Amazon.co.uk allows you to pay for your items in your local currency. Restrictions apply. Learn More. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
Listen to Samples and Buy MP3s
Songs from this album are available to purchase as MP3s. Click on "Buy MP3" or
view the MP3 Album.
|
Product Description
UNCUT
4**** Americana Album of the Month
Sunday Times
4**** CD of the Week
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
We are so lucky at the moment with bands like Calexico, Fleet Foxes, Lambchop and Willard Grant Conspiracy all releasing amazing alt. albums, but you can now add Giant Sand to that list as they are back with `proVISIONS' surely the best record of their career to date. With 13 songs it glides effortlessly along broadening the horizons of the genre with unusual panache and grace. For me the only criticism I have is that the first half of the album is slightly weaker than the second despite collaborations with Isobel Campbell, Neko and Papa M but that said it is still breathtaking if not a bit too traditional. Then comes the P J Harvey cover `Desperate kingdom of love' a track that couldn't fit a band better and from this point on the music ascends until the end leaving the listener reaching again for the play button. It is on the last eight songs that band leader Howe Gelb has really taken the reigns and steered the album into uncharted water, experimenting with sounds and layered vocal patterns while still retaining a level of song writing charm that you'd expect from a grand master of the scene. Here each song has something extra, something more than the arrangement, the superb lyrics and the husky voice, it has hardly audible scratches, beeps and strange sounds that utilise the stereo causing your ears to dart from speaker to speaker trying to pick out what it is that's enhancing these compositions. And that's the thing you never quite know what's happening in the mix, underneath, sometimes you are even thinking that shouldn't work but brilliantly and unusually it does and that's what raises the bar. From the expected right through to the unexpected Giant Sand have produced a collection of songs that can hold a torch to anyone and as it gets better with repeated listens I'm wondering if this isn't one of the top albums of the year.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
Giant Sand... been around for years. Easy to miss them because they don't make especially good singles. They do make brilliant albums, though. Ubermeister Howe Gelb is a perverse lyricist: a master of the caesura and the broken rhyme whose softly gravelled voice suggests - in ironic and humorous ways - all manner of spiritual calamities. But that's just the cherry on the cake. Giant Sand are fabulous musicians. You can play this CD repeatedly and discover endless nuances in the rich tapestry of (instrumental and non-instrumental) sounds. You can marvel tirelessly at concerted crescendos that could never be notated, that must have been rehearsed and that somehow feel completely improvised (...in a good way, I hasten to add). You could call it minimalist, alt-country drone. But if you did, no one would buy it (and I wouldn't blame them). Fact is, if you're new to Giant Sand, you'll have to give this a few airings. If you like music with muscle but occasionally want something to fill the adrenaline troughs then you'd be hard pushed to find better than this. There's an excellent Giant Sand compilation CD out there; but there's a temporal integrity to having a discrete CD - and 'Provisions' feels like a classic. It's got pulse, intelligence, wit and lasting flavour.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
7 reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Satisfying
30 Oct 2008
Format:Audio CD
I admit I had almost given up on Giant Sand. Everything released under that name since Chore of Enchantment had really tested my listening patience. But I thoroughly enjoyed Howe Gelb's last solo outing and I read mostly positive reviews of proVisions so I decided to come back. And I am glad I did.
This is GS's most cohesive release since Chore. Everything holds together well, the songs are all likable and Gelb seems to have actually tried to put together an album designed to not drive away casual GS fans such as myself. It's still idiosyncratic and Gelb's beatnik cowboy poetry is somewhat of an acquired taste. Still, an enjoyable release by a unique artist who deserves a much larger audience.
This is GS's most cohesive release since Chore. Everything holds together well, the songs are all likable and Gelb seems to have actually tried to put together an album designed to not drive away casual GS fans such as myself. It's still idiosyncratic and Gelb's beatnik cowboy poetry is somewhat of an acquired taste. Still, an enjoyable release by a unique artist who deserves a much larger audience.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Not so hot
9 July 2009
Format:Audio CD
After a four-year absence, Giant Sand returns with the album proVisions. On this album, Howe Gelb has enlisted some high-profile extras such as M. Ward, Isobel Campbell and Neko Case. It seems that Gelb has chosen a who's who amongst current Americana superstars to infuse this album with a little more muscle. The album starts off strongly with the first three tracks all featuring the extra help of the guest musicians. Howe Gelb even channels "Sultans of Swing" into his lively track "Without a Word." After the musical guests leave the party ends.
The album tends to become a little morose. Gelb populates the songs with an allotment of losers and lost souls who are desperately trying to cling to some sort of salvation. In most cases, Gelb illustrates these cases without interfering, and he lets them tell their tales. The album does not lose its musicianship after his guest stars leave, but some of the grimness is a little overwhelming and clichéd. It seems that Gelb works best when he has some sort of foil to play his ideas off.
The album picks up with the vaguely political song "Pitch & Sway" which features a sassy guitar riff that seems to pick the album out of its malaise. The jaunty "Muck Machine" follows in suit and brings a bizarre jazzy fever dream to the album. "Belly Full of Fire" and "Saturated Beyond Repair" reminded me of a more lysergic Lyle Lovett, with "Saturated Beyond Repair" being the better of the two songs. The album closes with a blues dirge, before Gelb offers a ray of hope with "Well Enough Alone."
The album tends to become a little morose. Gelb populates the songs with an allotment of losers and lost souls who are desperately trying to cling to some sort of salvation. In most cases, Gelb illustrates these cases without interfering, and he lets them tell their tales. The album does not lose its musicianship after his guest stars leave, but some of the grimness is a little overwhelming and clichéd. It seems that Gelb works best when he has some sort of foil to play his ideas off.
The album picks up with the vaguely political song "Pitch & Sway" which features a sassy guitar riff that seems to pick the album out of its malaise. The jaunty "Muck Machine" follows in suit and brings a bizarre jazzy fever dream to the album. "Belly Full of Fire" and "Saturated Beyond Repair" reminded me of a more lysergic Lyle Lovett, with "Saturated Beyond Repair" being the better of the two songs. The album closes with a blues dirge, before Gelb offers a ray of hope with "Well Enough Alone."
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
don't desert giant sand!
30 Oct 2008
Format:Audio CD
even better than the new calexico cd(burns and convertino are giant sand alumni),giant sand's ProVisions disc stands as one of the highlights of main sandman howe(the e is silent)gelb's career!the first 3 tracks feature guest appearances by isobel campbell,neko case,and m.ward but the real star here is gelb,his Arizona drawl informing some of the best songs he's ever written with an odd sense of sardonic wisdom.plus there's a nice cover of pj harvey's the desperate kingdom of love.one of the best discs of the year!
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
