Villa-Lobos: Chamber Music

Advantages: Hugely enjoyable music, fresh and free of pretence
Disadvantages: Unfamiliarity?

...Brazil’s most celebrated classical composer wrote some two hundred works for piano, many of which sadly languish in the wilderness. This disc will do much to advocate his appealing musical personality. The collection begins with the suite “As Tres Marias,” a trio of movements lasting barely three minutes. Based on the stars of Orion’s belt, it is one of Villa-Lobos’ most popular pieces, here played with great panache by the Canadian virtuoso Marc-Andre Hamelin. The closing Rudepoema, a fiercesome score from the 1920s dedicated to Arthur Rubinstein, paints a completely different sound picture. It’s a concentrated work, powerful and uncompromising, and perhaps surprisingly it delves into the world of polytonality as realised by Milhaud in the same decade. It takes several listens to fully appreciate the larger scale that Villa-Lobos... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Nice packaging, Rayna!
Disadvantages: Wimpy metal

...As soon as Chamber Music was released in britain I instantly rushed out to buy it as I had been extremely impressed with their self titled debut album. I poped it into my CD player and was offended to her pansy pop music. Gone were the thrashing guitars and monster riffs and replaced by keyboards and strings. Coal Chamber have mellowed out so those expecting mosh pit anthemes like on the original album will be disapointed. Some aspects of this album are very good and some songs not all that bad, my favourites were... What's in your mind?, Feed my dreams and No Home. This album is full of okay tracks none which really stick out the tracks are all similar and can be very repeative and boring. There are no stand out tracks on this album such as Loco, Big Truck or the classic Sway. I picked up the Digipack version of this album... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: If you like the first, you'll love this one, the album gets better the more you listen to it
Disadvantages: Not the best sounding music around

...This is the second album from coal chamber and definitely the better of the two. The album still has their signature sound from their last album which was self titled. There is also a collaboration on this album with Black Sabbath’s front man Ozzy Ozbourne for a cover version of Peter Gabriel's ‘Shock The Monkey’, which was released as a single Some of the tracks on this album include ‘Feed my dreams’, What’s in your mind?’ and ‘Tyler’s song’ which was written about the lead singers son. This album shows a lot more emotion in the lyrics than their previous album This band lives up to their shock rocker image, with there band name, look and the sound and lyrics of their music. This album may not be the best I’ve heard but this is the type of album that grows on you... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful