23 Nov 2024
Eru Dangerspiel - Great News For The Modern Man album review
21 Aug 2009 // A review by lukefitzmaurice
With any experiment, there are always going to be some things that work out great, and others that don’t really go down so well. Therefore, with any experimental album, the same is bound to happen. 'Great News For The Modern Man', the debut offering from former TrinityRoots member Riki Gooch, is a perfect example of such an album. Some of the tracks are brilliant, but others seem, well, a little bit too strange for my liking.
The album mixes elements jazz, roots, blues, beats and soul, with varying elements of success. A few of the songs, 'Sun Again' and 'Coq Au Vin' for example, were fantastic. 'Coq Au Vin' in particular I really enjoyed, it reminded me of Sola Rosa’s latest album, and in my opinion is the best track on the album. Then there were a few songs, such as 'Sambaskool Dropout', which I felt could have been great, but fell short for some reason.
Then there were the songs that were just plain weird. The album has four tracks titled 'Interlude', all less than one minute long, and all of which seemed to me to break up the continuity of the album. I don’t quite know what Gooch was trying to achieve by having these songs littered throughout the record, but I personally felt the album would have been better had they been left out altogether. The same could be said about the one minute intro to the album, which I felt was also a little strange.
If I was to describe the album in one word, I would say cluttered, which is probably the reason I was slightly disappointed. Taken without the strange intro and the four interludes, this probably would have been a very good album, but it could have been far better had Gooch kept things a little more simple.
With any experiment, there are always going to be some things that work out great, and others that don’t really go down so well. Therefore, with any experimental album, the same is bound to happen. 'Great News For The Modern Man', the debut offering from former TrinityRoots member Riki Gooch, is a perfect example of such an album. Some of the tracks are brilliant, but others seem, well, a little bit too strange for my liking. The album mixes elements jazz, roots, blues, beats and soul, with varying elements of success. A few of the songs, 'Sun Again' and 'Coq Au Vin' for example, were fantastic. 'Coq Au Vin' in particular I really enjoyed, it reminded me of Sola Rosa’s latest album, and in my opinion is the best track on the album. Then there were a few songs, such as 'Sambaskool Dropout', which I felt could have been great, but fell short for some reason.
Then there were the songs that were just plain weird. The album has four tracks titled 'Interlude', all less than one minute long, and all of which seemed to me to break up the continuity of the album. I don’t quite know what Gooch was trying to achieve by having these songs littered throughout the record, but I personally felt the album would have been better had they been left out altogether. The same could be said about the one minute intro to the album, which I felt was also a little strange.
If I was to describe the album in one word, I would say cluttered, which is probably the reason I was slightly disappointed. Taken without the strange intro and the four interludes, this probably would have been a very good album, but it could have been far better had Gooch kept things a little more simple.
Great News For The Modern Man
View Track Listing
View Track Listing
About Eru Dangerspiel
2009's sold-out, critically acclaimed, mind-warping show left punters hankering for more and elicited ecstatic responses from many who cited it as the show of the year. The band featured on the CD and 5.1 Surround Sound DVD from that show includes soul legend Whirimako Black, multi-instrumentalist/composer Jonathan Crayford, Laughton and Fran Kora, Anna Coddington, Mara TK (Electric Wire Hustle), Parks (Ladi6), Chip Matthews, Julien Dyne and Isaac Aesili (all Opensouls), Joe Lindsay, Scott Towers and Toby Laing (all Fat Freddy’s Drop), Mike Fabulous (The Black Seeds Lord Echo), Will Ricketts (The Phoenix Foundation), Ross Burge (The Mutton Birds), Ned Ngatae (Dimmer), Submariner (Che Fu, The Turnaround), Lewis McCallum, Olga Gryniewicz, Nathan Haines and The Dangerspiel Community Municipal City Choir.
"Bringing together a vibrant mixture of local musicians, more than just a celebration of band leader Riki Gooch’s idiosyncratic compositions - the Eru Dangerspiel concert was a celebration of New Zealand's musical community and its intimate connection with audiences across the country. Viva La Musica!" - Martyn Pepperell
Visit the muzic.net.nz Profile for Eru Dangerspiel
Releases
Other Reviews By lukefitzmaurice
Urbantramper - Urban Tramper - 'Rise & Ride Toward' album review
05 Dec 2009 // by lukefitzmaurice
Ok, I’ll admit, before I listened to this album, I had never really heard of Urban Tramper. Their name rang vague bells in the back of my mind, perhaps I’d heard snippets on the radio or seen a poster in the street somewhere, but if you’d played me one of their older songs I probably wouldn’t have recognised it.
Read More...
Diesel Phoenix - 'Here's Something We Prepared Earlier' album review
05 Dec 2009 // by lukefitzmaurice
'Here’s Something We Prepared Earlier' is the new album from Auckland five-piece Diesel Phoenix, a hard hitting record which throws together rock, punk, pop, and even a little bit of metal. The album opens with the eerie instrumental track 'Willard’s Run', a song which provides a haunting introduction to the rest of the album.
Read More...
Cairo Knife Fight - Iron album review
01 Aug 2009 // by lukefitzmaurice
When I first listened to this album I immediately got the impression of movement. The first track definitely felt like it was driving towards… well… something, I wasn’t quite sure what at that stage.
Read More...
Good Laika - Followed by a Trail of Sparks review
30 Jul 2009 // by lukefitzmaurice
The press release that came with this album read, “When listening to Good Laika’s sophomore album Followed by a Trail of Sparks, you could be forgiven for thinking you’d stumbled across some lost soul’s travel diary.” It was an interesting introduction to an album, so I sat with eager anticipation as I played it through for the first time.
Read More...
Fat Freddy's Drop - Dr Boondigga and the Big BW
11 Jun 2009 // by lukefitzmaurice
I fell in love with this album about five and a half minutes into track six. Up until that point I was reasonably impressed with the album, but I felt like Fat Freddy’s Drop hadn’t quite captured the vibe that made their first album so immensely successful.
Read More...
The Veils - Sun Gangs Reviews
07 May 2009 // by lukefitzmaurice
A word of warning – on the whole, Sun Gangs seems pretty slow. And to be fair, it’s true that the album contains one or two tracks that are indisputably subdued, title track Sun Gangs being one that immediately springs to mind.
Read More...
Sola Rosa - Get It Together review
11 Apr 2009 // by lukefitzmaurice
There is something irresistibly funky about this album, and it hits you within seconds of pressing play. The opening track, The Ace of Space, has a kind of Ocean’s Eleven quality to it, and as I listened to the rest of the album I never really shook the feeling of being engrossed within a Las Vegas casino heist.
Read More...
The Mint Chicks - Screens Review
31 Mar 2009 // by lukefitzmaurice
First things first, DO NOT judge this album the first time you listen to it. That’s what I was tempted to do, because in all honesty, after listening to Screens once through I was a little disappointed.
Read More...
Most Viewed Artists
Latest Galleries
NZ Top 10 Singles
- APT.
ROSÉ And Bruno Mars - DIE WITH A SMILE
Lady Gaga And Bruno Mars - BIRDS OF A FEATHER
Billie Eilish - TASTE
Sabrina Carpenter - I LOVE YOU, I'M SORRY
Gracie Abrams - ESPRESSO
Sabrina Carpenter - SAILOR SONG
Gigi Perez - LOSE CONTROL
Teddy Swims - A BAR SONG (TIPSY)
Shaboozey - GOOD LUCK, BABE!
Chappell Roan
More Content on muzic.net.nz
Google Site Search
Custom Search
100% New Zealand Music
All content on this website is copyright to muzic.net.nz and other respective rights holders. Redistribution of any material presented here without permission is prohibited.
Report A Problem
