I’m rather unimpressed with most of the albums I’ve seen out for tomorrow but thankfully there were a few that didn’t make me want to super glue my eyes and ears shut.
The School of Seven Bells artwork is my favourite this week.
The Trail of the Dead artwork shows a super detailed picture of a little boy in some kind of magical curiosity shop. Drawn by the Trail of Deads own singer Conrad Keely using what looks to be a blue ball point pen.
I’m actually in two minds about both the album and the artwork for the new prodigy album. It’s being described as “retro futurist” but the cynic in me thinks this might just be an excuse to try and re-live passed glories. Some of the tracks without doubt are awesome but as a whole it feels like it’s striving and failing to relive their early rave days. As for the artwork I’m really not sure about the way the album logo has been pasted onto the backend of a zepplin; I think I may prefer the vinyl artwork which simple shows the same logo in white on a black sleeve. Having just convinced myself I don’t really like it it’s still one of the most striking and probably biggest selling of the albums I’ve featured this week and so I’ll leave it in; despite not quite fitting the title of the post.
The most obscure album of the week as indicated by my inability to get a larger image of it. Hauschka is is a German experimental pianist who creates electronica and piano based compositions that at once sound like a bit like John Cage and a bit like a stripped down Sigur Ros.
The latest War Child album sees “Heroes” picking new bands to cover their old songs. So Bob Dylan chose Beck, Roxy Music chose the Scissor Sisters, The Clash chose Lily Allen (?), Paul McCartney chose Duffy, U2 chose Elbow, Bowie chose TV On The Radio, Joy Division chose Hot Chip, The Kinks chose the Kooks, Stevie Wonder chose Estelle, Brian Wilson chose Rufus Wainwright, Iggy Pop chose Peaches, Bruce Springsteen chose the Hold Steady, Elvis Costello chose The Like, The Ramones selected the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Blondie chose Franz Ferdinand. Some of the tracks are awful; The Hot Chip cover does nothing for me at all but then others are perfect such as the Hold Steady’s version of Atlantic City and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs version of SheeneIs A Punk Rocker.
The artwork shows guns drawn in different colours of wax crayon; an unsubtle way of conveying both war and children. Still it works and as far as charity records go this one actually has substance beyond the feeling you should buy it because of the good cause it represents.
The Hauschka cover is oddly nostalgic for me – it’s like the snow-themed levels in the old Lemmings games, and to look at it I’m almost trying to ration how many diggers I’ll need to get through the gridwork up top…
Invaders Must Die is awful, though. You’re right about how the name plastered on the pic looks a bit skee-wiff, but there’s more. The framing is wrong, the eye is led away from the important bits, the fonts clash, and the colours are just the worst shade of rusty. Which is maybe what they were going for, Prodigy aren’t exactly easy listening muzak, but it still could have been done better.
School of Seven Bells is ace, though I can’t imagine how long it took to cut out all those mountains…
Now that you mention Lemmings I completely see the reference. I used to play it all the time on my Amiga.
I didn’t want to go into too much detail about the Prodigy album because it was a quick round-up but I had to reign myself in from completely trashing the cover. I agree with everything you said about it.
I wonder how much of a compromise the artwork was? Invaders Must Die is such a strong title that no end of possibilities are open to them. It doesn’t even have to be a war reference in the conventional sense. Personally, as the band are attempting to return to their early roots in sound, I’d have brought back the ant imagery and played with the idea of a different type of invasion.