Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant debut album, 26 Nov 2002
This album was feted by the music press and ignored by the record buying public- though it has gone down as one of the key records of the late 1980's- a period that saw rock music taken to previously uncharted realms. This one should be filed next to My Bloody Valentine's Isn't Anything, Spacemen 3's Playing with Fire, the 1st two AR Kane albums, Surfer Rosa/Doolittle by The Pixies, Warehouse by Husker Du, Spiderland by Slint , Sister/Daydream Nation by Sonic Youth & Bleach by Nirvana. The idea was to advance rock music towards the future- rather than back to the past (see Oasis). The Young Gods fitted in with this ethos, advancing on the sonic musique concrete of Cabaret Voltaire, Einsturzende Neubauten, Foetus/Wiseblood & Suicide. The sound of the Young Gods is perfectly captured by producer Roli Mossimann (The The, Wiseblood, Swans, That Petrol Emotion). The debut album is mostly delivered in French, which just makes the album more perfect and otherworldly. Every track is great- from the short clatter of A Ciel Ouvert to the crashing planes of Do the Seagull; from opener We of the Moon (or something close to it) to the bonus track AIIWTFT (As if it Were the First Time)- which is included on this reissue along with classic single Envoye (Go for it and f*** off). More disturbing/hilarious is the cover of Gary Glitter's Did You Miss Me? (Franz Treichler hilariously delivers the "Hello/Hello/It's good to be back"- again pilfered by Oasis!)- this contrasts well with the industrial symphony of Percussione or Feu. The best song here is Jimmy (chorus translates roughly as "Jimmy's still hammering")- which pre-empts bands like Laibach and Rammstein and makes stuff like NIN and Marilyn Manson look very redundant. It also spells out the direction of singles like Pas Mal/L'amourir and the follow-up L'eau Rouge LP that would see them use sampled guitars more (reaching an apex on the classic TV Sky album). The Young Gods is both a band and album that is in desperate need of a listener- if you want to hear what the future sounded like in the late Eighties: look no further...
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Astounding debut album that pointed to the future, 7 Jun 2004
The first time I heard the Young Gods eponymous debut album I didn't get it. To my delicate ears it was an impenetrable morass with some guy gargling gravel over the top of it. I filed it away and forgot about it for a few weeks. But my knee jerk appraisal and discarding of it bugged me, so I taped it and played it constantly on my walkman. On about the fourth listen it clicked. This was stupendous, innovative music, pulse quickening, exciting...in short, this was the future.
The Young Gods are a trio from Switzerland, not the natural location for ground breaking music, but you take it where ever it comes from. Their sound is rock taken to its elemental extreme, utilising the then relatively new technology of sampling the band whipped up a shit storm of metallically furious riffs embellished with grandiose orchestral flourishes. Not for them a sliver of an old northern soul stomper, the Young Gods realised before anyone else the true sonic potential of the sampler and put it to use with audacious abandonment.
First track "Nous De La Lune" has a banging militaristic beat, with ominous church bells and a broiling broth of ambient noise. "Jusqu, au Bout" kicks in like a truck into your living room with a hammering pile driving groove and Hans Triechler growling like a Spielberg dinosaur. The fact the vocals are sung in French may well put off some people but it's irrelevant with music this magnificent. Besides the vocals are in the main concerned with simple natural things, earth, sky, and water and would sound rather basic in English whereas in French they sound more poetic, exotic even.
"A Ciel Ouvert" sounds like the mortal struggle of two gigantic metal megaliths, shards of white sound ricocheting everywhere and "Jimmy" is just incredible, the sound of some distorted washing machine hurtles from speaker to speaker, its kinetic momentum sounds like it will last to the end of time and the chorus? A guitar at jackhammer speed, a blur of a riff, light years away from those words normal rock connotations. "Fais la Mouette" and "Percussione" are more measured, industrial ambient, with sharp angles and clanging percussion. "Feu" has a rigid drumbeat and a whip sharp riff while a cover of the Gary Glitter hit "Did you miss me?" is given a bizarre treatment with a looped sample of a waltz and subterranean vocals. The track "Si Tu Gardes" with it's overwrought compelling symphonic backdrop gives an indication where the Young Gods were heading on their next album "L,eau Rouge".
Along with bands like My Bloody Valentine , A.R.Kane Big Black , The Butthole Surfers and Husker Du , the Young Gods were taking rock music away from it's hoary old past , but no one was as ahead of the game as The Young Gods. They took the baton and ran off in to the distance. And as far as I'm aware no one has taken it off them. They still sound like the future and nearly 17 years after its release that's a sad indictment.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Seminal industrial album 10 years ahead of its time, 12 April 2008
The first and least accessible album by the fantastic Young Gods. Brutal percussion, sparse loops and synth combined with a 40-a-day power voice singing/yelling in French. If you are new to this band start with their "American" album TV Sky which is in English and back into this via their best and most crushing moment to date - the single L'Amourir. Labelled as industrial but so much more, this band should be tried at least once by all.
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