AVIV GEFFEN

In 2002, Aviv Geffen have released his 9th studio album, which is called "Memento Mori". The name is taken from an artistic motif from the middle ages, known in english as "Remember the death", which combines symbols like skulls and skeletons in it's artwork. So it is understood that most of the song are based on death, a subject that came to Geffen's knowledge after the gone of his grandmother, a year before the album's release. After a half a year of rehearsals with his band, "The Mistakes", Geffen & The Mistakes drove to one of the well known recording studios in Europe, at Copenhagen, Denmark. Aviv have also produced & arranged, when his ex-producer, Louie Lahav, will take part as an artistic adviser.

The album is characterized with a division of violins & stringed instruments and a bombastic production, that turned into Geffen's icon. "Memento" was the first album that reached my knowledge, after all the media "buzz" that surrounded Geffen, claiming that "Memento" was his best album so far, and a brilliant one, like statements that have been quoted by Aviv's relatives.

In my opinion, the album have reached the expectations that the media have put to this album, and it is without a doubt one of the best albums from Aviv, if not the best of them. Geffen have excelled in great songs like "Ray Of Light" & "Salt Of The Tears" that are also characterized with the touch of an acoustic guitar and the perfect orchestration that clearly turns "Memento Mori" to a classic, eternal album. Another unforgetable track is the title song - "Memento Mori", that clearly became an anthem in aviv's crowd.

In conclusion, "Memento Mori" is one of the best album by Geffen, if not the best of them, It has the great balance between sound & production, and it is felt that in "Memento" Aviv have found the perfect combination between the soft & mellow songs, and his more powerful critical songs. In my opinion, the goal of "Memento Mori" is to show that, ironically, death is a part of life. The middle ages are so actual in these days, because it keeps reminding us as human beings to stay humble, and always to remember that someone is stronger.

Did someone said "Concept Album"? :)

5 stars.

In September 2000, Geffen released his 9th studio album, "Journal", that was produced for the first time by Louie Lahav, and also published by another record company, "Helicon". As usual Geffen have written the lyrics, the music, and the orchestration (with Daniel Salomon and Moshe Levi) and recorded 11 mellow melodic, catchy songs, That 3 of them became hits before "Journal" release date, "Wake Up", "Scars", and the title track, "Journal" and includes another potential hit songs.

"Journal" was a bit of a closing point, Geffen returns to his childhood musical influences, and moves into a psychedelic/electronic music borders ("Scars"). Geffen also featured his musical "fathers" that influenced him as an artist, and also became his close friends, Shalom Hanoch (that also was a member of Tamouz) and Arik Einstein, that the last one appeared on the title track, "Journal". The album includes also a tribute to Geffen's teen idol, Bob Dylan - In a cover version for "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall" as a bonus track that translated by his father, Jonathan Geffen and used to be performed by Dani Litani.

To conclude - Geffen continues with the mellow line like the previous one, "White Nights". "Journal" maybe can demonstrate Aviv's attempt to be more mainstream (for bad or for worse), but on the same time you can still feel the touch of "Hollowed" even here, in songs like "Scars" & "Look At The Sky", so there is a balance between the melodic tracks & the less-melodic ones, the more "aggressive" ones. This have might been a prophecy of "Memento Mori", who'll come out two years later, that was the best in the balance between these two attitudes.

3 Stars.

Aviv Geffen's 8th album is dealing basically with the break-up from Aviv's ex-girlfriend, Ilana, and naturally it includes many love-break up songs. The album was a huge success. It reached gold in a two weeks period, and within two months it allready reached platinum. According to many people's opinions, Geffen have understood that his crowd is not mentally built for an album like "Hollowed", and he had to continue with his known musical genre.

The music in the album gives an expression to the break-up pains of Aviv, and he shares with the listeners his feelings and his attempts to unite his own breaks; His abillity to expose his injures in public ("Our Song"), His suicidial thoughts ("Romeo & Julliet"), his moaning about the death of his love ("Something Between Us"). His dealt with his heart, that is breaking into pieces, and the yearnings that comes from him, is worth an appreciation. But with that, the album provides the voyeurism instinct, and gives the livelihood for local journalists...

In conclusion, "White Nights" is definitely the most sad album in Aviv Geffen's career, and also the melodic of them. The uniqueness in this album is the use of ethnic instruments used by Moshe Levi's production that in this album reveals Aviv's natural, non perfect voice. In my opinion, "White Nights" doesn't really reflects Aviv's whole pontential, it might reach some highlights (like in the title track), but it's not perfect, and it also too soft, at least for my own ear. 2.5 stars.

"Hollowed" came a year after "Full Moon". The album was directly influenced from his staying at London. The songs, which most of them was written first in english and only after that translated into hebrew, were much more heavy by any mean. The productions were more rugged, the messages had a political-social-critisicm texture, and the sound was much more hard.

"...This is a dark-black album that was influenced from London.. I understood that not everything has to be harmonic, melodic & beautiful. I learned mainly what not to create in London, 'Hollowed' is me at London..." (A.G) Many people have wondered about the album, and complained it is too heavy, and much of Aviv's audience asked where are the love songs, the pianos & the violins, and thought this is a wrong turnout in Aviv's career.

This is, by far, the darkest album by Aviv Geffen, and in my opinion the best. But "Hollowed" is considered, in Aviv's regular numbers, as a commercial failure. It has sold a big amount of copies, but it didn't reach gold, and didn't had big hits.

The best tracks of the album are "Big Dreams", a great song that is opened with a drum beat, accompanied by hard guitars & great melody. This song is a bit of a reminder to Aviv's earlier era which was more love-influenced. "Big Dreams" is one of the best Aviv Geffen tracks, and is still played at shows until today... The second is "Hollowed", the title track and the symbolic track of the album - which gives the picture of the album, strong, attacking, criticist lyrics, combined with an electronic sound, which demonstrates the balance between classic rock tracks and electronic rock, like artists like Radiohead. The song has an expensive video - with the successful model, Vic.

To sum up - "Hollowed" is definitely a turnout in Geffen's career, an album which proves that Geffen had the change from a poster on a depressed teenager's wall, to a genuine, eclectic and quality-based artist. 4.5 Stars.

In 1997, Aviv Geffen has made an important desicion in a life of an artist - to release a compliation LP, that symbols an end of an era in Aviv's career: from a teenager to a man. The First CD includes his hits from "That's Only The Moonlight" to "The Letter" (1991-1996), and the second is a B-Side album which includes live performances, out-takes and more...

The uniqueness of this compliation is in the fact that it has the two phases of Aviv's career in one album: In the first CD - "The old Aviv", the rebellious teenager shown on tracks like "Cloudy Now"; When on the other half of the compliation, you can hear his future as an artist: a more grown, considered artist - but also a prophet of apocalypse ("End Of The World", which is in a way the first step towards "Good Morning Iran").

In the second CD, along side the live performances, Aviv's fans had the chance of hearing new tracks: One of them became a great hit (and also a very good song) - "Let's Walk For The Dream". The song was named as the "Israeli version of Lennon's 'Imagine'", and was the third part of a trilogy - from "Cry For You", to "The Tears Rebellion", and this song as a finish, that symbols the transition from the tears of November to the hope and the utopia. Another favorite track of mine is "End Of The World" - a song that you can swear sometimes that it is a part of "Hollowed" - a masterpiece in my opinion - but maybe it is a preview of the album, that will be released a year after "Full Moon". The armageddon that is described is not physical, as many people may think, but it is spiritual - an inner death, of ourselves and our values.

When you look at the album with the theory of mine - that it is a sum up of Aviv's career till that point, indeed it is not a perfect choice of songs and the first CD really didn't reflect his first five years. So, in that case, it's worth only 2.5 stars.

A year after "Nowhere", Aviv Geffen is releasing his 5th studio album - called "The Letter". Like his "old brothers" he reached gold in a very short time... In the album you can hear the comeback of producer Moshe Levi, instead of Aviv himself ("Nowhere"), and also the eclectic sound of Geffen, influenced by American Folk, Rock & Country music. Like in the other albums, Aviv have wroted all of the lyrics & composings. The murder of PM Rabin is still shown pretty hardly in Aviv's music, especially in "Cry For You", that was the anthem of "The Candle Youth". The song is on track 12, and is a recording from a memorial ceremony for Rabin, in the Rabin Square, Tel-Aviv.

At that time, Israel have made her self criticism, and there was a national feeling of appeasement. People have looked up for someone to symbol Rabin's way, and some of them - especially the teenagers - found Aviv as the new leader of that mid-90's generation, and used quotes from his songs to express their feelings. Without even planning it, Aviv have became a national icon. He treated it with mixed feelings: on one hand with understanding, but on the other hand with fear. He never dreamed he will be in the center of the israeli consensus, the same one who rejected him just a year ago! Especially if you take a look on the traghic circumstance, he even wondered if he want to be that icon he became...

During all of that time, Aviv kept writing new material for his new album, when the songs were influenced by 3 main reasons: His strong love for his girlfriend Ilana, the forced break-up from his father that gone to New York with his wife, and - of course - Yitzhak Rabin's traghic murder. After presenting two songs he have performed in the past - "Too Much", that deals with an abuse of a women by her man, and "My Little Star" - that was a song of yearning for his father, Aviv has decided to release another song, called "The Tears Rebellion", that dealed with the atmosphere sorrounding the murder of Rabin, and the murder itself. He presented the song in a special press conference that he organized, as an opening point for his new tour, in the same name. The tour, to Aviv's claim, was meant for an older crowd, and the shows were in closed arenas - not in parks. Aviv arranged a number of weird press conferences, because of the things he said in there. Tens of photographers & journalists have converged to hear Aviv say that although the fact that Geffen have got closer to the officialdom, it was the officialdom that got close to him - not the opposite. When he ended, Aviv have joined "The Mistakes" and performed "The Tears Rebellion" to the journalists. The song was controversial by two quotes that created controversy: one is "The Blame Is On Us" (the chorus) - that refers to the left wingers in Israel, which in his opinion, that were complacent and didn't witnessed the inciting before the murder. Many people didn't agreed. The second is "It's not only the king is naked, he looks awful" - refers to the israeli president, Ezer Weitzman (RIP), that was known for his problematic quotes about girls in air force, and also have made a lot of shame when in Rabin's funeral he have talked about "the way we used to drink together"...

The album is characterized by a more acoustic playing (a turn-out point in his career, that will influence him in the future), less noisy like in the past - when the subjects are mainly the same - the army ("I'm Allowed To Die"), violence in the family ("Good Night") and more.. But, there are exceptionals, like for example "Jealousy" - in my opinion the best song of the album, a very emotional song about break-up, that was accompanied with piano & strings. The song didn't succeeded a single, but in the Aviv's close crowd it was meaningful. And one to remember was the title track - "The Letter" - which was the most remarkable song of the album, and a great radio hit. It is played in every performance by Aviv, when the lead quote is the chorus - "More & More & More... Never Stop, Never Stop Dreaming"..

You can feel in the album another sound that we didn't hear before, but sometimes it is too harmonic & soft. Although all of that, it is still hard to ignore the powerful masterpieces in the album ("The Tears Rebellion", "Tomorrow Will Never Come"), but most of the album is still repeating itself. Il'l give for an album like that 2.5 stars.

In 1995, Aviv Geffen released his 4th album, "Nowhere" (which is the first CD i ever bought...). The album, like it's previous have managed to reach gold in a short time. (in that case, a week) The productions in this album were at Aviv's hands, with a help of the engineer Reuven Shapira, and an orchestration by Moshe Levi. And as usual Geffen have wrote all of the lyrics and the composings in the album. The album stays in the agenda of "Aviv Geffen III" and deals with the same subjects: Unhappy teenagers, unrequited love, drugs & alcohol, public violence, unstable family relationships, car accidents, and infinite amounts of pain, loneliness, despair, sadness & depression.

One of the most remarkable songs on the album is the title track & the finale of the album - "Nowhere" - which nearly attacks everything that moves - the peace process, the country that sends and kills her soldiers in the on-going war, deep educational failure, forbidden sexual relations and abuse of animals. The line that got most of the attention was "..Who Is There, Walking Drunk/It's The Prime Minister..." - that many people have considered an attack at the prime minister at that time, Yitzhak Rabin - that was attacked by the right wing at the israeli politics, and considered as being an alcoholic. However, Aviv have denied any connection to Rabin, and said that song was writed in 1992 - and attacked the former prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir - and even if so, he rathered a drunk prime minister that brings peace that sober prime minister that raise wars. Another song, which is in my opinion a classic, is "I Loved You", that his debut performance was at a talk show (hosted by Gidi Gov). The song pictures a love story that Aviv have made, as a teenager. Aviv said: "It is a story i had with a grown woman.... We were together almost a month and then she wrote to me a letter in a very complicated language, and i was a little boy and didn't understood the meaning... Then, between the lines i've understood that she was tryin to tell me that she was with someone else.. This letter have changed my life around. I realized that i will never see her again, it was repressed by me, and it came back only now.. the song was written with a lot of tears..."

In those hard years, politicians from both political sides have used the "Aviv Geffen" icon to prove their statements. His performances (including radio time) was cancelled because of Aviv's opinions, and even his own political party - the left wingers, had a hard time to prove his sayings (for example, against the army). But one man who believed in Aviv was prime minister Rabin. He understood Geffen's means and his power to influence the nature. And so it happened that Aviv was invited to perform at the peace rally in November 4th, 1995, sang the finale of the rally ("Cry For You" - which originally wrote for Arik Einstein), and was Aviv was the last man who hugged Rabin, before was traghically murdered later that night.

To finish - "Nowhere" is definitely one of the great masterpieces by Aviv, where you can find 60's and 70's influences, when even the cover of the album was like Pink Floyd ("Atom Heart Mother"), but also in the production - with a special spot for the hammond, and the musical production that were for the first time in Aviv's hands. "Nowhere" is without a doubt that Aviv is steppin a big step forward as an important artist, great composer and a brilliant songwriter. 4.5 Stars.

Two years after "That's Only The Moonlight", Aviv Geffen released his second studio album, "Cloudy Now", that includes 14 tracks, 42 mins long. like "The Moonlight" this album also concerns about love, betrayal, violence, peace and parents-children relations, the production of Moshe Levi is felt like in the previous one, only this time Geffen's sound had became stronger a little bit and developed it's own nuance - unlike the last albums, who showed deep influences that you could hear simply in "The Moonlight". In the production process took part Moshe Levi, Aviv Geffen himself & his band - "The Mistakes". As usual, Geffen wrote & composed all of the songs, when at the visual aspect - it was Shachar Berlovich, who directed the videos for "Cryin On The Grave" & aspecially the controversial video for "Cloudy Now", that was popular at that time, due to the invasion of MTV to israel and the rock wave of the 90's.

It ain't hard to call "Cloudy Now" as the most successful album by Geffen; It reached gold in a month and a half from it's release date, and turned Aviv to a superstar level in the local measure, not only because of the growth of his shows, and became a local histeria (like in the Arad festival), but because of what he said & represented at that time - aspecially in "Cloudy Now", that shows social & political problems, and the video who added a visual vivid to this song, showing drugs, violence & prostitution scenes in the video, and even the presenting of his father, Jonathan, as drunk addict; but what will be most remembered from this song is the famous shout in the end - "WE ARE A [%*!#]ED UP GENERATION" (in hebrew... :)) that definitely caused chaos and negative responses, from education authorities. Pretty ironic is the fact, that the debut show of this song was in a educational TV youth series, "A Matter Of A Time", when Geffen played a short part and played "Cloudy Now" for the first time. But even though of the protest he absorbed, Geffen was an icon and a spokeperson for a whole generation.

The album was released in 7/9/1993 - and was a hit factory, with songs like "Don't Worry", "Maybe", "The Wimp Song", "Cryin On The Grave" and aspecially "Cloudy Now", which are songs that till today are played in Aviv Geffen's shows. The album is very evaluated in the "Moonlight Children" (Geffen's closest fans), and some even call it the best album he ever made, but in my opinion the album is too loud and provocative, most of the songs are too short and not well developed. Most of the songs are dealing with love, and have a weird look at the women - showing them as disloyal, and not to be trusted - which is very stigmatic, after all. But it will be an injustice not to mention the astonishing writing & composing skills showed by Aviv, aspecially in track no. 8 - "Fall", one of the best Aviv Geffen tracks ever. The song is about betrayal, but from the other side - the one who is hurt. The song is followed by piano & keyboards only with an addition of a very moving text.

To sum up - the album, like it's "old brother", in my opinion is not polished enough, and is too short. It might reach heights like "Fall" & "Cloudy Now" (upgraded 11 years later, on the "Blackfield" project), but most of the tracks are too amature. There are lyrical & musically brilliant pieces, but on the same time you can still feel a lot of downs.

Il'l give it 1.5/5 stars.

"A Mature Album" is something that record company people write in their publishments when they have: A boring album without any hits or inspiration, Something that might make you feel like you've been raped by a big marshmelow, Or something that indicates that this might be used in two months to scare birds from the back yard.

If that so, Aviv Geffen's new mature album is different. In other words, it is clear from the texts that Geffen fears (with justice) from all the things that come with his age, but "With The Time" is clearly not a boring album, without hits or inspiration. But even more important: opposed to Aviv Geffen's natural trend, this album have never been heard before.

You can't deny that Aviv have wrote some deeply-influenced songs in "Nowhere", or the fact that "Tomorrow" is based on "Clocks" by Coldplay, or the fact that "It's Only Your Heart" is a take-out from Oasis's last album. But Aviv Geffen have never been heard so Hi-Fi. In other words, i've never heard an Aviv Geffen album which was so polished and mature. In "Tomorrow" he had Nigel Godrich-style bells, and "Thousands Of People" sounds like an Air song. Ofer Meiri's production have helped a lot to this album's sound, but it couldn't been so successful if the songs weren't so good, emotional, urnest and ones that play on the frequencies that make the hardest human being give up. "With The Time" (the theme song) is just like that, and also "For You" - that surely can give credit to Daniel Solomon for the powerful orchestration.

But the album is not perfect. Aspecially after you hear how "Glow" (A former Blackfield song) blows up, you can surely feel that there are that non-acoustic songs are missed, that you also miss the musical variation, and also that the productions doesn't bring the news. It's like Geffen have took one step forward, but blocks just when he needed to take the other step to reach an other level. Maybe it's because of the commercial failure "Hollowed" (In my opinion, his best album) was, and it's a shame - because, in my opinion, "With The Time" could've been much more exciting and daring.

If anyone needed another proof for aviv's talent, to express thoughts, combine it with brilliant composing and to create - eventually - an exellent songs, "Aviv Geffen III" is one. The album broke the record while reaching gold in 24 hours only, and in my opinion "Aviv Geffen III" is one of his best albums ever, even though the songs are short like the "old brothers", they're not a half ideas, but complete songs, with soild background and magnificant production of Geffen & Lior Tevet, that keeps Aviv's genre: depressive and controversial writing, great composings and shakey voice.

"Aviv Geffen III" is complete album that includes 12 effective tracks, in all ways: young pepole contents, musical ideas that connect personal lamentations and rock anthems, multicolored with hammond keyboard, sixties quotes, an influence from the psychedelic era between the 60's and the 70's, and delivering speciality, that use great vocal harmony. The album is, without a doubt, more intimate from it's previous, and were a turn-out point in Aviv's career. Aviv is revealed in his full: his weakness, fear & anger. But unlike the text -which were hard & painful, the composings were much more soft & harmonic. Aviv has managed to release his steams, but did it in a certain refinement, that turned the songs - according to many critics - much more stronger.

The album has it's great songs, he is unified and very creative, deals with unstable sanity ("Depression"), the silence connection and the fear from abandon ("Respect"), heart tearing love ballads ("Run Away"), the children that fall in the army ("Profile 97") and the epilogue of the album speaks about conciliatoriness ("Don't Be Mad"). Another song that i personally liked is "Happiness Is Gone" (in my opinion, the best "depression anthem" in the album), a duet of sanity & insanty (Geffen & Lior Tevet), a song that became a great show anthem and is still played until today.

But yet some songs lead to a protest against Aviv, like "Cloudy Now", to create a massive controversy, aspecially "Profile 97" - which is a very good, complete & complicated song. A protest song, in the name of sanity, about "flower children" that dries out in the settled areas, durig the army. The songs dips in a sea of violents, french horn, an orchestra of psychedelic illusions and Beatles-style orchestration. The line - "the israeli death force" (instead of "The Israeli Defence Force") was very outrageous at that time. Aviv's father, Jonathan used it years ago, when the army was an occupier, but on those years when the peace "was on his way", it was pretty useless. Aviv is also attacks the education system. One of the most important facts was the thoughtlessness from the record company that released this album in the evening of the annual memorial day to the fallen IDF soldiers.

To conclude - it is the first album that aviv is managing to express himself in the full of his potential, and also reached another heights in the future. "Aviv Geffen III" is polished, excellent and well-built from the beginning to the end. 4.5 Stars.