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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very strong energy flow, October 9, 2002
"Motel California", the last album of Ugly Kid Joe, is much similar with its predecessor "Menace To Sobriety". UKJ sounds still funky, hard and melodic here but on the other hand a bit more cool than in the ones before it. "Motel California" has some rap influences. This record shows once again that UKJ is very adaptive band: For example, "It's a lie" is very aggressive and uplifting song but "Undertow" is very slow and melancholy. Ugly Kid Joe is a good example of a band which is melodic and hard in the same time. As its predecessor this record is very well-produced and sounds extremely sharp and strong. Those people who have listened to "America's Least wanted" only will find that UKJ sounds very modern and cool here. Because UKJ sounds so good here, it is very "ugly thing" that this is their last album. Anyway, UKJ has been and will be a very strong influence for many alternative rock/ new wave metal bands.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Motel California / Heavy, Funky and a total trip, February 2, 2002
This is a real stepping stone for the ugly kid californians, unfortunately it was to be the last, the promo was little, but the sales were pretty good (except america). According to the amazon sites it's now shifted 300 000 in america and 55 000 in the UK, clearly UKJ hit the world when they ventured out of santa barbara.From start to finish, the whole 12 songs are diverse.Unlike the previosu 3, Motel takes a good few listens to breathe and encompass.....Something ukj have always done throughout their 4 releases they pack a cocktail of unusual and highly infectious rock sounds...Motel is hard to sum up as a whole, there's trippy songs like sandwich and bicycle wheels, agressive punchy titles like it's a lie and then laidback cool, dark californian rock numbers like undertow and would you like to be there...whatever you do, whatever you buy, you need this album.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
Third time unlucky, March 29, 2009
By the time this was released in the mid 90's UKJ - the band with the joke name done good - had seen their musical subgenre wane with the rise of another and been dropped from Mercury, having one last kick at the cat with Castle.
First up the production sounds dirtier. Not that they were trying to be grunge and it's not the reduced budget that makes this less crisp sounding that their debut, it's just a contiunation of the development they'd undertaken with their second album that makes this release sound and feel grimy. That's not a problem for some albums but when part of the charm of UKJ was their deliberate humour the dirtier sonics don't help attempted joke tunes like Sandwich or Rage Against the Answering Machine where the listener spends some time straining to hear what the point of it all is.
However the vocal melodies over the very average riffs in the background are still there and Whitfield Cranes' voice seems to have gotten raspier over the years allowing him to take it in a different direction.
Musically the muddier vibe helps disguise the fact that these guys aren't exactly Yngwie Malmsteen types but the music does come across as being honest and there is twinges of California funk in the brew that adds some variety and is another welcome link to their former, bouncier, platters.
All up if you were a UKJ fan to start with you might as well pick this up to complete the trilogy of their full length albums as you should be able to get it cheap. If your just a generic hard rock/metal fan you can probably skip this, especially as I'm writing this in 2009 when so much other more mind blowing stuff has been released since this album slithered unannounced onto the shelves.
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