Hi, for starters wonderful weblog, but is any person else seeing the sidebar all messed up making use of firefox edition two? It truly is pushed about to your centre for me. =-=
If you want a great introduction to the excellent Poodles then this is good. I tend to like live albums in general, they give you much more of an insight into the real meat of a band than a studio album does. The down side is that if you are a band that has produced three beautifully produced albums then the music can lose some of its sheen. In this case the good news is that it doesn’t really matter as the raw essence of the songs here is well up to the task. Even a shortish guitar solo and shortish drum solo can’t diminish that.
That said I tend to also listen to live albums differently, while I may play a new album stat to finish a few times I then slip into skip mode, with a live album more often than not I just hit play and soak it all in. Where the album does make a huge misstep though is that the between song banter is not in English. Now you might think that is fine, after all this isn’t an English band: but just take a second to consider that from a marketing perspective – look at the potential market for the record and ask yourself how many of those potential buyers speak Swedish?
For me the most memorable things from live albums can be the banter between songs: think of Dave’s ‘Here’s a song for you’ on ‘Live in the Heart of the City’ or Phil’s ‘Do any of the ladies want a bit more Irish in them’ on ‘Live and Dangerous’. There are of course many more examples. And to me after a few listens whilst I love the songs the between song banter is just a huge detractor from the overall album. Let’s face it if you are that Swedish why sing in English? Now don’t tell me it’s not because of the far bigger non Swedish-speaking market out there?
Musically I’ve heard few Live albums this good in recent years, really the sound is amazing and the songs sound impressive to the last. Where it all falls to pieces (and here I’m thinking of repeated listens) is the banter. I take a star off just for that.
Oh wait is that the sound of the crowd singing back to the band in perfect English? Don’t let it dissuade you though, maybe its just me?
Released November 5th and available with a Live DVD entitled ‘In the Flesh’ packed with extras this may just be one of the best purchases you make all year.
