Customer Reviews

Utah Saints

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

 

 

I like dance music with a hard edge to it, and that's what Utah Saints deliver. I first heard "Something Good" on a sampler CD and that was my first introduction to Utah Saints. I have always liked Kate Bush, she's really funky. "Something Good" combines her vocals with a driving dance track that's really something to behold. I listen to it over and over and never get tired of it.

All of the tracks on this CD are good, but the hardest ones are (besides "Something Good") "What Can You Do For Me", "New Gold Dream", and "Kinetic Synthetic". Their music really makes you want to move.

Everybody has a different groove. What makes one person want to dance doesn't necessarily work for the next. But if you like your dance music a little hard, then you'll like these guys.

Utah Saints, which sounds like a mixture of Techno, Dance and Rock is a rare but good breed. When I heard the first track 'something good' I immediately thought this had to be done by 'Bomb The Bass' (Beat Dis). But ofcourse it wasn't. This is one example of good classic techno stuff. Another good track 'I Want You' has more of a rock edge to it. 'What can you do for me' has a mixture of house and dance. But one of my favorite tracks off the album is 'new gold dream' its very trancey song, and its good dance music infact the whole album is!

It's amazing how much I heard them in the early 90's, and then suddenly never again. This is a good sound of the times though, and almost holds up even now. For the most part it's dance/techno, but there's a few slower pieces too. The biggest and best songs here are "Something Good", which samples Kate Bush, and "What Can You Do For Me", which samples both Kiss and the Eurythmics. Everything else is good, just not as club-ready as those two were. If you like the genre, this is worth getting if you find it. There should be a few used copies between here and "Utah".

This is dance music of its era but at the same time totally unique and timeless. Driving, dense, and amazing at times, it puts a lot of (actually most) contemporary stuff to shame. The big plus is it manages to sound REAL and not over-processed and that was the band's goal. The first cut has energy, driving drums, "piano", and samples Kate Bush for Pete's sake! The whole thing sounds like a labor of love.

In my permanent top twenty of all time favorite pop recordings and I am one fussy SOB! It's also one of the few dance albums I know of that holds up beautifully as simply a listening experience, although I defy you to remain motionless! This is the kind of overwhelmingly upbeat music a shaman could use for healing. Bless the owner of this who has great sub-woofers.

Why this album isn't better known is a tribute to the screwy out-of-focus quality to commercialized music. I know of a handful of albums, and a bigger handful of songs, that should be absolute classics and are barely known. Check out Pram (my all-time favorite band), Rita Mitsouka (a band not a person--some of the best and most offbeat New Wave ever) and the utterly individual Thin White Rope.

Sadly, later albums by Utah Saints just don't match up. A one-of-a-kind in all respects. Must have been visited by angels during the recording sessions.

PS I predict (and I'm taking dollar bets) that the instrumental cut Trance Atlantic Glide will become, in 200 years, the national anthem of some immense utopian space colony.

Sometimes we grow out of certain music - but if it was good enough we revisit it and find it still holds up. For me Utah Saints fits that category - I call it "feel good deadline upbeat music". First heard this at an eclectic graphic design studio called Galoob (now part of Hasbro) in San Francisco in the early 90's. It quickly took me out of any residue of rock and new wave and into, I guess, techno (with disco under rhythms/beats). Upbeat songs are "Something Good" and "What Can You Do For Me". "New Gold Dream" is a rip of Simple Minds - another uplifting crescendo group from the 80's. The rest of the "album" is slower but enough hooks to keep you going.

I'd heard the lead track "Something Good" before but I recently heard this entire album and I was blown away. There are a few moments on the album where the sound sounds dated (more so towards the end) but I kept having to remind myself this was Utah Saints and not The Crystal Method. Their sounds are so similar and this album is so solid all the way though that if you like TCM as much as I do then you'll love this album!

For those of you still living in the 90's, enjoy this album.
For the rest of the world, don't waste your money.
I got tired of hearing it so I threw the copy my wife had in the car out the window.
Now its lying in the street with the rest of the garbage. Thankfully there was only one album. Now if I can only rid myself of Yaz...

This CD is so good, it makes me shout: U-U-Utah U-U-Utah U-U-Utah UTAH SAINTS! U-U-Utah U-U-Utah U-U-Utah UTAH SAINTS! U-U-Utah U-U-Utah U-U-Utah UTAH SAINTS! U-U-Utah U-U-Utah U-U-Utah UTAH SAINTS! U-U-Utah U-U-Utah U-U-Utah UTAH SAINTS! U-U-Utah U-U-Utah U-U-Utah UTAH SAINTS!