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Track Listings
| 1. The King Of Carrot Flowers Part One |
| 2. The King Of Carrot Flowers |
| 3. In The Aeroplane Over The Sea |
| 4. Two-Headed Boy |
| 5. The Fool |
| 6. Holland, 1945 |
| 7. Communist Daughter |
| 8. Oh Comely |
| 9. Ghost |
| 10. (Untitled) |
| 11. Two-Headed Boy Part Two |
Product Description
CD ..Sea
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
45 of 46 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
I stumbled across this recently. I have to admit that like most people this one had completely passed me by. This is an exceptional album. Utterly exceptional. I can honestly say that this must be one of the best albums I've ever heard. Just such a shame that it has taken so long to get to hear it. How Jeff Mangum didn't make it big I don't know (maybe the bands name!?).
The album is ostensibly a collection of songs inspired by events in World War II and particularly about treatment of Jews and Anne Frank in particular. If this sounds a bit heavy don't worry - musically this work is superbly bright and inventive whilst lyrically it is both fantastically provocative and profound.
Whilst based around the acoustic guitar playing of Mangum, the music benefits from multilayered instumentation including some excellent brass. The pace varies from the slow but heartfelt "Communist Daughter" and "Oh Comely" to the fast rock of "King of Carrot Flowers, Pts 2 and 3" via jazzy interludes of "Holland, 1945". Standout tracks are "Two Headed Boy", "King of Carrot Flowers" and "In the Aeroplane Over The Sea". However all of the tracks here are excellent. Wherever you look on this album there is inventiveness and originality. You can see how this may have influenced later artists as varied as Arcade Fire and Sufjan Stevens.
A wonderful discovery. A definite buy for anyone who likes good music.
10/10. This is by a long way my favourite album. In the few years since I wrote this I really think it's discovery has in many ways affected me and the way I've lived my life. It awakened a passion for music I didn't really know was there. Truly a one off.
The album is ostensibly a collection of songs inspired by events in World War II and particularly about treatment of Jews and Anne Frank in particular. If this sounds a bit heavy don't worry - musically this work is superbly bright and inventive whilst lyrically it is both fantastically provocative and profound.
Whilst based around the acoustic guitar playing of Mangum, the music benefits from multilayered instumentation including some excellent brass. The pace varies from the slow but heartfelt "Communist Daughter" and "Oh Comely" to the fast rock of "King of Carrot Flowers, Pts 2 and 3" via jazzy interludes of "Holland, 1945". Standout tracks are "Two Headed Boy", "King of Carrot Flowers" and "In the Aeroplane Over The Sea". However all of the tracks here are excellent. Wherever you look on this album there is inventiveness and originality. You can see how this may have influenced later artists as varied as Arcade Fire and Sufjan Stevens.
A wonderful discovery. A definite buy for anyone who likes good music.
10/10. This is by a long way my favourite album. In the few years since I wrote this I really think it's discovery has in many ways affected me and the way I've lived my life. It awakened a passion for music I didn't really know was there. Truly a one off.
48 of 51 people found the following review helpful
By magicdave
Format:Audio CD
I don't know what has led you to this page, Neutral Milk Hotel are far from a well-known act and so I'm guessing it must either be a sheer stroke of good luck, or you've been given a tip off about it. Either way, your life is about to get better.
It's hard to pigeon-hole where the sound comes from - the other reviewers may do a better job than I will about describing precisely what it's like. The best way I can describe it, I think, is to say that it's discordantly beautiful. There's a near-riot of instruments battling each other for your attention, filling your ears with conflicting sounds but somehow coming out the other end in perfect harmony as they do so. It's also worth noting that it's far from your typically over-produced fare - nobody has spent three days tweaking the drum rhythms to get them precisely right so that they appeal to the widest cross-section of the target audience. Nobody has fiddled with sliders to get his voice spot onto each note. This is raw music, mainlining the melodies, the rhythms, and most of all the emotion straight from source. Joyous, sorrowful, imaginative, perceptive, evocative... it reaches inside you and yanks your soul awake and reminds you that you're alive. Like watching a flower grow in that fast-motion style that can make months pass in seconds - organic, natural, beautiful, and most of all full of the throb and pulse of Life with a capital L.
I just know that I think this is the best album I own, and probably will ever own, and that everybody I know who is fortunate enough to have found In The Aeroplane Over The Sea feels the same way. I don't know what Jeff Mangun did before this, and I don't know what he did after this. Very probably he never hit these heights, but right here on this little silver disc he produces a work of unique unrepeatable genius.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Audio CD
I've just put this album on after not owning it for about three years ...and am momentarily amazed by how I coped by not hearing it more often. Much has already been said about it but, in this album, you have a strange hybrid of different strands of music.. obviously there is an indie sensibility behind it, you have overdriven guitar, a chugginess to the acoustic guitars, mad horn breaks and such a tremendous, joyous pace to everything, topped by the mad whimsy of Jeff Mangum's vocal and lyrics that go where no lyrics have gone before. But there is a truth to the imagery he relates, borne of the conviction of his voice... in fact you won't come across this particular kind of sincerity in pop music very often, he tells stories, has visions, creates moods, evokes histories. I don't think I've heard an album opener so convinced of its own vision than 'The King of Carrot Flowers'. It is strange and beautiful to experience songs of such utter confidence, and part of what makes this record all the more pleasurable. If I have any conception of heaven it might be more than several large glasses of freezer-cold gewurtztraminer, a breezy summer day and this album played at full volume through resolutely open windows.
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4.6 out of 5 stars
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Some great songs hidden amongst the distortion.
It's an album that's better than the 3 stars I've suggested, but it isn't always an easy listen. There are a good few great songs on this album, I. Read more
Published 2 days ago by DPVC
1.0 out of 5 stars
Pretentious drivel
I was recommended this album by a couple of my friends whose judgement I trust but after several listens, I must be taking the wrong type of drugs. Read more
Published 2 months ago by thegreatlowellgeorge
1.0 out of 5 stars
This is one hotel I won't be staying at again
As another reviewer has already stated, the hype that this album has generated seems to have drawn in so many people, desparate see what all the fuss is about. Read more
Published 2 months ago by patrick
5.0 out of 5 stars
The One
If I was only allowed to have one album it would be this one. Yes, Jeff doesn't always hit his notes. Yes, the lyrics and intrumentation are... eclectic. Who cares. Not me. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Mr. J. Dow
5.0 out of 5 stars
As good as the hype
Never heard of the band or the album before I saw it near the top of the Q Readers Poll (normally avoid that magazine like the plague but it was in the barbers! Read more
Published 3 months ago by Rick
5.0 out of 5 stars
I get it, I love it.
This is a monumental discovery that seems to inspire either love or hate. For me I was instantly drawn to Jeff Mangum's off-key singing and sometimes strained voice that he bravely... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Brian Hamilton
2.0 out of 5 stars
I don't get it either
I bought this CD after the lavish reviews of others as a total punt and it's one of those times when you ask yourself `is it me'. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Mike Ward
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing
This album is just amazing and very much forgotten about in the UK. But it will always be my favourite album of all time.
Published 12 months ago by Terry
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stopped me in my tracks
Not often that music stops me dead these days, but on hearing this that's exactly what happened!
It's not an easy album per-se, but is catchy and tuneful. Read more
It's not an easy album per-se, but is catchy and tuneful. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Andy C
5.0 out of 5 stars
Unique and beautiful
This record is not for everybody, as Jeff Mangum's rough vocals may not sit well for those better accustomed with "proper" singing. But boy, is it passionate. Read more
Published 14 months ago by I<3Rock
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