Customer Reviews

Side Three

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Great end for Adrian Belew's three sides. I definitely recommend this album, as well as the other two sides. I believe side one is still my favorite, but followed very closely by this one, had side one not had writing on the wall and walk around the world this would have been my favorite.

Troubles... features the prophet omega on vocals... really nice groove to it, could have easily been on Mr. Music Head.

Incompetence Indifference... nice to finally have it on cd... great tune

Water Turns to Wine... side two type percussion, features Robert Fripp on Flute Guitar... lots of early king crimson influence (pre-Wetton era)

Crunk... reminiscient of High Wire Guitar

Drive... nice tune, could have been on side two, some jeff beck-like guitar though!

Cinemusic... soundscape... not really a song

Whatever.. featuring Les and Danny once again, great riff... not as powerful as the side one trio stuff, but definitely great playing on behalf of all three!

Men In Helicopters v4.0- same as the Belewprints version except snare and bass were added, some great mccartney-on-crack bass playing

Beat Box Car... continuation of beat box guitar featuring Mel Collins on Sax

Truth is... nice acoustic ballad featuring mel collins on flute

The Red Bull Rides A Boomerang Across The Blue Constellation... another soundscape, but a bit more mellodic than Cinemusic with little excerpts from "elephants", "dead dog on asphalt" and "asleep"

&... early demo version of ampersand I suppose, since it's Ade playing the drums and bass, the guitar sounds the same as in the side one version

Late to the party!! I had given up on Belew after the pop drenched slop of Young Lions and other disappointments; after pulling sides one and two out of bargain bin, whaddya know - they're brilliant! So I picked up side three at amazon. They've been on heavy rotation in my house since purchase

i was so excited when i listened to track one, "troubles", to hear that adrian left the "lead vocals" to PROPHET OMEGA! P.O. was a pirate radio evangelist back in the 1970s, who would give sermons and advice from a small transmitter in his apartment! apperently shut down by the FCC, and as providence would have it, a couple of people out there taped these shows! prophet omega had a rhythmic quality to his spoken word, which is brilliantly accented by adrian belew's guitar....wow!

track two is "incompetence indifference", which rants using irony and musings!

there are a lot of "slight returns" on this album, which include & (ampersand) and features claypool/carey again. i enjoyed the raw energy of this track even more than the one on side one!

"whatever" is so freaking funky!, while "drive" reminded me of "phonecall from the moon". adrian seems to kind of span his whole repetoir on this album.

"truth is" has a beatles/lennon feel which is ridiculously obvious!

other slight returns include "men in hellicopters v.4.0", "beatbox car" (which includes a sax solo!), "the red bull rides..." is a sort of montague of all of the trillogies. though fun to listen to, it would have been nice to have heard more NEW songs! i guess this is what, in my ears, earned this album 4* intead of 5*.

"Side Three" is the third in a series of albums that Adrian Belew released between 2004 and 2006. To my ears this one is the best of the three although it seems to get the lowest reviews from Belew fans. Like the other albums this one is short at only a bit more then 30 minutes, but I pretty much like the whole thing. It has the most variety of the three albums with much of it sounding very King Crimson-ish. Belew also throws in electronics, ballads and pop all of which he does very well. This is another good one.

I bought the previous volumes in the "Sides" project, and have mixed feelings about all of them. While they are all uniformly impressive in terms of virtuosity and creativity, they have all felt somewhat uneven. As a result, I had to overcome some trepidation when purchasing "Side Three," the final volume in this series. However, I finally did, and for whatever reason this particular volume "clicked" for me on some levels. While I do not think that the "Sides" represent Belew's master work, "Side Three" opened the previous volumes in a new way.

Most visibly, "Side Three" heralds the return of the "Adrian Belew Power Trio," consisting of Belew, Danny Carey (TooL), and Les Claypool (Primus). As on "Side One," this lineup is overhyped and underutilized. They appear on just two tracks, one of which, "Men in Helicopters v.4.0," noticeably downplays the specific talents of these two distinctive players. I think that most fans would agree that when news of the "Side" series came out, we wanted to hear the potential of this collaboration. In all honesty, I think that part of my issues with the trilogy stem from an inability to let my disappointment go.

There - I said it. I feel better.

Despite this self-admitted prejudice, the appearance of the Prophet Omega on the album opener "Troubles" brought to mind the album "Young Lions," which stands today as my favorite Belew solo effort. It reminded me that the "Sides" are not an entirely new project, but are essentially Adrian Belew solo albums. As a result, I am beginning to reconceive the "Side" series in terms of Belew's solo material rather than that of the "power trio," and I have found it more enjoyable than the previous two volumes in this context.

The good news is that "Side Three" represents Belew's extremes of musicianship, clever songwriting, experimentalism, humor, and social commentary as well as the sonic landscape of his entire back catalog. The bad news is that this juxtaposition of styles can leave the listener befuddled. One minute, you are listening to "Elanor Rigby," and the next you are listening to an electrified Ornette Coleman. These comparisons are meant to be complimentary, but placing them side-by-side on a singular album results in a jagged listening experience.

Admittedly, this same issue is readily apparent on any given King Crimson album. For me, however, King Crimson albums are easier to ingest because the band's personnel is consistent throughout any given album. If Belew is trying to make a similar musical statement, he might have benefited from consistently using the "power trio" across a body of work. Without this connective tissue, his more self-directed experimentalism disrupts the continuity of "Side Three," as well as previous volumes in the series.

Regardless, I would like to emphasize that I still like "Side Three" a lot. After listening to it quite a bit, sometimes the company of potentially disinterested listeners, it has many strong points. "Troubles," "Incompetence/Indifference," "Water Turns to Wine," and "Truth Is" are great examples of Belew's solo work. In their own way, "Men in Heliocopters v.4.0," "&," and ""Beat Box Car" are also representative, but are remakes of previous material. Of all of these "self-covers," it is the latter that might actually benefit from a rerecording, mainly due to Mel Collins' blistering sax solo.

An aside: the mind reels - Mel Collins with Belew, Danny Carey, and Les Claypool? What better way to pass the "prog" torch? Perhaps we will never really know, but at least we can see the way in which their repertoire might intersect.

Perhaps I still have not let this go after all....

The Lowdown: "Side Three" is still not my favorite Belew solo album, but I like it. I'm not sure that he is concerned so much about gaining a wider audience at this stage in his career. Instead, this comes across more like a "study" that will inevitably come to fruition in the 2008 version of King Crimson. Fans will find it interesting, but the new and curious might find more accessible points to "get into" Belew's oeuvre. For the adventurous and patient, "Side Three" might serve as a compelling "crash course" in Belew's diverse and unique musical voice. It juxtaposes (but rarely coalesces) his wide-ranging talents into a relatively cohesive whole.

many of the complaints regarding mr. belew's new work is the 30+ minute length of the discs. at $18.98 a pop that's a fair statement. so, create an account at yourmusic.com where you can get all 3 in the series for $5.99 each and that includes shipping folks! now, onto adrian. as an artist, he is of the highest order...exploratory, searching, adventurous, experimental, shifting. if you don't as an artist, you become stagnant. yet, in all truth, i can't wait for the next king crimson, whatever and whenever it may be. that's where he really shines.

Adrian Belew has produced the best of his three experimental sides last, with side three.

There is more singing on this disc than the first two in the series, and that helps. The playing on side three is also inventive, but it seems to have has more old/reworked content than the others, i.e., 'beat box car' and '&' which rework tracks from side one, 'men in helicopters v4.0' which reworks the lead track from belewprints, and 'incompetence indifference,' which he has had for a while but not previously committed to album.

I like all three sides, but I think side three has the best flow of the bunch and would probably be easiest for someone who isn't already a belew-head to get into.

and possibly a window on what may be on offer as ProjeKct Six opens for Porcupine Tree in the fall, maybe even an advance screening of the next step with Crim. Returning is one of Belew's signature tunes: "Men In Helicopters" which the Lone Rhino delivers with strings very effectively. Throughout the rest the Tool/Primus rhythm section are dazzling, especially the drummer from Tool. Might we finally have a suitable replacement for Bruford? for Gunn? Don't know if Levin will be back with Crim, but Gunn has left and Mastellotto ought to concede the chair.
As for the main lyricist and co-conspirator on guitar, on the basis of this CD, he seems rejuvenated, inspired and just plain old damn good. Hopefully this is the appetizer, ProjeKct Six the intermezzo and a renewed Crim for Main and afters.

Let me first state that I love Adrian Belew as an artist. Whether it be the work he did with such varied people as the Talking Heads or Paul Simon, or his fantastic solo albums like "Mr. Music Head" and "Inner Revolution", it was all great. I was ecstatic to learn he was going to release THREE albums after a few years of solo inactivity (However, I do count the Bears stuff, which is very good). It started out promising with "Ampersand" from "Side One", one of the most hard-driving rock songs he has ever done. But then the experimental side (much like King Crimson) took over and never let up. And some of it is downright unlistenable.

"Side Three" is the most perplexing because a lot of it is rehashed things from the past, and the rehashed stuff is not as good as the original. "Men in Helicopters" was meant to rock, not sound timid. "And" is not necessay. "Beat Box Car" sounds almost EXACTLY like "Beat Box Guitar". And if he ever uses speeches from Prophet Omega in a song again, I might have to go to counseling. And then, of couse, there are the usual "less than two minute soundscapes", as I like to call them. It all adds up to a muddled mess. But, with all that said, someone is enjoying this stuff because the albums are getting good reviews. You be the judge.

There is no doubt that Mr. Belew has enough songs in his head to keep going another ten years, I just wish he wouldn't be afraid to make them sound just a tad more "poppy". Oh well....there is always The Bears.

REVISED: Going back to this, I realize the only thing keeping it down is really the number of remakes and lack of freshness after the first two "Side" albums. I grew some affinity to the experimental stuff. Considering I just listened to it all again, I would take back the "unlistenable" comment. If there were 1/2 stars, I would give it 2.5 stars. Keep in mind that I was sad to see the "pop star" Belew take a permanent back seat ("Inner Revolution" is still one of the greatest power pop albums ever!). I also still maintain that if you are going to make comments about someone's review, refrain from the name calling. Especially if you are a musician yourself trying to get listeners (You know who you are).