Hmm, I really enjoyed listening to the Air ‘10,000 Hz Legend’ album on Tuesday night, but today I like it less. Here’s a few more track by track reviews:

5. Radian

Lasting a whopping 7 minutes and 37 seconds, this one opens with some cool spacey sounds; then a kind of world musicy wail comes in. Nothing much happens for a couple of minutes, and then we get some cool harp sounds and a drumbeat. The song proper starts after about 3 minutes. It’s a very pleasant instrumental with a flute sound joining the standard Air set up of electric piano and string synth sounds, guitar. It builds up rather nicely and atmospherically. It’s pretty much background music though. For the last couple of minutes, the keyboard sound is warped in a Bowie-esque way (not sure which song this is reminding me of; ‘ashes to ashes’ maybe?). Anyway, not a bad track, but too long.

6. Lucky & Unhappy

Opens sounding like Pet Shop Boys. Continues to do so, building up quite nicely; there is a female vocal in there as well. It’s pleasant, but sounds essentially like an understated and slightly aimless PSBs single.

7. Sex Born Poison

Opens with an slightly out of tune guitar. I presume this was deliberate, but why? Anyway, it’s a nice spooky little song with picked acoustic guitar and some echoey, watery sounds, reminding me slightly of some early pale saints b-sides. Until the vocals come in, that is. They add some more vocoder effects to the voice for good measure. There are some very pleasant strings later on, then the vocals come back in, accompanied by some ridiculous squeaky sounds. I don’t know why, but I really don’t seem to be in the mood for this album today! I guess this one just seems overlong to me. It becomes rather heavy and dark, almost goth/industrial near the end. As you can tell, my brain has really deserted me – I should go home!

To be continued tomorrow…….