The Blue Hysteria

Rheostatics (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD
• Label: Cargo Records
• ASIN: B0001GSZ28
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #398,638 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Faccia Bella!, April 28, 2004

By 

A. Caldwell "green sprout" (Ingleside, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Blue Hysteria (Audio CD)

If you're going to listen to the Rheostatics, here's the place to start. Every track is a keeper, including the three brief noise/instrumentals ("Something the Committee...", "To Catch a Thief", "The 'You Are Very Star' Journey"). The songs are melodic, densely layered, and performed with a wild joy that gives this album its own quivering energy. Standouts include "Motorino", with its pumping choruses; "Fat", for its hip-hop undertones, childhood nostalgia, and hard-rocking cries of 'Everyone's a robot when you're a zombie...'; "Bad Time to Be Poor", the political grunge-rocker that became an actual hit for the Rheos; "Sweet, Rich, Beautiful, Mine", with its soaring guest vocal from Tamara Williamson and an awe-inspiring guitar and vocal performance from Martin Tielli; the funky, genre-busting "Four Little Songs"; Don Kerr's sweetly luminous "Never Forget"; Tim Vesely's swirling "Connecting Flights"; "Feed Yourself", a snarling rocker of the Canadian crime-story song tradition; and the sweeping, glorious mindscape of "A Midwinter Night's Dream."

So in other words, most of the album is better than anything you'll ever hear. The rest is still better than anything else out there now.

Martin's cover art for this album is also worth describing: a flock of redwings, cardinals, crows, and swallows breaking into flight from a twisted tree to join a flying red canoe piloted by angry monkeys in the midst of one of those still, starry nights on a lake. Just like this album, it is beautiful, mysterious, a little silly, a little frightening.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Stuff., October 21, 2004

By 

Anglobotomy (Las Vegas, Nv United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Blue Hysteria (Audio CD)

I've got to completely agree with Mr/Mrs Caldwell. This is an incredible album for the greatests Canadian band ever (probably one of the best in the world). While I think Whale Music and Introducing Happiness are better albums, there is nothing at all wrong with Blue Hysteria. The Rheostatics can pack fun, emotion, intelligence and great storytelling, into some of the most catchy and complex musical arrangements in the rock genre. Buy this.