- Vinyl
- Number of Discs: 2
- Label: 4ad
- ASIN: B000EZMPEK
- Other Editions: Audio CD | MP3 Download
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 509,539 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
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Product Description
Review
Scott Walker's music is often described as 'complex' or 'experimental.'
Several years in the making, 'eclectic' barely touches what he's been up to since Tilt, which compared to this, sounds about as avant-garde as The Partridge Family.
Veering through the perplexed clutter of sporadic punch-bag rhythms, serrated riffs and chest-gripping rumbles, it growls and prowls with obsessive Twin Peaks twang-bar paranoia.
Seeping in and out of episodic pieces such as "Clara", "Cue" and "Psoriatic", his singing a ghost-echo of a pop past spookily materialises, rattling chains and cages without compromise or care.
It can be intimidating; the aural equivalent of channel-hopping through a blur of unfathomable references which somehow form cryptic connections after prolonged exposure.
Only the simple acoustic guitar of "A Lover Loves" offers a sparse antidote to the harsh density of this dissonant, dissident manifesto.Beyond genre, you'll love it madly or hate it completely.Frightening, yet magnificent. --Sid Smith
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
33 of 36 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
To the reviewer below unsure as to whether to get this album: I recommend it, but be warned. It is scary, even more so than Tilt; if your Scariest Moment in Music up to now was the eerie shrieking at the heart of Face on Breast, as mine was, then prepare to have the breath knocked out of you - *twice* - by The Escape on this album. It's easily the most horrific song I can recall hearing, if not the scariest sound I've ever heard when - (spoiler) - he does that thing with his voice.
But I'm dawdling too much on the one track; the whole thing is immensely rewarding, if you're up to it, and I for one had the long-forgotten feeling, playing this for the first time, that I was actually hearing something new and different for a change. Anyone with a casual interest should hear Tilt first, imho, and progress from there. It's cold, gruelling, and cathartic; it's that man again. Enough said.
But I'm dawdling too much on the one track; the whole thing is immensely rewarding, if you're up to it, and I for one had the long-forgotten feeling, playing this for the first time, that I was actually hearing something new and different for a change. Anyone with a casual interest should hear Tilt first, imho, and progress from there. It's cold, gruelling, and cathartic; it's that man again. Enough said.
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Sometimes there's a book, a painting, a film or a piece of music that just keeps nudging you, long after you've played it, decided you feel attracted, baffled, dumbfounded, slightly foxed, interested but uncommitted, and replaced it on the shelf. David Lynch's Mulholland Drive had me like that. I couldn't have told you what exactly happened, or to whom, or whether, ummm, the person I thought it happened to just now was the same person it happened to in this scene. Which is normally a minus point... but no: sure enough, for months individual scenes, words, colours, feelings just kept nagging at me, coming back to me in quiet moments, until I went back to it again. and again. And again. That's how it is with The Drift. You won't love it first time - you'll be too concerned with trying to latch onto bits of recognisable pop. The riff of Cossacks Are; the musical quote from Jesse,'Jailhouse Rock' slowed down to an acoustic Black Sabbath drone. And in between, well, there are no neat chunks of answers, no more auto-pilot pat 12-bars-and-out passages. Just clues. Just impressions. Just images. Just sounds. And at first, that's a little bit intimidating, a little bit like being lost, and you just want to find out where you are (latch onto those landmarks) and get home by the shortest route. But the beauty, the addictive, indescribable beauty, of The Drift, is that it just leaves you to explore this place. And you get to know it, and feel like you live there. You never get bored because you really, genuinely, never get to latch onto a piece of something regular or conventional that you know will last until the solo etc etc. Get a personal stereo and put this on. Live here. It's terrifying at times, sure, but it's exciting. Neever mind all the worthy adjectves (brave, experimental, bleak etc)... this is a ride and a half, the full hairs-standing-on-end bit. You won't want to go back.
25 of 28 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
(Note: I wrote this review a while ago and gave the album four stars. That was a mistake. It should be ten. The trouble is, I can't change the rating above. Anyway, buy this album.)
When I first heard this record, I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe that someone could get away with making rubbish like this. 'Songs' sung on one note, no melody, no structure. And scary. I can't talk about individual tracks - they're all the same, scary. My daughter begged me to switch it off when she heard it, she was terrified. Fortunately, however, I gave it time and effort. So far it's been about four or five months and when I come home from work the record I always want to listen to, despite the lack of tunes, is this one. I don't understand why.
Walker's voice is amazing, of course, and the 'sonic landscape' (as Eno might put it) is constantly interesting and full of the unexpected. You can't sing along to it though.
If you're prepared to put in the effort, you may eventually enjoy this album. But don't count on it.
When I first heard this record, I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe that someone could get away with making rubbish like this. 'Songs' sung on one note, no melody, no structure. And scary. I can't talk about individual tracks - they're all the same, scary. My daughter begged me to switch it off when she heard it, she was terrified. Fortunately, however, I gave it time and effort. So far it's been about four or five months and when I come home from work the record I always want to listen to, despite the lack of tunes, is this one. I don't understand why.
Walker's voice is amazing, of course, and the 'sonic landscape' (as Eno might put it) is constantly interesting and full of the unexpected. You can't sing along to it though.
If you're prepared to put in the effort, you may eventually enjoy this album. But don't count on it.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
The Escape
After getting recommended this album by Mikael Akerfeldt of Opeth, I went out and bought it not really knowing what I was getting myself into. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Richard B.
4 years later
This set of reviews seems to be more of a forum for people who have heard this album and who want to share their experience than a guide for people weighing up whether to buy it or... Read more
Published 17 months ago by m4xpem
Pretentious drivel
This is utter bilge. I can only imagine a pre-requisite for being a fan of Walker's later work is being tone deaf and exhibiting the gullibility of someone who mistakes a fire... Read more
Published 19 months ago by Greg Cray
The Drift-Where do we go from here?
Listen to Clara at a high volume, without doing anything else, without any distractions and you'll probably never sleep properly again. Read more
Published on 22 Oct 2009 by Mr. Aaron S. M. Gomes
hyperbole and dissapointment
When Julian Cope described "the god-like genius of Scott Walker" some people must have sniggered whilst others knew it wasn't ludicrous sycophancy but an attempt to express, the... Read more
Published on 10 Aug 2009 by David M. Graves
Abstract schmabstract
It's all too possible. Too do-able. In the way of that Daily Mail reader reaction to Tracey Emin's conceptual art. Read more
Published on 22 April 2009 by Bucket
Even better than Tilt
I just never get tired of listening to this. Completely addictive. At first it seems unbearably dark, even after Tilt, but the humour slowly emerges. Read more
Published on 13 Jun 2008 by A Reader
You've never heard anything like this before
This is scary. Listen to it alone, in the dark. This is a unique artist in sound. Avant garde and yet accessible. Always searching and sometimes finding. Read more
Published on 1 Jun 2008 by E. J. Bell
in a world of its own
one of the most incredible and awe inspiring listens i've ever had and may ever have.
dark, pulsating and surprising multi dimensional (some times i'm scared to death of... Read more
dark, pulsating and surprising multi dimensional (some times i'm scared to death of... Read more
Published on 16 Mar 2008 by d.a.p.
Wonderful Sound
I think the sound on this album (can you call it music?) is glorious amazing and stretches the imagination. Read more
Published on 23 Jan 2008 by Liza P
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