BARB - BARB (2010)


 BARB is an one-off album by the Kiwi supergroup BARB, which was comprised of New Zealand indie rockers Liam Finn, Connan Moccasin, Lawrence of Arabia and Eliza-Jane Barnes (who might be Australian, but I believe lives in Auckland.) They have support here from a few other names from the New Zealand indie scene like Jol Muholland and Seamus Ebbs. 

BARB was mostly written and recorded by the three main songwriters (Liam, Connan and Lawrence) in about a month at Liam's father's studio Roundhead STudios in Auckland. It was not meant to be taken too seriously, with the various members adding their bits without a lot of fuss or angst about things. 

The music is kind of a dark, murky psychedelic pop thing that doesn't really sound like much else that I've encoutered, other than the work that the respective artists make on their own, of course.Fans of these artists will like the album, but most people have never heard of them, so it's no surprise this was not a smash hit.

The songs are nice and fresh, though,  and the musicians are very different from each other in the way they write: but all of their music bears a sort of weird, psychedelic beauty. I think singer EJ Barnes is underutilized on this -- she's definitely the best singer here, but she doesn't seem to be a songwriter and I can understand why people want to sing their own songs.

However, the two instrunentals and the final song are just obviously lower tier, although I think I'd respond to the instrumental songs better if the sound of the album was better: it's super bass-heavy and murky: it sounds terrible on headphones, though if you up the treble a lot it sounds better to me, and clearer. 

In the end, what I do is cut the three Liam-led songs and one EJ-sung songs  and add them to Liam and EJ's 2009 EP Champagne In Seashells -- thematically they don't necessarily go, but musically they fit just fine. I'm a pretty big Liam Finn fan.

Still, when considered on its own, the album is very good. Not as good as Liam's proper solo albums, but better than The Alphabetchadupa. It got me curious about the other two songwriters, too, which was probably the intention.

3.5/5, but I'd go higher if this was pared down to about ten songs.

This song, "Counting Sheep" was the highest rated song on a song-by-song discussion I led on this album back in spring 2021. Lead vocal by Liam Finn and featuring a very prominent Eliza-Jane Barnes.


Spotify Link:

https://open.spotify.com/album/0ucYGYxCTlNwpbn7EILVPY?si=9L68_MOXSeq2-OT96ezxyQ



Coming Up:

All This Useless Beauty - Elvis Costello & The Attractions

Alpha Mike Foxtrot -- Wilco

The American Dream

American Idiot - Green Day

Amnesiac Radiohead

Another Life - Another Life

Arrival - ABBA

B

The B-52s

Bachelor No. 2 (Or, The Last Remains of the Dodo) - Aimee Mann

The Ballad of Easy Rider - The Byrds

Bambu - Dennis Wilson

Band on the Run

Bangles EP

The Basement Tapes - Bob Dylan & The Band

BARB

The BBC Sessions -- Belle & Sebastian

The Beatles [The White Album] 

Beatles For Sale 

Beauty and Sadness -- TheSmithereens

Beauty and the Beat -- The Go-Go's

Become What YOu Are - The Juliana Hatfield 3

Before & After - Tim Finn

Beggar's Banquet. The Rolling Stones

Begin Here - The Zombies

Being There - Wilco

The Bends -- Radiohead

Berlin - Lou Reed

The Best of Badfinger

The Best of Dark Horse - 1976-1989 - George Harrison

The Best of Sam Cooke

Best Shots - Pat Benatar

Betchadupa

Between The Buttons - Rolling Stones

Big Canoe - Tim Finn

the Big Express - XTC

Biggest Bluest Hi-Fi - Camera Obscura

Billy Idol

A Bit of Previous - Belle & Sebastian

The Black Album - Prince

Black Gold - Nina Simone

Black List - Alex Chilton

Black Market Clash - The Clash 

Black Sea - XTC

Black Snake Diamond Role -- Robyn Hitchcock

Black Spring - Lush

Black-Eyed Man - Cowboy Junkies

Blind Man's Zoo - 10000 Maniacs 

Blonde on Blonde - Bob Dylan

Blondie

Blood And Chocolate - Elvis Costello & The Attractions

Blood on the Tracks - Bob Dylan

Blue Kentucky Girl -- Emmylou Harris

Boats Against the Current -- Eric Carmen

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan In Concert: Brandeis University 1963

Book - They Might Be Giants

Bookends -- Simon and Garfunkel

Booker T & The M.G.'s

The Bootleg Series 1-3 Bob Dylan

Born in the USA - Bruce Springsteen

Born toDie - Lana Del Rey

Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen

Bossanova - The Pixies

The Both

Boy - U2

The Boy with the Arab Strap - Belle & Sebastian

Boys Don't Cry - TheCure

Brian Wilson

Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE

Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin

Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road

Bridge Over Troubled Water - Simon & Garfunkel

Bringing It All Back Home - Bob Dylan

Brutal Youth - Elvis Costello

Bryter Layter - Nick Drake

Buena Vista Social Club

Buffalo Springfield

Buffalo Springfield Again

Buoys - Panda Bear

Byrdmaniax - The Byrds

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Become What You are - The Juliana Hatfield Three (1993)

Image
  Despite the fact that  Become What You Are   reminds me of a rather dreary time in my life -- the year and a half or so when I came back to Springfield Missouri after college to live -- I think this is one of my favorite albums of 1993 -- and 1993 was a really good year for my taste in music.  Juliana Hatfield has a way of telling stories and fleshing out ver complex characters and defining complex emotions in amazingly simple terms, with a few lyrics as possible -- she's sort of, like, the Hemmingway of singer/songwriters. And that's a compliment. But to be clear, this music is not one woman alone with an acoustic guitar; this is a real rock band and Juliana Hatfield herself is quite a formidable hard rock guitarist. This is kind of in the grunge era; I wouldn't call it grunge, but it's from  the brief period of time when singer songwriters could rock in this way that was somewhere between The Stooges, Kiss, and Big Star. See also some of Aimee Mann's cu...
Read more

Arrival - ABBA (1976)

Image
  Arrival was Abba's fourth album, which was long labored over, to good results: it was a huge seller, even going gold in the stubbornly resistant American market, thanks to the giganto-hit "Dancing Queen", still in it's one of the most perfectly written pop songs of all time. The immortal image of the 17 year old girl awash in the first innocent glow of her full physical and sexual power dancing alone under the blue lights strikes tears in my eyes every single time I hear it. I'ts so perfect. .. Like their previous self-titled album  Arrival  runs through a lot of styles and moods, but the the album overall comes off as even more adult and overtly sexual: while the first two songs celebrate innocent girlhood: (girlish fantasies of kissing teacher, the innocent abandon of the 70s teen disco,) the themes seem to progress from innocence to materialistic and sexual cynicism. But the album never breaks a sweat doing this: it all still goes down like ice-cream. The de...
Read more

Beggar's Banquet - Rolling Stones (1968)

Image
Beggar's Banquet was The Rolling Stones' first post-psychedelic album, in which they went back to their roots as a blues rock band, a place which they have decided never to leave again, perhaps due to the disastrous reception of Their Satanic Majesties Request. A pity, in my opinion, but this is not the place to go into it. It's also probably the last great gasp of original guitarist/multi-instrumentalist colorist Brian Jones, although he would play on a few songs on the next album, he was rapidly descending in a tragic downward spiral.  Personally I prefer the rissks the 1965-1967 era Stones took to the Blues Rock phase (though with the addition of Mick Taylor they definitely recorded a pair of their finest albums) and I find the relentless roots rock of  Beggar's Banquet to be a tad bit disappointing. Like, where are the harpsichords, horns, dulcimers and sitars of yesteryear?  Having said that, there are definitely no bad songs here: no ten minute long jams or lame M...
Read more