Stream of Consciousness & Music Reviews

      More good jazz-rock from Steely Dan and some blues thrown in in the first half on Katy Lied. The band, at this point primarily a duo between Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, continues the excellent output of tightly composed and well performed jazz fusion that the first three albums established. Katy Lied is able to provide more of this style while refining it further and adding enough variety for it all to feel fresh, especially after Pretzel Logic's experimentation. The composition in the instrumentation and especially with the various solos are still great here and really get across whatever mood each song is going for, be that jazzy, blues, or whatever else. The lyricism, which I normally greatly enjoy in SD's works, is a little lacking in places/perhaps a little too vague to where I had trouble grasping onto a songs meaning from the lyrics. Not a big issue as I still think that they're good overall, but thought I'd mention it since it stood out to me a little....

      After more development time than I care to admit, my new game "I'm Going For A Walk" is out now!  Link to the game! It's an interactive fiction game with simple mechanics and an emphasis on walking around (so more "fiction" than "interactive" I guess). Explore at least 1 area and discover the secrets held within (and without)! Uncover the mystery of whatever is going on, it's not really clear! Estimated playtime is around 2-2.5 hours. And of course feel free to reach out to me if you get stuck or need help, I'll be happy to help you within 1 business day. Thanks for reading and happy trails! Special Thanks: The Inform Recipe Book intfiction.org Forums My friends :) Steely Dan

      Revolver seems like a shift in what The Beatles want to make, expanding out from their typical pop focused tracks to being more experimental and creative with their music. A lot of the songs here still have pretty similar structuring as before, with lots of short 2 minute verse-chorus-bridge songs, but the instrumentation and timbre of everything does a great job of helping all the songs sound unique and gives Revolver its own solid identity in the band's discography up to this point. Different styles of guitar between both acoustic and electric, implementation of fully realized string units, and the introduction of their beloved sitar really make it feel like the band is coming into their own and moving past the initial pop rock sound that found them their fame in the first place, and in my opinion I think that it's all pulled off pretty well. They're able to take their established identity and incorporate these new elements smoothly in a way that simultaneously do...

      Deceptive Bends is a little all over the place, which is not a good thing. Typical of art/prog rock, the album tries a variety of different styles and sounds across its tracks that turn out being pretty hit or miss. Some of the songs have nice distinct feels that I found easy to get into while others felt pretty generic and weren't too captivating. This also leads to the album as a whole not really having a strong identity or feeling too coherent, because the different styles they try out don't fit together all too well. The standout aspects of the music are the guitar, both acoustic and electric, and the vocal harmonies, which all sounded great and I thought were creative and well performed. Other than that no single aspects really jump out one way or the other; the songs that didn't grab me just didn't leave much of an impression and thus have nothing of note to really mention. I will say, however, that a sizeable chunk of the songs feel... dated? That's abo...

      Pretzel Logic really feels like the band is just spinning their wheels for the runtime. The album overall is more of the same from Countdown to Ecstasy but not quite as good. The music still generally has that Steely Dan smooth flow for a lot of the songs and the performance and presentation are still good, but it feels a little generic compared to what else the band had already made by this point. The structure of the songs are all same-y and unambitious, with most of them being characterized by simple alternating verse-chorus with a bridge in the middle. The band doesn't try to experiment or branch out too much, but on the few songs that they do I found it to be good and wish that they had maybe tried more weird stuff here since I think that it probably would've worked well and given the album more of a distinct identity. The instrumentation is strong as is though, and has some nice variety between tracks. Pretzel Logic is overall a fine album that I enjoyed but i...

      Meddle is a fairly experimental album, at least in terms of its scope for Pink Floyd. The band employs a wide variety of tones and timbres to create a broad array of sounds that really showcases their prowess in the studio. The different ways they're able to use the instruments to make the different sounds for each track is very impressive, having haunting guitar and vocals on One of These Days and Echoes, to the softer acoustic ballads of A Pillow of Winds, the almost tropical carefree sound of San Tropez, the straight blues of Seamus, it's all done so well and really shows the band's talents. To go along with this, the overall production value is very high, and some of the tricks and techniques that they show off (such as delayed guitar riffs, manipulation of vocals on tape, and especially some of the stuff that they do on Echoes, like the *ping* at the beginning or the shepherd's tone near the end) are fantastic and create such a strong atmosphere. My only real...

    That's the Way of the World, Earth, Wind & Fire's sixth album, really showcases why they're an iconic soul/funk group. This album, serving as the bands initial big breakthrough hit, is an excellently crafted piece of work. The composition in these songs is great, both for the funky chart topping type songs and the slower ballads. There's not much that I can say to really explain how good it is; it's Earth, Wind, & Fire, you've heard them before and know that they're good. And the vocal performances are just phenomenal as well (Maurice White has just an amazing voice, especially in his falsetto). I really wish that I had more to say about the album, but my thoughts just boil down to "it's really good and all of its elements are great without anything that I can find much fault in". It's very high within its number ranking, but just shy of crossing the line to the next one.     Highlights: That's the Way of the World, All Abou...