Customer Reviews

Saddle Creek sampler 2008-2009

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

 

 

Well, I didn't find the other reviews all that helpful, so let me give it a try. However, I doubt I'll be much help - there is little I can think of to compare most of these tracks to. Mostly not my cup of tea, but I shall attempt to describe the tracks so maybe you can decide if it might be your cup of tea.

One advantage of this collection is that if you like a particular band here, you get 2 cuts from them. One disadvantage is that you must take the whole thing to discover what you may enjoy out of it.

The production values are very good - the sounds are clear and well-balanced, occasionally distorted only for artistic effect. Most of the lyrics are clearly understandable (important to me). These are generally far more music than noise, and seem creative - they are varied in style. Many tracks have some swear words "sprinkled in" - unnecessarily in my opinion.

1 & 2 - start off musical and progress to driving & screaming at the end. Lyrics are "explicit" and complaining. Beat medium; vocal quality, guitar/bass/drums quite good. I liked them until about 3/4 through and until I really listened to the lyrics in #2. Rock-ish.

3 & 4 - start off "weird" and become more musical as instruments are added. Breathy, repetitive lyrics against more lyrical instruments that do some "experimental" things - almost like the lyrics serve the percussion function. Trance-ish.

5 & 6 - sort of remind me of my less favorite Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd tracks - the busy guitar licks and driving bass - but interspersed with breathy, high female vocals (#5) or pleasant male vocals (#6) and a more dreamy musical line. However, the transitions seemed to not make much musical sense. #6 is the first track I thought was decent enough to maybe keep - but perhaps my musical tastes are a bit too "rigid" - I prefer more melody and structure, I guess.

#7 & 8 - driving metallic guitar and busy bass & drums. Vocals good - a bit angry. Heavy-metal-ish (but not quite that heavy). #8 a bit more melodic than #7. I liked these 2 a bit more than 1-6. Hard-rock-ish.

#9 & 10 - harmonizing male vocals, slow rhythm, dreamy nicely reverbed guitar. Reminds me somewhat of the early Led Zeppelin I liked better than the later. Well-done juxtaposition of dreamy against more intense musical bridges. These I actually liked quite a bit. These tracks have made me more patient to await the rest of the downloads.

#11 - female vocals - medium rock with a slight country or folk flavor (her "accent" maybe). Clear rhythmic melody. Vocals a bit harder to understand. Musically coherent throughout. I liked it.

Well, that's as far as my downloads have gotten after about 8 hours (I'm on dial-up). I'll edit to add more after I get the rest of the tracks, if I do. As my reactions progressed along the selections from pretty-much-stinks to hey-not-bad to pretty-decent, maybe track 18 will be awesome-great...

ADDED LATER... Well, we never achieved awesome-great, but in the end I deleted 1-5 and kept tracks 6-18 with 3 stars (not bad) on 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 14, 16, and 4 stars (good) on 9, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18.

#12 - female vocals rather hard to understand (is she saying "how to die"?). Catchy guitar riff 'hook'. Fast and driving. Sort of punk-ish and 60's-ish at the same time. Good internal variety. I liked the tune enough to forgive the vocals and the somewhat distorted sound.

#13 & 14 - clear, emotive, melodic male vocals. Strong percussion/bass, medium-fast. A bit buzzy/reverby (70s-ish) guitar and keyboards. Simple melodic lines with enough variety. Rock 'ballads'. I liked them.

#15 & 16 - Male harmonizing vocals, clear and front and center (sort of Simon & Garfunkel-ish, though I suspect backup is the same singer) plus electric keyboard, rhythm guitar, drums. Clear, clean sound. Medium slow. Some added production interest (echoes, reverb). Mellow, lyrical, introspective.

#17 & 18 - Strong percussion, buzzy keyboards and guitar, clear melodic male vocals. Repetitive lyrical melody. Medium-fast and interesting.

Altogether - probably something here for you - a good variety. Overall a 3.5 stars, I guess.

The Land of Talk song, "Some Are Lakes," is brilliant and worth a lot of money. Oh, look. It's free.

Good album, but, track #2 is actually "Mama, I'm Satan" by Cursive. The band does have a song called "Mama, I'm Swollen" but that is a different song entirely, and I think a better one at that. Hopefully Amazon will recognize their error, or maybe it is Saddle Creek's error, either or, the change needs to be made to the right title. Until then everyone can just take the time to rename their mp3's after they download the tracks.

I think that this a decent sampler if you're into the indie scene. There is one note to be added though, track 2 - 'Mama, I'm Swollen' by Cursive, is mislabeled. The actual song is 'Mama, I'm Satan'. There is a song called that by Cursive, but this one isn't it. Just to let people (and Amazon) know that for accuracy.

I have recently discovered the wealth of free music available on Amazon and this by far was my favorite of recent offerings. Son, Ambulance being my favorite of the group but Neva Dinova and Land of Talk being close seconds. Some good stuff here for those looking for something different.

There isn't a single hook in this entire collection. Remove the vocals and this album could be used as cacophonous elevator music. Mundane, and not in a good way.

The songs by Cursive are great, but the real treat are Tokyo Police Club and their songs 'In a Cave' and 'Juno'.

Download this if just for the Cursive songs. From The Hips is an awesome song. If you like Pavement and Steven Malkmus you will love Cursive.