Customer Reviews

Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I discovered this album by accident in my local library. What a find! Upon first taste I realised that I had never heard music quite like this before. Mark Linkous bravely puts the music in the background on the slower tracks, and leaves his whispered vocals in the foreground to carry the weight of the song - and how it works. I found myself intrigued by the weird background noises on 'Homecoming Queen', captivated by the simple beauty of 'Saturday' and energised by 'Hammering The Cramps'. Two track titles which perfectly sum up this album are 'Heart of Darkness' and 'Sad & Beautiful World'. The world contains darkness, sadness and beauty, but for me Vivadixie is a graphic portrayal of the beauty within that dark side. This is an album that is not scared to express itself. It doesn't hide behind grooves, or booming beats - it just says,"take me for what I am." Musically I find this recording hard to describe - a bloke who likes messing about and creating interesting sounds with his guitar gives an introspective view of himself and his world? This is not a party album, it is for late night listening only. But it's also one of those albums that the rest of your collection will fear - because once you have put it into the CD player, it is VERY difficult to remove it! If you enjoyed Morrissey and The Smiths, if you find yourself drawn to Gene and you happen to have a soft spot for Lou Reed - his weirdness, his jumbled lyrics and infectious mellowness - then your music collection will never be complete without this classic album.

I can't say enough good things about this album. This album is so rich in emotion, passion, and textures that it holds up over years on its own. This is deeply personal music but not in the sometimes annoying and all-the-time cliched singer/songwriter confessional style of Countings Crows et al. This absolutely is NOT lo-fi. Rock critics are generally very ignorant of how music is made and calling this lo-fi is no exception. Make no mistake, I liken his studio talents and ingenuity on the level of a Trent Reznor or Roger Waters. The couple heavy numbers are a bit of an anachronism but ultimately, the contrast just adds more power to the quiet fury of the rest of the album. This is meant only for cold, rainy, November nights spent alone when it feels like the world has let you down once again. You will know it's all ok and you are not alone.

Onwards from the first notes, which are fragile and sound all covered with dust, this album creaks along slowly and beautifully through haunted images of carnivals, decay, and open fields. 'Homecoming Queen' and 'Weird Sisters', which begin the album, are two of the most gorgeous songs I can remember hearing. Both are filled up with schizophrenic lyrics concerning sparklers, horses, and bulging eyes, which only add to the sense of disorientation that comes from listening in to Linkous deliver the songs deleriously. There's a rawness and a freshness to some of the songs on this album that the band was never able to re-create on later efforts. And there's an honesty to all the moods of the album, and some lines are delivered openly and genuinely enough to provoke weeping. The album doesn't reveal itself entirely on the first few listens, but after enough time with it the music began to dig it's way deeply into my brain. It's one of my Favorite Records of All Time, and I reccomend it with severe enthusiasm.

While Good Morning Spider is awesome, Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot is undoubtedly the better of the two Sparklehorse albums. Homecoming Queen and the Most Beautiful Widow are classics. This whole album is a classic actually and I'll feel bad the day good ol Mark stops making albums.

'Vivadixiesumbarminetransmission' is a solid vehicle for Sparklehorse's unusual motif: rural American gothic. An incredible air of melancholy hangs over this, the Virginia group's moody debut. Frontman Mark Linkous sounds deeply depressed as he evokes lonely farm life through music as filmaker Tim Burton might do on the silver-screen - coloring his images with a sad but playful Gen-X goth edge that renders 'Vivadixe' closer to Britpop than to Glen Cambell.

Try to imagine Thom Yorke writing Radiohead's next album in an abandonned farmhouse in Kansas.

This off-beat formula, when it works, is just devastating. Tracks "most beautiful widow" and "homecomming queen" resonate with quiet tragedy; "cow" is a great anthem of bittersweet romance. Though Linkous never ceases to sound defeated, 'Vivadixe' boasts a handful of relatively up-beat tracks; "rainmaker" is exceptionally strong without compromising the album's unique atmosphere.

Though there are weak links ("someday i'll treat you good"), 'Vivadixe' ultimately feels a bit more than the sum of its parts. The occaisional (and rare) miss-steps Linkous makes fail to dampen the album's powerful overall effect. This is an elegant piece of work.

Since my 1996 introduction to Sparklehorse, seeing them live during a time when Mark Linkous was ambulating in a wheelchair, buying this album and exploring its depth and amazing qualities, I have followed the band religiously. Linkous I would compare to Neil Young more than any other artist, both with his alternative country sensibilities and range of emotion and eccentricities. This album remains his quintessential work. Musically, the Sparklehorse experience may be summarized by simply listening to but a few notes of "Spirit Ditch." The paradoxes that permeate the Sparklehorse worldview are all present in full force here as well. As Linkous observes, it is indeed both a sad and at the same time, a beautiful world. Which may be just another way of saying, for however lonely you may be in this life, "the parasites will love you when you're dead, la la la la la."

This album has it all. A regular musical catharsis, it swings up and down throughout a range of emotions that can be tiring at first, but becomes welcome with repeated listenings. Linkous' first album is also his best (although I love them all in their own way) and its experimental nature make for an uncommonly good listening experience. Standouts on the album include Rainmaker, Tears on Fresh Fruit, and the minor radio hit Someday I will Treat You Good. I remember thanking the radio station for playing this album back in 1995 when so much lookalike "alternative" also-ran music was floating around clogging up the playlists.

Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot is an album that is surely worth the time of anyone who appreciates truly personal music.

I could waste time and type out 1,000 words telling you why you should buy this album. Chances are, if you've reached my review, you've undoubtedly already read at least half a dozen (if not more) reviews telling you what I will say now: BUY THIS ALBUM. If it does not move you, you are not human.

Sparklehorse is: noise, surprises, brilliance in their slow songs and brilliance in their fast songs. Rainmaker is the best known song, but certainly not the best one. Cow, Sad & beautiful world, Someday I will treat you good...all this and more on one CD, what more does one want?

Never have i known an album so distraught and heart-felt.To listen to the aptly titled-'viviedixiesubmarinetransmissionplot' is to visit that place within us all through the honest eyes of an all too familiar stranger.This is Linkous stranded in an epic desert singing quietly to himself as the world listens in.Distorted,tranquil,at times-disturbing,this is a truly remarkable record that was never really acknowledged.WAKE UP WORLD!!! This is incredible stuff...