them with headphones on, it feels as if
Edward is talking directly into the back of your neck, like you can feel his breath close on
the nape of your neck! I later tried listening to this on headphones while completely
sober, and indeed, no two ways about it, it is a remarkable thing, but you can imagine on
sensual and disturbing it is when listening to it half-baked to the stars. The long, drawn
out sounds of what I presume to be bombs dropping is also incredible. As I've said
before, a great track.

The Brightest Star - A 10+ minute extended instrumental jam, notably for the striking
violin pieces, but otherwise forgettable.

So as I've said before, this is a good album, but disappointing, because while 5 of the
tracks (2,3,4,8,9) are good, the rest are pretty much easily forgotten.

Maybe not the best Legendary Pink Dots CD I've ever heard - but then they can't all be great - now can they? Oh, I'm just now discovering that this Roir title is a companion title to the Dot's 'All The King's Horses' disc. I never even heard of that one. Tunes here that I liked best include the beautifully played "Touched By The Midnight Sun", the instrumental "Rash", the quirky Syd Barrett-like "Marz Attacks", the out-there wierd space / experiemental eleven-minute title track "All The King's Men" and the thirteen-minute electronic epic "The Brightest Star". Don't get me wrong, this CD does have it's moments - just a bit too 'low-key' for me.

one of the L.P.D.'s best and most complete pieces of work . Very strong on musical invention , musical ability , and ability to imagine grand musical designs AND achieve those imagined designs . They give an awful lot of value for money when they create soundscapes as compelling as this .

I love the Pink Dots! I have seen them in concert so many times I have lost count. My brother has almost everything ever recorded by this incredible group. I listened to this album several times in my car and I was very disapointed with the sound Quality. The mix was bad. The piano would start off so quiet you had to turn the sound full on. Then the vocals would come in and it will blow your ears off. The whole album doesn't sound right. On some songs the music is louder than the vocals and others the opposite. Now my car has a great sounding stereo and I listen to most of my music in my car, but I tried it on my home stereo and I was shocked at the difference. In surround mode it sounded so much better. A lot of the sounds missing in "stereo" are heard in the surround speakers and they sound great. So if you want to listen to this cd, try it in surround and it is well worth while.

I must admit I was a bit disappointed when i first listened to this album when it came out a week ago. I received the 2 new LPD albums, 'All the King's Horses' and 'All the King's men'; The former is simply delicious, dark and so so beautiful and subtle; one of the best LPD albums I've ever heard, and that's saying a lot since they're my absolute favourite band.
But 'All the King's Men' is very different. More electronic and minimalistic, but also guitars in the instrumental songs. There're too many instrumental songs and they're maybe too long and repetitive for me.
But please don't misunderstand me, this is a Legendary pink Dots album, and that means good music. I suppose they wanted to disorientate us with this album, which sounds on the one hand as a back to the roots to the dark electronic waltzes of early albums such as 'Brighter Now' and 'Curse', and on the other as a push against any categorisation.

I thought the cd was fabu! ... I like it a lot. I also liked the new trak from Justin from american idol on the american idol soundtrack. It rocks! His music is so hard core it makes my eardrums bleed. ...