Welcome to the Riverhouse is the second album from Sweden's Holy River Family Band. They took the ambitious step of releasing a double CD that is chock full of space rock and psychedelic music, offering up an exhausting 108 minutes. Despite the length, I found Welcome to the Riverhouse more digestible than the debut, which was only a mere hour long. There are more actual songs here rather than the - at times - insufferable long psychedelic jams the debut brought forth.
What's most disconcerting about Welcome to the Riverhouse, is that there are no obvious sublime moments to be found here. That one track that makes you drop everything you are doing and focus intently on the stereo. There's plenty of great to go around, but not exceptional. It seems a bit more thought should have gone into the pacing, and of course some obvious editing would have helped. The vocals are also not an asset, often times you'll find yourself hoping they will end quickly. Overall, the album still falls into the "excellent" category, but on the low side. The good news is there are no clunkers here, so this is a good album to hit play, and let it reveal itself in the background. Without question if you're looking for a place to start with the Holy River Family Band, this is the CD to go with, though I'm just as fond of the debut rating wise.
Ownership: CD: 1997 The Wild Places (USA). Purchased new online upon release. If you want the full album, you'll need to get the double CD. There is a truncated version on LP, but I cannot imagine the allure beyond owning it in that format. How times have changed. In 1998, new albums being pressed on LP were rare - only a bare few labels still engaged in that practice. The Wild Places/Gates of Dawn owner Michael Piper was a major LP collector, so he would press albums on LP where he could. But there wasn't much demand honestly (including me - still the case for new albums!). Today it would be the opposite. One would expect a 5 LP set with different colors for each vinyl. And then a simple slip case CD would be included, and that would be truncated! Crazy world.
8/19/12 (new entry); 5/24/19
No comments:
Post a Comment