Henry Cow - Legend CD (album) cover


Henry Cow



4.10 | 142 ratings

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4 stars HC is HC (hardcore), complex and eclectic.

4 stars - occasionally worth 5 stars, and I give extra points for the authority etc. (which things of authority? skills? potential?), because some art seems to be quite worthless in this album. 2 stars for tracks 9 and 10. It could be three stars for this album... ? no.

Nirvana for Mice (1. 4:53) is nice one, cohesive fast avant-jazz song with many different elements. Strong bass&brass couple with drums running on background. Sax bouncing little bit almost all the way, but not teasingly, like sax tends to do - but it's fart (y) s(t)imulation of mice. 0:52 - 1:02 reminds me of Dream Theater's "take the melody and let it sound like something else with different rhytm" - also instruments are different. -- At the end of the song there's Magma. Starting at 3:54, following with three parts which are also Magma rhytms, and at the very end with Magma-vocals! Gong instruments on background.

I like Amygdala (2. 6:47) as second (or first) best song (masterpiece it is). Note!: Compare the beginning of it to the ending of Nirvana for Mice. 1:20-> this is musiic that I like very much, sounds funny but not too much. And shows why I like experimental - you could "get" "stuff" from some experiments. Slow moving Zappa guitar. 3:44 folky rhytms, Mike Oldfield. I think this whole song as folk, somehow. 4:00 aah, and I can't help loving these wind-instruments (before and after 4:00). 5:34 Gong again. I seldom like smooth waters and loose melodies, but this is like diverse nature and maintains same atmosphere and feelings.

Maybe the best song Teenbeat (4. 6:57) grew from its introduction. Eastern sax and choir. This song has more rapid changes to unequal parts also the atmosphere is changing. Different jazz kits. Musically inspiring. 3:00 sliding but rappy violin crowns the cake. Very psychoactive pattern, synopsis, fills the end. Reminds me of Diana Deutsch's musical studies. And the whole album, of course sounds little like canterbury too - also with its mathematics (and for example Magma's math). I don't know much about atonality, but

there's four "arty" songs. They don't grate on my ear, but I don't admire them too much. Teenbeat Introduction (3. 4:32) expanding and growing for Teenbeat. Nirvana Reprise (5. 1:11) , full, considered modification, but gets me sleepy. Tenth Chaffinch (8. 6:06), whining (zeuhl opera), noises, scenery, blah. Bellycan (10. 3:19), imagining of scoping inner body..

Extract from "With the Yellow Half-Moon and Blue Star" (6. 2:26) is little bit like Nirvana Reprise (nice price for mice) with intervals and impression of guitar (full orchestra) - strange that I like the sax.

Teenbeat Reprise (7. 5:07) , fast beat, electic guitar, instruments like fire igniting, dying, igniting... And dramatic sudden end (It may seem stupid to point one little part of the song, but I think i got some point) still the tension continuing on next song.

Nine Funerals of the Citizen King (9. 5:34). This is song - with singing. It's pleasant and you can understand the complexity of HC maybe better when listening this. Instrumental level is also interesting, though vocals are instrument. Refreshing careful mystic. Peculiar (somehow chantey) psychedelic melody. 2:16 dramatic (blah, let it be).

Songs are attached to each other. There's warm feeling in me through "experiments", unlike it could be expected. Tracks 2 and 4 gets me, others are a bit lame.

progressive | 4/5 |




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