9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
One for the fans, 10 April 2006
By A Customer
This review is from: Garage Flower (Audio CD)
Garage Flower is a rough 'punkier' Stone Roses album full of rare tracks and demos of a few classics. The best track is Trust a Fox which shows a different style of the Stone Roses, a much more grittier faster sound rather than melodic and hypnotic. However many people would be put off by the poor quality of sound on the album. So this would make it an album purely for the fans.
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16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Garage-rock flower, 4 Mar 2006
This review is from: Garage Flower (Audio CD)
Success ruined the Stone Roses after their astounding, groundbreaking debut album and a less-popular follow-up. Now, in a musical era where "garage rock" is a phrase thrown around like frisbees, the title of the Stone Roses' "Garage Flowers" seems quite appropriate. It's rough, gritty and unfinished, but certainly worth a look for the Roses fan.
Starting with the so-so "Getting Plenty," it shifts in a blare of horns and drums to the catchy, unhappy "Here It Comes" ("Give me your life/It's worthless anyhow"). The Roses show their talent for getting adrenaline pumping with the weightily catchy "Tradjic Roundabout," loud percussion-led "So Young," and Beatles-esque "All I Want."
As a connection to their debut album, there's an early cut of "I Wanna Be Adored." It's less coherent and more scattered; it's primarily interesting as a sign of how their music evolved into the gritty, polished sound of "Stone Roses." Additionally, "This Is the One" appears in all its punky, whispery glory, a slightly different version from that of the debut album, but possibly even better.
The sound of "Stone Roses" hasn't yet blossomed in "Garage Flowers." Their sound was still evolving and changing. As a result several of the songs here were released for the first time in "Garage Flowers," still with that slightly scratched, unfinished feeling that you only get in demo CDs. Those expecting the quality of "Stone Roses" or "Second Coming" will be disappointed, but those looking for some semi-good music from the then-evolving Stone Roses will find it here.
The muddier sound makes it a little harder to hear the music at times. They're a little uneven musically, tending to depend heavily either on percussion or guitars. And the melodies are somewhat less complex than they were later in the Roses' career, especially with the shaky filler song "Getting Plenty." However, they are still fairly good, with some of the brilliant, swirling guitar riffs and thunderous drumming that can get your pulse racing in an instant.
The 1986 demo album "Garage Flowers" is a shift down from the rest of the Roses' music catalog, but it's still a worthy release and a curiosity for Stone Roses fans.
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6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
True indie rock, 26 April 2006
This review is from: Garage Flower (Audio CD)
I remember when I heard an indie band for the first time in the late 80s, and this album captures that sound exactly. It has that recorded-in-a-warehouse sound, out of tune wailing vocals, and reverb on every instrument...I like things that are indiscernable, and at times on this album you can't hear what the guitar is actually doing, although you can hear that it's there. People who like the first albums by Throwing Muses, Nirvana, Mercury Rev or Jesus & Mary Chain might like this too. I love the aggressive drumming on tracks like "So Young", and the vocals, which are in a way whining and boyish, but to me a very cool slice of genius. Nastier than their later work.
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