Broken Valley (+DVD) - Life Of Agony

Advantages: great melodies, strong musical expressionism, good lyrics, Caputo's outstanding voice
Disadvantages: It's all a matter of taste. Nothing for the faint of heart.

.../ discman / winamp or iPod playlist. 'Hope' starts with roaring guitars and a bouncing-off-the-wall drum beat; Caputos lyrics are drawn out long, sound tired of life and serve as a stark contrast to the constantly demanding barrage of slightly aggressive riffs and the funneling psycho guitar solo. 'Weeds' is classic L.o.A. stuff: Fleeting down-tuned guitars broken in several places by stuttering riffs and the chilling vocals of an almost out-of-breath Caputo make this a hair-raising and yet quite mosh-pit compatible song. 'Gently Sentimental' comes with a slower and rather subliminal bass-line over a hard and flat beat. Hovering guitars with a slightly psychodelic edge swing like Poe's pendulum over Alan & Keith's lyrical agony. 'Tangerine' is even more sombre, but without reaching for the nether regions of doom rock... Read review

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Advantages: 6 BECK VIDEOS (1 BY SPIKE JONZE)
Disadvantages: DVD AUDIO ONLY PLAYS THROUGH A DVD PLAYER, SO NO ALBUM PLAYING ON STEREO

...I'm a huge Beck fan and despite not over enjoying certain tracks here and there, Sea Change is still an all time favourite. Sea Change (produced by Nigel Godrich), originally released on 4 different CDs, with just the covers differing and none of them giving you the lyrics in a less annoying and difficult to read style, is still one of my favourite albums. This DVD-A, despite including the videos, isn't a whole world different. But for suckers like me, who not only bought the 4 CDs and a promo version of the album, just had to have these pleasingly amateur-esque videos. If ever anybody poured their heart out on an album like Beck does here, please let me know. Trent Reznor didn't do bad on Pretty Hate Machine by Nine Inch Nails. (Entirely different bag though!). STANDOUT TRACKS*. Opening with The Golden Age* preparing you somewhat... Read review

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Advantages: Four NIN classics, plus two good bonus tracks
Disadvantages: The short length, and tracks 7-97

...It wasn't really until Trent Reznor's masterpiece 'The Downward Spiral' that Nine Inch Nails dethroned Ministry as the largest industrial band on the planet. 'Broken' wasn't really a full release, but a stop-gap EP to fill the five year gap between that and the 1989 debut ('Pretty Hate Machine'). Only six tracks are listed, two of which are relatively short instrumentals. The other four are, however, all classics, and there are two 'hidden' bonus tracks too, which are worth a listen. Tracks 7-97 each consist of a three second silence, before we get to these extra songs - a cover of Adam Ant's 'Physical' and 'Suck' (which I'll get to later). Since there aren't many songs, I'll say a bit about each - I'll keep it short though, because otherwise I'll just be repeating myself (they are rather the same). 'Wish' is a catchy little... Read review

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