Customer Reviews

Charged

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

 

 

I just got home from work. I work at the Majestic in Detroit, and tonight when I got off of work, I decided to go upstairs to have a beer while I waited for a ride home. The headline band was the Bellrays, who I had seen all kinds of press hype about, but they weren't on yet. I decided to watch the band that was playing for a few minutes before getting a beer, and I ended up standing there slack-jawed until they finished their set. They turned out to be Nebula, and they were the greatest live act I have seen since the last show the Laughing Hyenas did before they broke up. That is incredibly high praise from me, as the Hyenas were the greatest live band EVER for my money... I saw the LHs more than forty times, and what's more, I paid to get in for most of those gigs, which is something I have rarely done.
Anyway, Nebula f------ blew me away with their almost unbelievable intensity. The sheer power of this band is just amazing for a three-piece. In terms of style, they fit in quite well here in Detroit; One of the guys I work with, Nick, was standing sort of in front of me, and I tapped him on the shoulder and told him that Nebula reminds me of Funkadelic (i.e. Super Stupid), and he reponded that Black Sabbath and Blue Cheer were what they reminded him of. The thing is, we were both right. Nebula sounds like an amalgam of those three bands, and that's exactly the kind of music we love in this city.
When my band was gigging regularly, between 1990 and 1998, I would frequently play a sort of half-assed bass solo underneath my guitar players when they soloed. That was kind of cool, but what the guys in Nebula do is that whenever the guitar player solos, the bass player does also, and they stomp on their wah-wah pedals and just RIP IT UP!!! That is one of the coolest things I've ever seen any band do. All three members of the band are great players, and coupled with their general intensity and pretty good songs as well, it makes me say GO SEE THIS BAND AS SOON AS YOU GET THE CHANCE & BUY THEIR CDS NOW!!!!!

Dimestore Liam

Nebula continue to blast out the big riffs and head banging rythums to produce an enjoyable soundtrack for those long jouney's in the car. Air guitar warning! this will also have you juming around the bedroom for a long time! It's only shortcoming is it's muffled production which was surprising after the great production of their former record "To the centre". But minor quibles aside this is a cool effort.

I'm a newcomer to the sounds of Nebula. After seeing them live a few nights ago I've been playing "Charged" almost nonstop. It is really hard for me to describe why these guys are so good. Nebula simply continues the ever-needed, but slowly diminishing cry for traditional rock. But despite its homage to the actual phenomenon of hard rock, they're only creating a sound that was revolutionized twenty years ago and refined in the last 10. I hate to acknowledge the fact that it is very much like grunge since I never got into the whole Nirvana thing much. But dangit, there's no other way to describe the deep omnipresent bass and fuzzed out Black Sabbath guitar riffs. What sets Nebula apart is its incredibly timed solos that are beautifully pretentious and wonderfully unnecessary. Still, its sense of fury is lost on the recording compared to Nebula's live show, which could never be presented through a stereo. Even closing your eyes really tight and pretending you're at a show still does it no justice! It's refreshing to see three guys, a bass, drumkit, and a lot of distortion make such a simple, yet fantastic recording.

Nebula are one of a number of bands from the last 10 years that have taken up the 70's rock resurgence, often doing it better than the bands from the 70's. If you can't get enough of that kind of music then this is a must buy. If you have a passing interest I would reccomend finding a site that offers Nebula downloads and pick the individual songs you like.

Charged is probably the best Nebula disc but honestly they are so consistent you can't go wrong with any of them.

Imagine a combination of Black Sabbath, MC5 and Kiss and that is kind of what Nebula sound like on this fabulous release. Poppy enough to hook the teenie boppers but heavy enough to draw in the more serious music fan. Blistering guitar and fuzz bass sound excellent with the headphones. Buy this and request it on your local hard rock station!

This CD renewed my faith in alternative rock. Strikingly catchy and a lot of whacked out fun, Charged is both fresh and inspired. I instantly found comparisons with the noise-rock of late 80s Sonic Youth and the parent's-basement rock of early Dinosaur Jr, in my opinion the best of both eras. Nowhere near anything I've heard in quite some time, this is an instant college-rock classic.

When I first heard this I laughed so hard I thought I was going to wet myself. I purchased this based on some ravings I read that described Nebula's sound as psychedelic. I hear no psychedelia here - all I hear is three guys trying painfully hard to re-create the sound of early Black Sabbath. The lyrics to these songs are so bad they'd make a dog laugh. Try to imagine a band lead by the school bus driver on The Simpsons and you get a pretty good idea of what this is like. Save your money and get "Volume 4" by Sabbath instead.