Complete As And Bs, The - Impressions (The)

Advantages: a few excellent songs
Disadvantages: too many partial songs

...This is a surprisingly good album from a suprisingly good band. When I first heard Belle And Sebastian at a friends i thought this would be an ok band making ok albums. How wrong I was. I first got Dear Catastrophe Waitress and found it was ok. Later i found a few other B&S albums on sale and i thought i'd give them a go so I bought them. Included in this pile was Storytelling. I played it first and thought little of it. Second round of hearing i couldn't beleive my ears it was amazing! Yes there were a few pointless songs and annoying dialogues from the film but other than that I was greatly impressed by songs such as 'Fuck This Shit', 'I Don't Want To Play Football' and 'Storytelling'. Then came the downside. After a few weeks of listening to it i couldnt help but notice that played as an album alot of the songs were very similar. I... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful

Advantages: An excellent cross-section of the best mixes of New Order songs.
Disadvantages: Disappointing Armand van Helden effort of 'Bizarre Love Triangle'

...a fan of some of Armand?s stuff, but this is repetitive to the extreme and only worth skipping. K-Klass create a pleasant yet somehow unspectacular mix of ?Ruined In A Day?, but from this point on the album gains pace again and finished on a trio of high notes. Farley & Heller do a first-class job of translating the guitar rhythms of ?Regret? into cheerful, summery dance track. In stark and complete contrast, Howie B.?s version of ?Age Of Consent? is grim and moody, the bleak vocals cutting through the dark, heavy strings. Fluke?s ?Magimix ?of? Spooky brings the whole album to a conclusion. Though the absence of the full vocals of this track is a little disappointing, it is a good remix which sounds a lot like the one that precedes it, but with more beat and less bleakness. Glancing through the track list (see below) it becomes... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Not for the Complacent
Disadvantages: Preconceptions can be wrong

...or the inane ramblings of gangsta rappers telling me how their hoe is really a b*tch. I don’t want Britney grunting or Christina screeching. I want words, mood and above all, feeling. Whereas the Beautiful South may not be, how can I put it, overly cheerful, they are able to convey their souls through their music and affect me on a deeper level. So, when I heard about this album, I had a real dilemma on my hands. To buy, or not to buy, that was the question. (Oh dear, sorry Shakespeare) Weighing up the options, I finally decided that I had to have it, if only to keep my B.S collection complete. But shelling out £12.99 at HMV hurt more than I thought it would. When I got home, I decided that I would play it once to check that it wasn’t damaged, and then shelve it with the rest of the B.S cds. The first thing I noticed, having managed... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful