Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 09:40:44 +0000 From: Andrew Norman (nja@LEICESTER.AC.UK) Subject: Ride - Tarantula Apologies to those on both lists. "Tarantula" is only available this week (as the chap in the shop explained to another customer, that just means the shops can't order any more copies, not that it won't be hanging around in the racks for several months). It's not a bad album - not as weedy as "Carnival of Light", but it's not up to the standard of "Going Blank Again", let alone their first EPs. Three quarters of it written by Andy Bell, he's thankfully ditched most of the hippy nonsense but the lyrics are still a dismal amalgam of cliches. Musically it veers between Stone Roses (1995 version) and Oasis with the repellent oafish macho posturing replaced by Ride's slightly fey dreaminess. In short, it rocks - though having listened to a fair amount of Frank Zappa's early seventies stuff recently, I wasn't too impressed by the wah-wah guitar solos or the electric piano tinkling. I think casual fans are probably better off with the "Black Nite Crash" single - the album is basically three times as much of the same thing. Not the best way for the band to end, but a slight recovery after the nadir of the last album. -- Andrew Norman, Leicester, England 12/03/96 nja@le.ac.uk, http://www.engg.le.ac.uk/staff/Andrew.Norman/ Radio 4 Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 04:32:19 -0800 From: einexile the meek (einexile@netcom.com) Subject: tarantula: essential listening It's too bad Ride broke up. For a short time near the end, they did achieve an exquisite chemistry. For a fleeting moment, there was actually a band worse than both the Bay City Rollers and Huey Lewis and the News. I'm not sure it needs to be said, if you follow the logical progression of things, but I would bet money that no one who has not actually heard this new album has any idea how bad it is. However much you hated Carnival of Shite, and however farther you expected them to fall, trust me, you are NOT prepared. I cannot think of when I have heard music this awful. It quite literally toyed a bit with my gag reflex. Just a little. Honestly attempting to come up with some theoretical comparison, all I can think of is what it would be like to be forced to look at Greg Brady naked. Here is an album that actually--not figuratively or in the imaginary world of a cruel record review, but quite literally--induces mild nausea. Just thinking about it is close enough. That's why I recommend it--there are few if any other albums like it. It seems to have been brilliantly designed to be awful. Every convention that works has been thrown out while every hackneyed old idea in the book seems to be lavished over. The singing is awful, like few things I have ever heard. The rhythms are all fucked up. It's like the drummer is sick to his stomach and having an anxiety attack at the same time. For his part, he did not write the good song this time. There is no good song; everything he touches turns from shit into maggot-eaten lamb brains. You must find this album and listen to it for as long as you can, because there are few experiences like it, and I am not kidding around when I tell you I suspect they actually set out to make the most disgusting music possible. If so, I have to respect them for it. On the other hand, the idea of respecting Ride is one I haven't entertained since around 1992. And they certainly look these days like the type of people who write this sort of music by accident. BLEAGH.