THE BENDS

While "Pablo Honey" was a solid rocking album almost all the way through, "The Bends" holds lots of quiet songs which balance nicely the more upbeat ones, but do not really move me (Bullet Proof, Street Spirit). I have the same feeling with bands like "Muse" or "Placebo". I prefer their killer rocking ones than their mellow production.

No wonder that "Bones" is by far my fave. This powerful melody combined to a huge wall of sound is absolutely outstanding and I'm not asking for anything else. A great song indeed. In the genre, I consider the opening track "Planet Telex" as another of the best songs featured on "The Bends". Fine and noisy backing band in con junction with a very nice vocal aprt from Thom.

But almost half of the songs are on the soft side, even if "Nice Dream" is a dual song featuring both sides of their music. Almost mellowish, it speeds up wonderfully for a short time; just to give the listener a good kick. The energetic "My Iron Lung" is also built on the same principle, even if the wild parts are longer and therefore is most appealing to me.

I am not really found of this album but it is ending on the same rating than "Pablo". Thanks to the (lack of) rating possibilities. "The Blend" is only average IMO. Five out of ten, upgraded to three stars thanks to a few bunch of good rock songs (like "Just" for instance). But the complaining Sulk is a bit too much of a sloppy thing.

Don't look around for too much progressiveness on this album. Your quest might be vain.

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