Customer Reviews

Black Hole

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Many of my favorite bands have evolved their sound with great success. It is always a risky strategy, especially when a band is associated with a certain sound "Judas!" But this is a great album from Love Tractor, showing great songwriting confidence and musicianship. The songs are varied stylistically, but it shares themes with previous albums and the sound is unmistakably Love Tractor. Not a bad track from start to finish.

Black Hole is the result of major personnel changes - only Mike Richmond remains from the early 80's line-up. The new band members are all great players, and seem to have brought a lot of equipment to the table! The Fundamental Records web site suggests Black Hole was a conscious attempt to make a progressive rock album. It does have progy touches with slower tempos, heavier guitar parts and more complex time changes. The use of classic 70's instruments including moog, mellotron, rhodes, tubular bells and sitar by Bill Holmes adds to the effect. Richmond has said that Love Tractor would have been a progressive rock band, they just didn't have the chops to pull it off. Apparently he has made the record he always wanted to.

Georgia Rain is a great song to open the album. It should be the first single. Do they still make those? A classic LT track with guitar sound taken from "Themes from Venus" and nice lilting keyboards. Richmond's high register vocals sound confident and up front in the mix. Other favorites are Epidemic, an uptempo number, Electric Chair, Dragonfire and Wizards in the Sky.

I urge you to part with your hard earned rock coin now and give this disc a few listens. It requires a few to take it all in, but LT fans and newcomers will find it time and money well spent. Athens rocks again!

I have been an LT fan ever since they were three guys and a drum machine doing wacky sort of ' Donna Summer meets the Ventures at an acid party ' instrumentals at the original 40 Watt in Athens, and Bill Berry and Peter Buck of REM were talking about joining the band; and I can tell you straight out that "Warspite" is, with all due respect, being narrow minded and unfair in his reveiw of " Black Hole ". First of all, LT always could ROCK - that's nothing new - they were one of the few 80's arty farty Athens bands that had the chops to break into 'Tumbling Dice' or something and slay it. 'Jangle Pop' was just ONE of the things the band does - it isn't their signature sound. Their signature sound is Mike Richmond's slightly quirky writing and voice - and music which ALWAYS had a 'progressive rock - neo classical ' element to it: a thing called COUNTERPOINT !!! Tractors guitar lines were, and are INTRICATE and DEVELOPED whether the beat is disco or rock or whatever. The lyrics were always etherial - this is one of several tying threads that an OPEN MINDED listener hears throughout all their records.
It boggles my little ex - trendy mind that some people think that 'Black Hole ' is more PROG than ' Sky At Night ' too.
" Sky " is chock full of the same type lyrical references as
"Black Hole" and has far more mellotron and analog synth sounds, odd time signatures and other 'prog' type things in it. Black Hole is more of a grungy early seventies hard rock record. The last tune does sound a little like YES Relayer, but hey - Whats wrong with THAT? Its a beautiful sound, and a nice way to end an album with a concept. Of course SKY AT NIGHT is great - Its the result of TWENTY years of Mike, Mark, and Army playing together and is LT's masterpiece to date IMHO -But Black Hole is not that far behind - how unfair to rag on a band because the new lineup ( that has only been together for a few months ) only puts out a record NEARLY as good in some peoples minds as the former longtime linups BIG HOORAH !
Quite frankly - Some people only like Athens bands if they are composed of gay art students who can barely play their instruments and look like Elvis Costello! Wake up! 1985 was a long time ago. The EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES, dude ! Give poor Mike a break - Black Hole is just like every other LT record: Its DIFFERENT from the LAST one - Is COWS COME HOME anything like OUTER SPACE SHIP? and more power to M.R. for it ! He OBVIOUSLY had a bunch of darker songs in his system, and like a true artist, he didnt give a damn what guys like WARSPITE and others (who want to put him in a box) think, and he wanted to get some things out of his system , and did so. He apparently thought that a 'Deep Purple meet Uriah Heep in 1971 ' kind of sound was what suited the lyrics of this catharsis. Well - hey - WORKS FOR ME ! I dont hear people slagging on Fripp because Crimson is always totally different. Nobody is giving Mick Fleetwood a hard time because " Bare Trees " and 'Tusk' are worlds apart! Give Mike and his new pals a shot. He's a great guy, a fine writer - and his new band members are all well known cats in Athens, and deserve a little respect too. Tom Lewis is, next to John Keane ( REM , WP, Indigoes, etc ), the most revered recording engineer in Athens and has worked with almost everybody. Billy Holmes is considered by many to be the best musician in Athens, and young gun Ben Holts has an amazing resume for his age.
MIke Mills of REM thought enough of this record to include a cut on his ' best underground rock in America ' compilation CD in UNCUT magazine - so it must not be too bad !

I saw LT live several times back in the 80's. Loved them. Over the years I managed to collect most of their stuff on CD and was excited when The Sky At Night appeared out of nowhere. FF a few more years and we have a couple of really different new releases. Are they quirky and noodly-doodly "psychedelic porch funk" like a lot of earlier LT albums? Nope. But they are still excellent.

I've always had a soft spot for progressive rock from well before I knew what "genre" meant. I just knew what I liked and that included Kansas, Yes, Genesis, and Rush...and now the new LT in their own way. Black Hole didn't grab me on first listen until I got to Electric Chair (which gives me chills). But then along came tracks 7-10 which are stunning. After several more listens I like the whole package, but the last half (Side B?) is still my favorite.

Packrat

I can see the backlash from miles away, but come on people. We should be thanking LT for not making the same records with different titles like a few other Athens bands we could all name. So I say good work guys, it sounds like nothing else.

bLaCK hOlE iS tHe bOomb - here's to "knives and guns"... what a cool song, lol. ignore the critics, guys... this one will last long after the morning comes, so be humble and modest :)

peace and pills.

yes, this isn't the original lineup. However, the lineup has changed at various times. This is great stuff - and a great jamband in the making. Even though the show started a bit late with no sound check, I could just picture myself lying on the grass, chilling, listening to the music of Black Hole. The band of players more than rival past releases. While the music is supposed to have prog and classic rock influences - I hear them, but it's faint compared to the Love Tractor stylisms from the past. Open your ears, make sure you realize nobody should ever live in the past, and rock out with the new Love Tractor!!

Yes, times change and so do some bands, but folks enjoy the signature sound of a band for a reason. If you wanted a different sound, you'd listen to another band. I've given this CD a good ten plays so I can say my disappointment is not made in haste. Don't get me wrong, there's some good stuff on this CD, especially the first and last tracks, but not enough of the "Sky At Night" Love Tractor to save it, in my opinion. Obviously the departure of several of the band members have changed the sound chemistry and I can't say I'm pleased with it.

I'm writing this on the day that FLOYD announced SYD Barretts death,
and after I watched a PBS special about Bob Dylan with footage of
the '65 Newport Folk festival, where people called Dylan JUDAS,
booed him and threw things because he had an electric guitar.
Seems alot of people call themselves 'open minded progressives'
but turn into knee jerk reactionaries in a hurry when their little
musical comfort zone is threatened. At the mere thought of good old
self rightious acoustic folk music being compromised by that evil capitalist rock stuff,
old school folkies started searching for hatchets
to cut the mike cables with!
And lyrics about FREEDOM! OH Stalin Help Us!
So now, Love Tractor are singing songs about little evil critters
jumping around in the dark forest of your brain and some people
just can't handle them not doing 'happy jangle pop' til doomsday!
That aint no PUNKY NEW WAVE Happy Shiny DISCO !!
The Demmings and Lemmings who diss LTs Black Hole are just like
those who called Syd barrett an acid casualty weirdo and the folkies
who got violent towards Dylan in 65 -
its just IGNORANT Shallow AND STUPID!
I say keep up the original work, Mr Richmond, Mr Holst and Mr Holmes,
and to hell with those who are too stuffy to have fun going
into space with your gnomes and demons and angels !!

Ive said this on the review of Green Winter and I'll say it here too-Without Armistead and Mark Cline's creative input and original sounds its just not the same 'band. Period. Their contributions were an essential to all of their albums all the way to 'Sky at Night'.

I just can't warm up to the idea of this being a "Love Tractor" album proper...Sure the original line up did change drummers a couple times, but over the course of 20 years it was always the same three guys on guitars and bass. Why not just come up with a new name for a new project?

I am open to all forms of music, and the album isnt bad, but it seems like he's just trying to capitalise on their name. If Mike Richmond didnt want to work with the others anymore, he should've left their legacy end with the masterpiece that is 'Sky at Night'