[kj] Anniversaries - Brighter 86 / Democracy 96 / Hosannas 06

[Nick Scott]

BTATS - Of its time, many criticised the sound however it was not really any
different than any of their other alternative contemporaries at the time, many
post punk bands sound was homogenised with synths, Echo And The Bunnymen, PiL,
The Banshees etc.  

Although considered a more commercial sound it still was a far cry from the
majority of stadium rock crap that the likes of Simple Minds were churning out
and beneath the synths Geordie had some really nice textures of melody, I have a
soft spot for the album.

Democracy - After the strength of Pandemonium as much as I tried to like it it
still remains at the bottom of the pile for me (I prefer OTG), I find it lacks
cohesion and is a badly produced mess.  Geordie summed it up in an interview
stating there were loads of analog synth pulses and Youth wanted to do his idea
of an American radio mix, ditched all the synths and all the guitar parts were
high to go over the synths....it was a mess.  

Personally though I found half the album half baked songs, I cannot imagine
Prozac People, Another Bloody Election, Medicine Wheel, Intellect being
reworked, for me not even a return to it and a new mix could save it from being
a disappointment.

Hosannas - Loved it apart from 'Lightbringer' and Jaz's disappointing and
somewhat lazy vocal, if any criticism could be drawn it would be a vocal
re-recording.... strong songwriting throughout from Geordie with great riffs and
some great orchestration from Jaz.

Maybe with the mixing the guitar forward production does take away from the
orchestration that Jaz provides and I know many criticise its production and
track length, I find it suits headphones really well (as did Extremities) and
personally like the majority of track length....its very much a Geordie riff
based album and although obviously more industrial sounding than early KJ it
does rely on repetitive build the same, and that suits track length. 


> 
>     On 11 April 2016 at 23:31 Karl Doyle <karldoyler at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
>     Anybody argue for a reappraisal of these three 'divisive' releases?
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