Customer Reviews

Illumination

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

 

 

With definite echoes of Yo La Tengo, Illuminations is the record you SHOULD go to sleep to and it's the best to wake up to. Who else writes a song about director Edward D Wood Jnr (Unfair Kind of Fame). This album is the best to come out of Scotland for ages. It also makes one feel depressed without a special someone in their lives. It's best listened to when thinking of loved ones.

calm, soothing, comforting. listening to this just now put me back in the womb of the dreamy days or 80's brit pop. my friend said it was depressing to him, but not to me. it put me inside an atmosphere that felt familiar -- but most definitely not a depressing one. the vocals, the music...it's all so lovely!

Illumination is a work of beauty. It is the sound of people dedicated to their art and it is a progression in the pastels sound without having to compromise their original concepts. On the surface the intricate and delicate melodies and chords create a gentle, docile sound but on ' the hits hurt ' and on ' rough riders ' the pastels prove they can rock. Electronic music and jazz have played a part in creating this statement which shows that the pastels can play their instruments but they maintain their amateur enthusiasm for their music. Katrina's sonf' the viaduct ' is a song which can bring many people to tears. The pastels and Illumination are best seen live. the new remix album, Illuminati, is excellent. It contains remixes by Make - Up, Mouse on Mars, Jim o' Rouke but the best remix is of 'the viaduct' by Bill Wells.

this is my first album by these guys & I am really enjoying it alot & I believe you will too haa plus you should get the remix album as well, I still need it myself but anywho check it out...

Often I feel some admiration for Stephen Pastel and the way he (and Aggie and Katrina) have stayed true to their course and vision with such dogged persistence. So dogged have they been that, having been reviled for years, they're actually more respected than they've ever been.

It was with some regret however that I have to report that any admiration I might have evaporates whenever I actually HEAR The Pastels - to be replaced with a feeling of "can't they find something better to do after all these years".

Now, don't get me wrong, as Pastels go this CD is a lot better than almost anything they've ever done before - still doesn't detract from the fact that this is music by indier-than-thou smug under-achievers made for a captive audience who are, if anything, even smugger. Some people, it seems, are content to stay in their little ghettoes.

The lack of talent is excusable, the lack of ambition is not.