Search - Blonde Redhead :: Blonde Redhead

How can anything sound so much like SY and still be great?

B. Fast | Canada | 02/10/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I love how it starts. I love how you're thrown immediately into the opaque smoke of a dark, empty club. There's some screaming, and suddenly you're on the Sonic Youth Express into the tunnel voice of Kim Gordon. But I'm not criticizing - it's the same and yet different, SY but with better songs. If you could mix the best parts of "A Thousand Leaves" with "Dirty", here's where you'd be. Floating, falling, colliding, and repacking your chute with extra fat bass strings for the next trip. As with the Youth, it is the songs that stand on their own. It wouldn't matter who played them, they'd get any crowd throbbing. Unexpected bridges make you forget the chorus you promised you'd always remember, and suddenly the song is fading. Happy / sad, swirling in a marble cake of feedback and vocals, express the only true anguish ever heard in a rock song."

What a debut!

Justin Oser | 06/05/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is a magnificent album that mesmerizes me. In fact, it's so hypnotic for me that when I got it yesterday and listened to it, it had a very relaxing effect on me. I don't know if it would have that effect on everybody--it would probably jar most--but if experimental music and noise don't usually jar you, this album will relax you. Oh yeah--and the songs are incredible. I know people have compared them to Sonic Youth--and if you like SY, you'll probably like this--but Blonde Redhead certainly has a sound all their own and it's simply stunning."

Great Music, Mediocre Recording

Scooper | 07/31/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Blonde Redhead makes excellent music. This album is a collage of feelings swarming around in both words and music, as are the other B.R. albums. I have to admit, though, that this has the worst sound quality of any of their work. The guitars are muffled, the voice too quiet at times, and the bass sometimes indistinguishable. Despite these technical problems, though, the songs still come across as great. The album is excellent and worth buying, along with all B.R,'s others. Their resemblance to Sonic Youth is small. Kim Gordon and Kazu Makino sound almost identical when they sing loud, but I've never heard Kim Gordon scream... I mean ACTUALLY SCREAM in a song, as Makino does in Astro Boy. The effect is huge, and the emotion invoked by this band is nothing compared to the rambling commentaries of Sonic Youth."