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Sonic Suck From Heaven: A Review of Heaven Sent

Slanted and Recanted | Plainsboro, New Jersey | 08/06/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

""Sonic Suck From Heaven: A Review of Heaven Sent"



Half Japanese suck. Jad Fair, as the only constant member of this band, has absolutely no traditional abilities as a musician whatsoever. There are more bad Jad albums than any other artists. Buying one of his albums (unless you're a massive Jad fan) is always a risk. He is undisciplined. He records so many songs that the good ones are so often lost amongst the detritus of his satisfactory work. There, that's it. Right there-that last statement right there, that's the one I want. He does have good songs, but they are really difficult to find unless you're a superfan.

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So therefore, what should you do if you just want to buy one Jad album to find out if you're his kind of person? You should either get "Greatest Hits" if you're a greatest hits type of person or you'll do what I have found is a time tested way to find the album that's best "if you only buy one album by this artist" which is the way I am most of the time. Right here on Amazon, listen to all the samples for as many Half Japanese albums near the top of their hit list. The reason to only listen to those is because if it was really that good, it wouldn't be on page 17 of the results list. It would be near the top. If it's an artist that you have one album in mind because of its historical value or cult appeal, then get that one. Otherwise, get the album that has the largest number of music samples that you like listening to. I figure, if you are addicted to some of the samples, then you'll probably like the album around the sample.

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This brings us to "Heaven Sent" that I'm reviewing at the moment. The first track ("Heaven Sent") is indeed an hour (61 minutes) long and the whole album is a whopping 72 minutes. You get a lot of value on this album. The weird thing is that the entire 61 minute song sound exactly like the sample you heard. There are no time changes or theme shifts, it's all just quiet shoegazer/wuss rock stuff that you either love or hate. Personally I have never been much of a fan of wuss rock and when you add Jad's childlike everythingness it becomes a little weird. But then that's any Jad album you're likely to hear. It all sounds like this but with varying degrees of harshness. On the harshness scale, this is one of the least harsh (most soothing) albums he has made in nearly 25 years. One great reason to get this for a couple of bucks used is that you can tell all your friends that you have an hour long pop song and watch them be impressed. Is this the best Jad album for you to get? How the heck should I know?? I'm not your freaking mother. I was talking to Jad once before I got this and I asked him if the song "Heaven Sent" was really an hour long and he said that it was. He recorded it in Amsterdam and as he said: "I really wanted to make a song that filled an entire album but at 61 minutes, we needed to stop because we needed to feeed the parking meater outside the studio." Isn't that cute? Yeah, I thought so. To answer one question, the hour long song has a traditional song structure which means he sings for almost the entire time. I would love to know how many dozen pages of lyrics he needed to write for this song. As far as jad albums go, this has none of his catchy numbers, but all of his adorable innocence and sweetness."

THE WORLD'S GREATEST HOUR LONG SONG

Bubba Zanetti | Indianapolis, IN USA | 03/26/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Without ever really changing the basic structure of the title track, Jad Fair and the rest of Half Japanese manage huge emotional leaps and brilliant comedic bounds that somehow turn a deceptively simple pop song into a musical journey of epic proportion. The rest of the tunes seem like shorter variations on the opening theme, but if you've already made it through the whole of Heaven Sent, a little repetition isn't gonna bother you much."