Inspiral Carpets | Loppylugs

Submitted by Neil Hornsey on 16 April 2015 - 7:53pm

Cover:

Artist:

Inspiral Carpets

album-ID:

a_166

Nationality:

Year:

2 014

Release-year:

0000

Num-of-tracks:

Track-listing:

Monochrome*Spitfire*You're so Good for Me*A to Z of My Heart*Calling out to You*Flying Like a Bird*Changes*Hey Now*Our Time*Forever Here*Let You Down*Human Shield

Length-in-mins:

Nominator:

Neil

meeting-ID:

m_64

Now-num:

2 015

Spotify-URL:

5olrtEgbeTGvnTnXAKw9Em

Grooveshark-URL:

Inspiral+Carpets/6491444

Short-title:

inspiralCarpets

nominator-ID:

u_13

Meeting-date:

Tuesday, 12 May 2015

MusicBrainz-URL:

5f89cfd2-fae8-4d3b-bcc4-76a46977f46c

Wikipedia-URL:

Inspiral_Carpets_(album)

Spotify-link-type:

album

Metacritic-URL:

inspiral-carpets/inspiral-carpets

Discogs-URL:

Inspiral-Carpets-Inspiral-Carpets/release/5953142

Allmusic-URL:

inspiral-carpets-mw0002697907

rdio-URL:

Inspiral_Carpets/album/Inspiral_Carpets

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reviewers-IDs data

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82

reviewed by

Neil Hornsey

Moooooooo!

1-2-5-11

6

I always loved them throughout their 30 year history, but this reunion offering took some convincing; eventually it won me over. It's refreshing to hear the original singer doing his stuff again - he has limited ability but for me the sound just works, as long as the songs are strong enough to hold it all together - which for the most part they are. There are some blinding pop songs on here with great big raucous sing along choruses, and sometimes you just can't beat a bit of that. A great album which isn't tiring after many listens.
60

reviewed by

Matthew Baker

Same as it ever was

12

To their credit, this lot have a distinctive sound - mainly due to Clint Boon's organ parpings (to use a technical term).

The songs are decently structured, and everything is all harmonious and together sounding in the main. The lyrics are weak and unless you're a fan you may struggle to see the point of it all. Personally, I wasn't that fussed about them first time around so for them to impinge on my consciousness 25 years later soudning basically the same is not going to change my opinion of them in any great way.
54

reviewed by

Glyn Lewis

Allied Carpets

3-9-11

1-2-5-7

The idea of the baggy Madchester scene always appeals but when it comes down to the actual artists and their music I keep forgetting that I actually don’t like most of them. So I did have trepidations about listening to this but I quite enjoyed it and a few songs were great, so I was pleasantly surprised. But that didn’t stop me from making a few observations.

I always like hearing keyboards in music. I like the organ sounds, he does do some nice little phrases that are pretty tight and funky and really add something, and he’s quite restrained. He’s better than I thought, however one of the main characterists of that sort of Farfisa type 60s organ is it's lack of emotion and expression, as compared to a more typical 70s Hammond B3, or whatever, used in rock music. It's a lack of dynamic subtlety that his neat playing doesn’t entirely overcome.

There’s a few lyrics that stood out as being somewhat clunky: ‘You take Out an A-Z of my heart’, as the chorus of the song, sorry didn’t understand that one. ‘Flying like a bird / bird ain’t got no wings.’ I genuinely would be interested to see how a wingless bird flies – possibly about as well as that metaphor. On the basis of that one I am thinking we could maybe write off the entire lyrical content, what do you think?

Overall it's kind of what you'd expect if you'd heard Inspiral Carpets before, so I can’t imagine they'll get a lot of converts on the back of this, but a few good moments nonetheless.
50

reviewed by

Richard Norbury