- Ten by Pearl Jam
- This is My Truth, Tell Me Yours by Manic Street Preachers
- Thunder and Consolation by New Model Army
- Transylvania 90210 by Wednesday 13
- Through the Ashes of Empires by Machine Head
This album is like a time machine. No song on it is longer than 4 minutes, including Brainsaw which ends with You are My Sunshine skipping like a stuck record. You listen to it, everything is a short sharp punch. Before you know it has run it's 45 minute course. What better way to kill time?
You start with Knives which clocks in just under two minutes, with it's whispered opening and it's screamed promise to 'get drunk and fuck you up.' and it's refrain that 'all people are shit', long before a masked behemoth from Iowa coined it for the next disenchanted generation. Before you know it, you are Going Nowhere and about to Die Laughing 'Lost in a world with no reality'.
Along the way to this midpoint you have been told that 'Your beauty makes me feel alone / I look inside but no one's home' on the immense Screamager (surely one of the best rock tracks to break Top 10 in the charts). Hellbelly has told you that 'I'm not afraid to die, / I'm just scared of going to Hell / Your car salesman smile says it all, / you just wanna be / Jesus without the suffering, Jesus without the suffering ...' as it seemlessly picks up where Screamager leaves off (My personal favourite transition between two tracks on any album, tho Stop It Your're Killing Me to Going Nowhere is a damn close second). You know that 'The world is fucked, and so am I / Maybe it's the other way round, I can't seem to decide' (from Stop It You're Killing Me) and you've had a great time getting there.
The middle section has Unbeliever telling you that I 'Don't belong in this world or the next one / Wasting every day to my own end / Feeling awkward, feeling clumsy, hating / Everything I've ever done before'. Trigger Inside with 'I was awkward as a child / Blueprint for my wretched life / Confidence I've been denied / Lonely, lonely'. Through a Lunacy Booth to one of my all time favourite covers, Isolation (originally by Joy Division).
The album brings it home with Turn's suggestion that we should Turn and face the strange, the door is open, you're awake / You're storming Heaven without thought, you're storming Heaven without God. Followed by the revelation that 'Masturbation saved my life' on Femtex. 'Don't wake me, I'm so empty / I, I, I tried, I'm sorry on Unrequited'. Ending with the (IT workers) refrain of 'User, user, you sucked it all from me / User, user, your bullshit I believed / I'm in Hell and I'm alone'. Ok, ok, so it's not about a life in IT, but it could be!
Pure brilliance. I told you it was a time machine, I've not noticed the time go by whilst listening to this album writing this.
I'm ducking this one this time as there is barely anything between the tracks and not a week link in sight.
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