Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The sleeve art is great, too., 27 Jan 2003
By A Customer
"I won't always be around, but I will live forever," declares Martin Carr on this album, "as long as I'm remembered as somebody who mattered." It would be nice if, in terms of his musical output, people did remember him like this. It's more likely he'll just be half-remembered as the man who wrote "Wake Up Boo", which is a shame because this (Carr's third album under the Bravecaptain name)deserves to be heard.
Following on from the rather more meloncholy 'Go With Yourself', 'Advertisements...' is a decidedly more upbeat listen. Plenty of tracks are still laden with horns and strings, but now they are joined by all manner of cold, mechanical effects, beats and elements of electronica. It's a move that works well, especially on 'Rod's Got One'which mutates halfway through into something not a million miles away from Death in Vegas' 'Dirt'. Only better. This approach serves much of the album, with many of the tracks taking the form of inspired electronic doodles. The best of these is the slightly creepy 'zr/rifle', which initially sounds like something indistinct crawling round in the shadows which suddenly decides it's coming after YOU.
Despite this, there are still a few tracks which wouldn't be out of place on any of Carr's previous albums, such as 'I Was a Teeange Death Squad' and the magnificent, summer-y 'This Weight That You Have Found'(If the afore-mentioned 'Wake Up Boo' is the sound of waking up with morning sunlight streaming through the curtains, then this song is that same day when it has reached evening).
Reassuringly, the song titles are as odd as ever ("Oh, not ANOTHER song called 'Bees of the Left Bank")and, frustratingly, the silver-on-blue tracklisting will be the most difficult read of your life.
This is easily the best of the Bravecaptain albums so far, which even finds room for a song that - strangely - sounds like Embrace's 'Hooligan'.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Eat Pigs, Eat...", 14 Dec 2004
This is one of those albums that you just know is going to be brilliant as soon as the first song kicks in... - okay, having loved Giant Steps, C'mon Kid etc. I've always been a fan of Martin Carr's songs - but this is pure class. Impossibly to review obviously, like all great albums are. The style is all over the place - the closest Carr has got to Giant Steps in one way, just because it is all just a wonderful mismash: strange samples, distorted guitars, Beatles melodies, Aphex beats, short 'doodles' between tracks that are better than most band's best songs... As for the lyrics, well there's some angsty introspection, some boasting, some revolutionary politics, some love, and some... well, I dunno, you listen to 'I Was A Teenage Death Squad' and tell me what you think it's about. The quote on the album sleeve is from Orwell: "Advertising is the rattle of a stick in a swill bucket" so I doubt Brave Captain wants me to praise him too much. I'll just say: "Eat this, piggies, eat THIS!"
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Martin Carr's brave side-project, 14 May 2004
As the brains behind the music of The Boo Radleys, Brave Captain provides Martin Carr more artistic freedom, a wider latitude to experiment. 'Advertisements For Myself' combines everything from Aphex Twin/Mouse On Mars electronica and Flaming Lips psychadelia, to ringing industrial clanks and the Dandy Warhols-type fuzz-pop. You can sense Carr's musical thought process here, dabbling in different genres creating a pastiche of sounds and styles. Yet the CD has an undercurrent of The Boo Radleys' quirky structures and melodic wispful sound (sans trumpets and shoegaze tendencies) Martin Carr almost seemed liked a restless spirit with The Radleys, an unconventional musical visionary making music on 'his terms', which continues with side-project Brave Captain.
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~ Brave Captain
~ Brave Captain
~ Animal Collective
~ Camera Obscura
~ Brave Captain
