Customer Reviews

Sir Army Suit

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

 

 

This album is a very good 70's pop album start to finish, there's not a bad song on it. One of my all time favorite 'lesser known' songs is the track 'Older'. Take a chance on it.

For me, possibly their best album. Maybe I'm prejudiced because it was the first Klaatu I heard. "A Routine Day" is classic from beginning to end. "Dear Christine" is sort of a historical love song. "Mister Manson" takes shots at Charlie and at Timothy Leary. "Cherie" is a lovely string-quartet-and-harpsichord waltz. "Silly Boys" takes a song from their first album and plays the tape backwards (vocals and all), which results in a new song with truly bizarre lyrics ("Hark and enamour me/May I survive?/Ah Sir Army Suit/You're psychic").

Overall, very melodic, with some great harmonies, and well played, with some Beatlesque (of course!) moments.

Sorry but I have to remain completely confused, shocked and sickened that Sir Army Suit is -for some amazingly bizarre reason- not considered a masterpiece and even to this day is going by completely unnoticed by just about everyone. An extreme shame.

Klaatu proves that the third time is once again *another* charm.

Sir Army Suit is one cool album. By "cool" I mean songs like "Older" and "Mister Manson" are the kind of songs kids in todays world would instantly love and appreciate. They both feature insanely catchy vocal melodies, and the latter even reminds me of late 70's Blue Oyster Cult such as "Godzilla". These two songs not only hold up really well through repeated listens, but they sound just as fresh and energetic as they did back in the late 70's. Not to mention they spark a return to Klaatu's original roots such as resembling a song like "True Life Hero".

These two particular songs also arguably sound completely melodic (like most of the album for that matter) and if you include the previous two Klaatu albums, you have a grand total of three diverse and *highly* creative pop albums.

All three albums in a row would make one heck of a purchase for a pop fanatic (or a Beatles fan) so I suggest all the people out there who have a passion for creative and melodic pop music to go right ahead and buy the first three Klaatu albums. You won't regret it.

"Everybody Took a Holiday" is quite possibly the most melodic song I've ever head, and immediate Beatles connections are almost guaranteed. It's THAT good. "A Routine Day" reminds me of either Revolver-period Beatles or classic 10cc. Not sure which. This particular song proves that Klaatu can deliver with lyrically-meaningful creativity as well as giving us an instantly enjoyable vocal melody.

"Tokeymore Field" reminds me of "Penny Lane" quite a bit, and perhaps even BETTER than the Beatles classic since it hasn't ever been played anywhere over the years, like FM radio stations for example (which, as we know by now, ignorantly chose to focus on the aspect that Klaatu was a wannabe Beatles band which is certainly debatable).

I personally believe Klaatu were simply fans of the Beatles and wanted to attempt continuing with more of the same kind of extremely diverse pop music. Unfortunately most people prefer screaming "This is not the Beatles! Get it out of here!" What a freakin' shame.

Anyway, "Dear Christine" is a beautiful ballad, "Perpetual Motion Machine" sounds like the late 60's psychedelic years of the Moody Blues never left, "Cherie" is a very British-influenced ballad with shades of Paul McCartney in the vocals, and "Silly Boys" is a REALLY catchy Alan Parsons Project-like pop song with robotic vocals and lots of dreamy instrumental creativity appearing in the middle and very end of the track.

Every song on Siry Army Suit stands apart from the other ones, thanks to more creative ideas than you can shake a stick at. Klaatu could very well be the most underrated band of the late 70's. Instead of dwelling on the fact they aren't the Beatles, just embrace them for what they are- the second best pop band ever.

As the old latin proverb goes "de gustibus et coloribus..". Sorry guys, this is plain incredible! Full of great lyrics & melodies, ahh if someone could give me 10 more albums like that what a happy man I would be.

Just to persuade the unfaithful (lyrics from "juicy lucy"):

"You spend your evenings with Alexander,
That fire breething salamander"

What more do you want?!

Side One
1. Routine Day - Klaatu, Woloschuk, John
2. Juicy Luicy - Klaatu, Woloschuk, John
3. Everybody Took a Holiday - Klaatu, Long, Dee
4. Older - Klaatu, Long, Dee
5. Dear Christine - Klaatu, Woloschuk, John
Side Two
6. Mister Manson - Klaatu, Long, Dee
7. Tokeymore Field - Klaatu, Woloschuk, John
8. Perpetual Motion Machine - Klaatu, Long, Dee
9. Chérie - Klaatu, Long, Dee
10. Silly Boys - Klaatu, Long, Dee

The third Klaatu album is a lot like their first. A handful of standout tracks mixed in with some average Klaatunes. This CD contains two of my favorite Klaatu tracks; Tokeymore Field and Routine Day. I have several thousand albums in my collection and Routine Day is absolutely one of my all time favorite songs by anyone, ever. Classic.

Pop arranging and production alone made this a viable listening experience. They attempted to go back to square one after their second album being a concept classical music album flopped artistically and commercially.

Again, if you like alittle Beatles light weight pop (as I do) than you came to the right album. Tracks 1,2,6,8 and 9 are worthy of the cost of the cd.

Three albums into their career and Klaatu were making huge leaps and bounds - backwards.

I'm afraid that the majority of the material here is painfully mediocre, and in some cases quite nasty (particularly towards the end of the album). On the previous two albums, especially on their high-water mark Hope, it would sound like a completely different band track-to-track. Klaatu were quite frankly not too original, and basically churned out stylistic imitations of their easy-to-spot influences, none of which ever seemed to blend together for a single song. However, these stylistic imitations were great and resulted in a lot of tracks that could easily have been long-lost Beatles tracks with multiple hard rock and progressive rock influences sprinkled throughout.

They basically followed the same format here except they forgot to add excitement or any element of surprise. The only time my ears perked up while listening to this is when something particularly bad came on. Not a good sign, and the longer it plays the worse it gets.

It sounds like they totally summed up the way they were feeling as a band with "A Routine Day," going through the motions and working hard with little success. Unfortunately, this particularly Beatle-ish gem is the only track that sounds like any feeling was put into it. Though it is most definately a very good song, it still doesn't compare to the peaks reached on their first two albums. "Juicy Lucy" is a fun little disco tune, although it is somewhat trite.

The rest of the album consists of very bland ballads and extremely feeble attempts at rocking out. The rediculous vocoder fiasco "Silly Boys" couldn't have brought the album to a fast enough conclusion.

Avoid this one at all costs, but by all means buy the first two albums, which will not dissapoint.