ALOTOCB - Readers Reactions / Reviews!

[Keyop]

I haven’t posted on this site since it was the old site a long time ago, so hello again, long time, etc. Nothing like a lost 1996 album to make me post again though. I got it on Saturday and have listened to it several times since and have to say it’s a definite grower. On first listen I was initially disappointed until Demon kicked in and then the old, familiar feeling, hairs on the back of your neck and going all a bit light headed, kicked in and I started to really get in to it. Hooray.

It’s really obvious that there are degrees of finished here, some tracks are way further down the line, in terms of not only production but writing too, than others and I would guess not all of these tracks would have made the final cut were the album to have been released but it is great to hear where it was all going. The one thing that really strikes me about it is that every other album, whilst being undeniably PWEI, was on a different tack and a stylistic jump on from the last but there is definitely a clear linear progression from DDMA to these tracks. Maybe that’s because Clint’s vision dominated DDMA and then there was no Graham to counter that as they moved on to this. Not a bad thing just an observation that not having Gra and Clint competing against each other definitely made a difference to the band’s stylistic manoeuvres.

The vocal on T+A=$ doesn’t really float my boat as a 41 year old but I’m pretty sure as an idiotic 24 year old I wouldn’t have minded at all and, having read Adam’s sleeve notes, it’s pretty easy to see that it very much sums up the way they felt (man).

Going back to the time this was all happening, the yoot (people like us!) were crying out for a massive album to go nuts over and, unfortunately, they got Fat of the Land, which is a really average album (compared to Jilted Generation) and not this. It’s all “what if’s”, isn’t it!? But I can definitely see the material here making a big impact were it to have been released in 96.

Tl:dr? It’s good, they coulda been contenders….

[Dr Peter O'Boogie]

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