THIRD

A quote from comedian and musician Bill Bailey: "The thing about playing jazz, you can play any old chord you like. Any old nonsense really - and people go 'yeahhh nice...'. But most of jazz sounds like a surrealist car alarm".

Unfortunately for me this just about sums up the first track of this album, Facelift. I'm sure many will say its on a level above my own comprehension of music, but its almost 20 minutes of out-of-tune or out-of-time jamming that just doesn't seem to go anywhere. This is a shame, because I actually quite like the second track on the album, Slightly All the Time, which does at least seem to have some structure and is loosely at my level of acceptability for jazz rock. Then we have a song that includes vocals from Robert Wyatt, which unfortunately will always grate on my unrefined ears, before Out-Bloody-Rageous, which is more of a jam like Facelift, but 'cleaner' and better... for ten minutes. It then strips back into a more surreal and experimental second half. The sad thing it I think I would have enjoyed this track far more if I hadn't already endured the marathon of the first three.

Well worth trying out if you're in the mood, but personal tastes mean I have no idea how anyone can rate this an essential album.