Customer Reviews

Contino Sessions

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This album is a rare example of that music which manages to be dark and moody without causing involuntary wrist slitting or head-bang whiplash. The opening track, "Dirge", is representative of everything that is great about modern American rock music. The track contains simple, effective riffs obscured by gritty overdrives and thundering bass beats that are utterly addictive. The track also reveals the band's knack for increasing the tension and power in a song without advertising the fact. The result is a song which swells and pumps along, carrying the listener on a musical waterslide until the instruments seem to crash into the pool at the bottom leaving said listener both exhilarated and exhausted.
Try not to feel like a member of the trenchcoat mafia as the album's pivotal track 'Aisha' proclaims: "I think there's something you aughta know. I'm a murderer." The agressive rhythm combines with the sinister lyrics to provoke a sense of latent 'cool' in the listener.
Not all the tracks are stand out. Neither are they all heavy and dark. 'Flying' is one of the best tracks on the album but contains only feelings of airy joy as the various electronic rhythms swoop and, well, fly.
Death in Vegas are a rare breed of artist. They belong to a movement arguably started by the Velvet Underground but now frequented by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Nine Inch Nails, and others. These are the bands that will save the world from hyper-conformist pop. Vive le Death.

The whole cd is clas, but Aisha stands head and shoulders above everything.

My first hearing was soley for the music. I didnt pay too much attention to the lyrics. I love their blend of funky beats and the journey it takes your body.

Last night i lay and listened to the lyrics. Of course i was still 'bopping' but MAN.....the sound of the voice is PERFECT.....the analogy hes using i think ive figured out, but the simple use of very poignant one-line lyrics kicks. i mean, when he says 'HE GOT OUT'.....sent shivers down my spine. I heard myself loudly uttering 'This is GENIUS' over and over again......

I defy you to hear this song, to not feel the power, to not hear the ingenuity, to not want to go and buy every cd theyve done just in the off chance that they might have gotten close to this again somewhere else.

There's a reason why Ed Simons of the Chemical Brothers is such a huge fan of this disc (besides the obvious one that Richard Fearless is a pal of theirs). It is quite simply one of the most creative and endearing discs to be released in the past few years.

I will admit that it took me some time to come around to it. Its dark, at times disturbing... if you are looking for pop-friendly hooks or accesable melodies, this is not the place to go. But if you are in the mood for a richly dense album that will yield great rewards for repeat listenings, this is for you.

There are a few stand-out tracks: Dirge is a comparitively quiet intro to the album, a slow-building jazz stomper that acts as a kind of thesis statemtn for the album as a whole. Lever Street is a simple tune, consisting primarily of what sounds to be a Hammond organ - one of the saddest songs I can remember, supremely evocative of heartbreak and despair. Neptune City closes the album - it's one of my very favorite songs, a euphoric capstone to an emotionally draining experience.

All in all, I consider this an essential album. It takes your preconceived notions of what electronic dance music can or should be and stretches them like taffy.

The second c.d. from Richard Fearless and Tim Holmes(a.k.a.Death In Vegas) is an excellent follow up to Dead Elvis,it is also a new departure for dance music as it must be the darkest so called dance c.d. I've ever heard. I bought this c.d. last year and a testament to its high quality is the fact I still listen to it regularly. I don't know how people are fitting this into the dance or techno category,because in my opinion it's a million miles from this sort of music. The album features a high calibre guest list-with Bobby Gillsepie(Primal Scream),Iggy Pop And Jim Reid(Jesus And Mary Chain)featuring on 3 of the 9 tracks. Most of the tracks are well over 5 minutes long and it becomes obvious after track one that this c.d. is dark ,loud and fairly heavy in it's musical content.Sometimes it's quite like Leftfield's last c.d. and yet some of the tracks sound a bit like the instrumental tracks of Nine Inch Nails -The Fragile. Fearless and Holmes have put together an excellent band to enhance their techno background.Gillespie sings in his usual 'somewhere out there' manner on track 2 'Soul Auctioneer'.The Iggy Pop song Aisha is excellent with Pop perfectly suited to his off the wall narrative where he tells the story of a serial killer-see I told you it was dark!Jim Reid's welcome return on Track 8 is one of the many highlights on this album. The Contino Sessions have deservedly just been nominated as one of the c.d.'s in line for the Mercury Music Prize-my only question would be how can it win the prize for the year 2000 when it came out in 1999! However this c.d. is well worth the listen!

Like Morcheeba, DIV have fallen off hard with their latest release. (You've been warned: stay away from 'Fragments of Freedom!'). 'Dead Elvis' was easily one of the finest, most inventive electronic/dance discs ever released, and it covered all of the bases: it was ambient, big-beat, trance, dub-reggae and hip-hop funky all at once. And they made it look so easy! Basically, they captured on a single disc the types of music so many of us have in our CD collections at home. So now it comes as a surprise that after such an auspicious debut they have fallen into the old sophomore slump in a big way. From what I've read, they lost some personnel after releasing their first disc and before recording the second. And it shows. Most of the tracks are hookless wonders, with neither form nor direction. As others here have written already, 'Dirge' is a nice opener, but it becomes tedious after five minutes. Again, the Iggy Pop tune is a nice touch, but that's pretty much all there is to write home about on this recording. Whatever happened to DIV has seriously hurt them in the creativity department and it needs to be rectified before their next release.

Very disappointing.

Most ambitious projects tend to be misunderstood upon their release. As I read the first reviews in Amazon, I realized it wasn't different with "The Contino Sessions". How can someone define this record as techno? There's great guitar work, a wonderful bass and powerful drums. Oh, sure, there are all these different kinds of electronic noises, but really, where do you think the future in music lay? The sheer quality of the guest stars should have attracted more attention to this record, but don't be fooled by the reviews that state that their songs are the only good ones. The real star is Richard Fearless! Iggy Pop could scream his lungs out, but if it weren't for the Midas touch of Fearless, the track would be lost in Pop's anger. Everybody is raving about "XTRMNTR", but Bobby Gillespie (who appers on the wonderful "Soul Auctioneer") certainly wouldn't have conceived such a noisy and angry record without the help of Richard Fearless. "Death Threat" reminds me of an obscure french band called View, while "Flying" has a hint of Spacemen 3. Jim Reid keeps Jesus & Mary Chain alive with "Broken Little Sister", and the album concludes with "Neptune City", in the best Spiritualized tradition. Prelude to the future.

*sigh* I've listened to this again and again.. trying to find how people can like it.. and I can't.. it's horribly awful.. and I have a high tolerance for all music... bleh.. "Dead Elvis" is still one of my all-time fav cds out of hundreds.. but this cd is a HUGE disappoinment... Dirge is good.. for 2min.. then you just want it to end.. the songs all lack the nice deep groove the first album had.. this is randomchaos... hard to listen to.. and bad repeating vocals thrown in.. a few songs near the end start to be nice.. but run off and end quick... I bought this cd for $18 the day it was released.. then found it for $3 a few days later used... so now i have 2 poor copies.. (I felt bad for the used one) if you can get this cd for pocket change.. try it.. otherwise.. get Dead Elvis and hunt for better stuff... Death in Vegas has left the building.. d=\

We like this. We like the driving bass, we like the densely layered sound, we like the moaning vocals and we like the experimental attitude. Death in Vegas have come up with a corker in The Contino Sessions.

Whilst critics will find fault with the same-ness of some of the tracks and others will bemoan the fact that other bands have gone here before, this is a genuinely important album. Blur took one look down this road with '13' but didn't fully commit to the idea. The Beta Band are another group who are twisting the definition of a song, borrowing bits from here and bobs from there. But Death In Vegas have taken the traditional song and mangled it beyond all recognition.

The album is a dark, buzzing landscape of instruments tortured beyond their limit - guitars wail unrecognisably, synths throw out waves of sound, drums skitter and the whole lot miraculously merges into one glorious mishmash of sound. With a nod towards techno and a glance in the direction of experimental pop, Death In Vegas set off on their own road leaving others to gape at their audacity.

Yes - its a bit navel gazing at times and the relentless experimentalism can become dulled with repetition but these are only minor gripes and pale into insignificance in the regal glow of the music. Let this one caress you in your darkened bedroom.

The best albums are those which you don't particularly like at first, and as you listen to them more and more they grow on you becoming almost a nessecity in your daily life. This is definetly one of those. If you must like an album the second you listen to it, don't buy this, but if you're up for a bit of an intelligence exercize, this is the one for you.

I brought this when it first came out here and wasn't sure what to expect - it was described as gothic by the NME - so when i listened to it i was blown away. Dirge really is a great opening track, building up from a simple guitar line and a 'la la la' hook into a full blown rock mosh up! Soul Auctioneer is a great hip hop track and the two instrumentals are fantastic. Then comes another brilliant track - Aisha. The guitars, beats and Iggy's vocals really complement each other and rock out! The only two sub-standards here are Lever Street and Broken Little Sister. However, Aladdins Story is a fantastic gospel track and one of the best here. The album finishes with Neptune's City which envokes memories of the Chemical Brothers Private Psychedelic Reel and you come down off a musical high. This album is better than Dead Elvis in my opinion.