Album Of The Week
Album Of The Week - 10/10/2026 - Track 4
My penultimate selection from this week's album is the track A Moment Of Reflection.
Although featuring on the From Inside soundtrack this haunting piece could easily have been taken from the Telekon album from 1980.
The piece itself is led by a reflective piano riff that is simplistic but completely compelling.
Album Of The Week - 10/10/2026 - Track 3
My third selection from this week's album is the track Leviathan.
This is one of the darker, more intense pieces taken from the soundtrack, From Inside.
The track has a repetitive, disturbing, insistent electronic section near the end giving it a real edge.
Album Of The Week - 10/10/2026 - Track 2
My second selection from the Gary Numan & Ade Fenton soundtrack to From Inside is the track On A Red Lake.
It opens with a haunting piano section before building into a beautifully melancholic electronic piece.
Album Of The Week - 10/10/2026
From
Inside (Soundtrack) – Gary Numan & Ade Fenton
This week we return to my Gay Numan
collection with an album regarded as his first dedicated soundtrack album, with
the 2014 release, From Inside.
I do not usually buy soundtrack albums
for films I have not seen, but I made the exception with From Inside as I saw
this album as an essential addition to my Gary Numan collection.
The music was co-written with long
time Numan collaborator, Ade Fenton, who has been heavily involved in Numan’s work
since the 2006 album, Jagged, and also includes the Savage and Intruder albums,
both of which hit number 2 in the UK album charts.
The film itself is a post-apocalyptic
animated horror film based on a graphic novel telling the story of a young
pregnant woman making a train journey across a war-ravaged wasteland.
I have not seen the film in full,
but what I did see, to be honest, I was more concentrating on the music.
The music itself is typical Gary Numan
of the era. Unlike his first soundtrack project, for Human in 1995, which was
not a true soundtrack but small electronic pieces of which some were adapted
for Numan songs, the music for From Inside was specific pieces for the film
based around the actual story.
Given the dark subject matter and
Numan’s ability to craft deeply atmospheric, haunting and sinister music this
is a perfect coming together of film and music composition.
Numan said he found the writing for
this project liberating as he could work outside of the constraints of the
verse and chorus format, meaning what get with this album is music based purely
around his musical interpretation of scenes and moods.
I have often said the test of any
good soundtrack is how well it stands in isolation from the film, and From
Inside is a very good listen. Only two of the pieces exceeds four minutes but
even with 26 tracks on the album it flows quite nicely.
I think this album, as well as
having an appeal to Numan followers, would also find interest in fans of dark ambient
and industrial music generally.
All in all, this is a good
soundtrack album and has its place in my Gary Numan collection.
My first selection is the film and
album opener, The Train.
Album Of The Week - 03/10/2026 - Track 5
My final selection from Guerilla Tactics is the closing song on the album, the aptly name Love Hope Strength.
As well as being a song of optimism it is also the name of the cancer fighting foundation co-founded by Mike Peters. Set up raise awareness and funds as well as a register of bone marrow donors for those who require bone marrow transplants.
More than any song on the album, this epitomises The Alarm.
Album Of The Week - 03/10/2026 - Track 4
My penultimate selection from Guerilla Tactics is a punk rock anthem in keeping with much of the album.
Not Gonna Take It Anymore has shades of Stiff Little Fingers in a song about resistance and defiance.
Album Of The Week - 03/10/2026 - Track 3
My third selection from Guerilla Tactics the track Right Now, which is a change of pace and style from my previous 2 selections.
The song has The Alarm adopting a punk reggae approach and it works well with this song about resilliance and resistance.
Album Of The Week - 03/10/2026 - Track 2
My second selection from Guerilla Tactics is the short and punchy track, Alarm Calling.
Following on from yesterday's selection, this is a song with a direct punk rock delivery about the news and media overload that we are bombarded with constantly.
Album Of The Week - 03/10/2026
Guerilla
Tactics – The Alarm
This week we return to my
collection by post-punk / new wave band, The Alarm.
Released in 2008 and the album
features a powerhouse line up that really captured the direct, punk style that band
leader, Mike Peters, was taking The Alarm back to.
Following Mike Peter’s decision to
leave the band in 1991 following the Raw album and tour (album of the week
26/10/2024) the band broke up and the name of The Alarm went dormant for 11 years.
Mike Peters resurrected the name of
The Alarm and released In The Poppy Fields in 2004 which followed a number of
website only releases in the build up to this first major comeback album.
The line up featured former and
current members of Stiff Little Fingers, The Mission and Chelsea and it was
this line up of Steve Grantley, Craig Adams and James Stephenson that delivered
a more direct, punk infused version of The Alarm.
Between 2004 and 2010 this line up released
4 very good albums of which Guerilla Tactics was the third of them.
Mike Peters had always been very adept
at delivering heart felt, infectious 1977 rooted punk rock but with a new wave,
rock sensibility and that is exactly what we get with Guerilla Tactics.
In retrospect, it would be fair to
say, that Guerilla Tactics, delves into the 1977 energy of punk rock with a mix
of confrontation but also fused with the hope and optimism that was a constant
throughout the array of Alarm albums.
Most of the songs are quite high
tempo and all around the 3-minute mark, they come, they hit, the move on.
Nothing on here outstays its welcome. However, there some punk reggae infused
songs that add balance and variation as well as tempo changes.
For me, The Alarm were a band that
could do very little wrong and since I first heard the acoustic / electric
passion of the Declaration album I was hooked by the sincerity of their music.
Guerilla Tactics is an album from
the heart delivered by a band whose pedigree in punk and alternative rock speaks
for itself.
Just over a week following my last
review of an Alarm album back in April 2025, Mike Peters sadly passed away
after finally succumbing to his 30-year battle with cancer. He kept writing and
recording to the very end and the final Alarm album, Transformation, was posthumously
released.
My opening selection is Three Sevens
Clash, a song that references the roots of the punk explosion in 1977.
Album Of The Week - 26/09/2026 - Track 5
The final selection from IBM 1401,
A User’s Manual is Part 5, The Sun's Gone Dim and the Sky's Turned Black.
Although the last track on the album,
thematically moves away from the user manual part of the album its acts as
an epilogue to the work.
It’s another truly beautiful piece
of music which features electronic and operatic vocals to give the whole piece
a real contemporary edge.
It is a very haunting and atmospheric end to a compelling and critically acclaimed album.
Album Of The Week - 26/09/2026 - Track 4
The penultimate selection from IBM
1401, A User’s Manual is the piece, Part 4/ IBM 729 II Magnetic Tape Unit.
This is the final part of the
actual User Manual suite and like yesterday’s track is a beautiful orchestral piece
laced with the machine recording that form the basis of this project.
My third selection from IBM 1401, A
User’s Manual is Part 3, IBM 1402 Card Read-Punch.
It is almost criminal that such a
stunning piece of music is named after a computer component.
Given that the whole suite is based
around recordings made by Johannsson’s father of the computer machinery, who was
an IBM engineer, this 10-minute piece of music which contains some of those
recordings is indeed a majestic and beautiful tribute to his father.
IBM
1401, A User’s Manual – Johann Johannsson
A complete change of tone this week
as we feature the first of my three albums by Icelandic composer, Johann
Johannsson.
IBM 1401, A User’s Manual was released
in 2006 and is Johannsson’s fourth original album.
The album was inspired by a recording
Johannsson’s father made of an old IBM mainframe computer with its hums, whirls
and clicks. This recording subsequently became the foundation for this rather unique
work which became a major original work for the composer.
The IBM 1401 is a decimal computer
launched by the computer giants in 1959 and held a degree of reverence for its
place in the world of computing. To be fair, it’s not my area of interest and I
had not heard of it until this album came to my attention.
Johann Johannsson was also a renowned
composer of film scores during a period of 14 years, from 2004 to his premature
death in 2018 at the age of just 44 composed music for 17 film projects. His
later works were released posthumously which included the score for the film
Mary Magdelene.
I became aware of this work at a
time when I was taking more interest in contemporary orchestral music, including
film scores while also exploring the work of leading, minimalist composers such
as Ludovico Einaudi, Max Richter and Olafur Arnaulds.
I am not sure exactly how this particular
album came to my attention, but I remember thinking it seemed a bizarre subject
to base a work upon. However, I was impressed with the album and looking back
on it now, it’s an enjoyable listen.
There are times, when these sorts
of compositions can been labelled as pretentious and for me, they hold the same
place in one’s thinking as contemporary art.
With all that in mind, IBM 401, A
User’s Manual is an interesting listen with some glorious orchestral passages mixed
with electronics and spoken pieces from the machine’s manual.
As I have often found with what I
have heard from Johann Johannsson, there is an air of melancholy in some his
moments and that appeals to me very much.
My first selection from the album
is the opening track is Part 1 / IBM 1401 Processing Unit, a piece that
contains some beautiful, orchestral passages.
My final selection from Loud Like
Love is the closing song on the album, Bosco.
On an album packed with emotive songs
this quiet, considered song pulls at the heartstrings in a plea from a person
who is inflicting hurt on loved due to the ravages of addiction. The delivery of
the vocal from Brian Molko is full of pain and regret.
It’s a fitting to a classic Placebo
album.
My penultimate selection from Loud
Like Love is change of pace for Placebo following a dynamic opening to the
album.
The song, Hold On To Me, is an atmospheric
and emotive track focusing on the isolation and vulnerability of love. A song given
depth with guitar effects and orchestral layering and plays out with a spoken
text about transcendence of the spirit.
It’s a deep song that stands out on
the album both musically and lyrically.
My fourth selection from Loud Like
Love is probably one of most pained and tortured songs on the album.
Exit Wounds is song with a strong
rock track, backed with subtle electronics but it’s the desperate vocals of Brian
Molko that carry the track with its lyric of obsession, need and jealousy.
A quite stunning song.
My third selection from Loud Like
Love is the track Rob The Bank.
This is a very catchy, infectious
song about obsession and unconditional love.
The lyrics portray erratic personal
actions made acceptable within a relationship and is backed some dynamic bass and
discordant guitars.
My second selection from Loud Like
Love is the lead single from the album, Too Many Friends.
Despite some difficult lyrics, this
song contains the melancholy and irony that I like in Placebo, with a statement
very pertinent to modern life via social media.
Loud Like Love -
Placebo
This week we feature the second of
my 9 albums by UK alternative / post-punk band, Placebo, to be selected, with
their 2013 release, Loud Like Love.
As I stated back in February 2025 with
my piece on their Meds album, I was not really aware of Placebo until 2003 when
they released their fourth album, Sleeping With Ghosts. I was immediately impressed
with the directness and compelling melodies of their guitar driven sound topped
with the distinctive, engaging vocals of Brian Molko. His style of heartfelt,
often melancholic vocals reminded me of Michael Stipe of R.E.M., and this
complete package has made Placebo a very engaging band for me.
In my music listening progression
they fit perfectly into how my punk tastes developed into the wider post-punk
realm which goes right back to the early 1980’s with the likes of The Cure and
U2.
By the time we got to 2013 and the
Loud Like Love album, I was keeping up with Placebo releases and following excellent
prior albums of Meds and Battle For The Sun I was going into the album with
high hopes.
It would be fair to say that from
the first listen I was grabbed by Loud Like Love and 13 years on it is for me still
an outstanding album. There is a depth and variety in the delivery on the album,
with themes that tackle various aspects of love, touching on the romantic,
obsessive and the loss of love and subsequent pain.
There are moments of real beauty
balancing more direct rock offerings and if I had one little niggle and it’s a small
one, there are a couple of lines where the lyrics could have been a bit more
thought out. However, this does not detract from what is a quality album.
Although the album is guitar driven,
piano and keyboard sections from Stefan Olsdal, give the music some real
maturity and atmosphere which adds layers to the work.
Generally, the album was well
received for its clean production although some said there was a feel of “stadium
rock” about it. To me that seems an unfair critique as the ultimate test of any
band is how well they can deliver live, be it in a club, arena or stadium.
Loud Like Love reached number 13 in
the UK album charts and produced 3 singles, none of which made any commercial
impact.
My first selection from the album
is the opening and title track, Loud Like Love. A guitar driven, anthemic song
which focuses on the hope and redemption of love.
My final selection from Night
Eternal is the closing track, First Light.
As in keeping with the rest of the
album there of themes of gothic darkness mixed with biblical and mythology references
within the song.
The song delivered at a brooding mid-paced
tempo with clean and death vocals and is a strong ending to a very good album.
My penultimate
selection from Night Eternal is the track Dreamless (Lucifer & Lileth).
A song steeped
in modern biblical mythology of a doomed relationship between the fallen angel,
Lucifer, and former wife of Adam, Lilith.
It’s the perfect
material of gothic metal and delivered beautifully within this song.
Night Eternal - Moonspell
After our summer break we return to
my album of the week with the first of my 8 albums from Portuguese metal band
Moonspell to be selected.
As far as metal genres go, they are
labelled a gothic metal band but there are a wide variety of styles with their
output, which for me, goes back to 1999 with their Butterfly Effect album.
What there is with Moonspell is
power within their music from driving guitars and strong vocals from band frontman
Fernando Ribero who can deliver both baritone clean vocals and throat searing death
metal vocals.
Atmosphere is added, as with many
metal bands within these realms, from keyboards and sampling from long term member
Pedro Paixao.
With the addition of blast beats
and intricate guitar riffs there are moments when the band move into the realms
of death metal and black metal, genres that are generally out of my usual heavy
metal listening.
It’s this ability to move
seamlessly across various styles and influences that keep Moonspell relevant and
current over a recording career now in excess of 30 years.
Night Eternal was Moonspell’s 8th
studio album of original material, released in 2008 and for me, was well
received as I found their previous album, Memorial, a difficult listen as it
veered too much into black metal territory and made the album a little single
dimensional.
Night Eternal maintains the bands
power while incorporating enough melody to capture and hold the attention with
plenty of gothic metal influences and a variety in vocal delivery.
Without a doubt though, this is a
no holds barred heavy metal album and one that I rate very highly.
As well as the creativity Moonspell
display and the alternative nature of their music there has been sustained
commercial success for the band with Night Eternal being the 5th top
10 album in their home country.
For anyone looking to explore these
stalwarts of the gothic metal scene Night Eternal is an excellent place to
start.
My first selection is the album
opener, At Tragic Heights, an atmospheric and hard-hitting track that contains
a passage taken from the bible’s Book of Revelation.
Monster – R.E.M.
We return to my REM collection
again this week with their 9th studio album and the 8th
to be selected as my album of the week.
Released in 1994, Monster, was a
real departure in approach for a band, that by then, had built such a solid
creative and commercial foundation they could explore and expand upon their trademark
sound and style.
In that regard, Monster highlights
this perfectly with a record that was a huge stylistic shift from their highly
successful previous releases of Out Of Time and Automatic For The People, albums
that had endorsed the band as one of the leading alternative rock bands of the
time.
Whereas more recent releases had
seen the band incorporate acoustic guitars and strings, Monster was a back to
basics album that returned the band to a more direct, guitar driven sound as per
the 1988 album, Green.
The driving force on Monster is
Peter Buck’s no holds barred guitar which dominates leaving Michael Stipe’s
often oblique vocals further down in the mix.
Stipe said at the time the album theme
was about image, attraction and the need for identity reinvention, themes largely
set around celebrity culture, a culture that the band and Stipe in particular
had been quite scathing about.
Critics at the time said this was
REM’s attempt to embrace the “grunge rock” sound and there could be an element
of truth within this, especially with the emphasis on the down tuned, fuzzy,
aggressive guitars. However, REM could never be accused of bandwagon jumping to
gain commercial success, they had already attained a high degree of commercial
success by this time. Ultimately, the album feels like part of the reinvention
that is covered in some of the lyrical content of the album.
Stylistically, Monster is a challenging
album, a wake up album, in many ways similar to U2’s Achtung Baby, a record
that needed to break the mould to avoid complacency and in that regard, it
worked perfectly.
I loved the album when it came out
and 32 years later I still really rate it a key REM album in what is an impressive
array of 15 studio albums the band produced in their very successful career.
Monster performed very well
commercially in the UK for REM, becoming their 3 consecutive number 1 album. Six
singles were released in the UK from Monster, which is half the album. Although
this seems excessive the reasoning behind it was to keep REM in the public eye
ahead of their first major tour in 6 years.
My first release is album opener,
What’s The Frequency Kenneth, a song which Michael Stipe stated is about the
older generation being able to understand youth culture.
Comments
Post a Comment