Heartland

Chief Cohiba wrote: ↑05 Oct 2024, 14:46

Erudite wrote: ↑05 Oct 2024, 13:56 I'm inclined to agree with @abridged - this has aged the best out of the three albums.
It's the one I use as a gateway when introducing the Sisters to friends, particularly if they're more inclined to trad rock.
Lyrically, it has some fine moments. None more so than "I Was Wrong".

It is definitely the one that prepares best for a current Sisters gig. If one would have seen Wake and then have Ben and Kai on stage, I guess one wouldn't recognize them as the same band.

Without checking, I wonder if the current setlist only includes one song from Wake, that being "Alice"

ribbons69 wrote: ↑07 Oct 2024, 07:31 Without checking, I wonder if the current setlist only includes one song from Wake, that being "Alice"

"Marian"

I was not a big VT fan either (other than Ribbons) but now I think I was wrong.
I started listening to the album again recently and got into it in a major way. Yes it is more generic and doesn’t quite reach the same heights as some other Sisters stuff, but every song is solid and it’s a fun album beginning to end.

Loved all the VT songs when I saw them live a couple weeks ago

Chief Cohiba wrote: ↑26 Sep 2024, 16:45 So; how „political“ do you consider the Sisters then and now? Is this still part of their relevance?

“On the Beach” feels pretty relevant to politics now

How much more political could you get than "Eyes of Caligula"? None. None more politics.

Put me in the corner of those who think "Vision Thing" and "Ribbons" are possibly the two best Sisters songs either, but the rest was made for an audience that's not me

H. Blackrose wrote: ↑07 Oct 2024, 20:12 How much more political could you get than "Eyes of Caligula"? None. None more politics.

Agreed. And maybe asking, how political the Sister are, is quite a stupid, or at least oversimplifying, thing. The question I should have asked, instead, was; "How much add the political aspects of the lyrics to the relevance of the Sisters in 2024?". (I just stumpled across the intelligent answer to the clever and multilayered question over at FB; "Why do you love the Sisters"? - someone wrote (sort of); "it puts me in the right mood for card reading." Yeah, sure! That's what makes them relevant, sure!)

H. Blackrose wrote: ↑07 Oct 2024, 20:12 Put me in the corner of those who think "Vision Thing" and "Ribbons" are possibly the two best Sisters songs either, but the rest was made for an audience that's not me

"Ribbons" I learned to appreciate just recently. It definitely ripes. I still have a soft spot for "When you don't see me", for I felt it being quite personal way back then.

VT was also gateway for TSOM for me as well, I started as metal head, and it taken me some time to like FaLaA (CD version before re-mastered version with proper mix was published), but Floodland was much easier.
And ever-chancing nature of TSOM is what I like the most. If I want to listen the same album all over again I'd go Slayer or AC Thunder-sign DC; in fact TSOM spoiled me, with small exception of, most currently, Rammstein.

I came in with Floodland but I'd had some vague awareness of the band from before, including a very strong memory of seeing the Body & Soul video on TV, which was only triggered when I saw it again years later.

It didn't take me long to backtrack to FALAA and the earlier singles, and I guess I recognised the stylistic difference but would have struggled at the time to define it precisely.

Vision Thing, when it was released, was a shock. Even after all these years there are still parts of it that don't sit 100% easy with me, but I'll concede there's a good 5-track EP in there. The trouble is that everybody's favourite 5 tracks are going to differ. I'd trim it down to Vision Thing, Ribbons, Detonation Boulevard (...yes, I know...), More and I Was Wrong, and consider that as strong as anything else the band have ever released.

As for the ones I exclude, well, Something Fast is the kind of Big Rock Ballad that can work well but I don't think is really the Sisters; I do admit to enjoying the imagery and wordplay, though. WYDSM is, to my ears, a formulaic rock pounder. Doctor Jeep sounds weak and just buzzes around like a fly in a jamjar, but again with the imagery and wordplay. I'd even go so far as to rate YCBTO above those three, but recognising that it is correctly just B-side material.

Don't really like VT as a whole. It DOES have some shine, but the title track and the Dio song give me pause. I'm mostly a FALAA and earlier guy, but like Floodland as well. I also think the current crop of songs like Caligula, Suzanne, Crash and Burn, Here, Show Me, etc are stronger than most moments on VT.

Chief Cohiba wrote: ↑08 Oct 2024, 11:07 "Ribbons" I learned to appreciate just recently. It definitely ripes. I still have a soft spot for "When you don't see me", for I felt it being quite personal way back then.

"Ribbons" was the first TSOM song I ever heard, from the next room at a party. I couldn't believe it. I'd literally heard nothing like it in my life. I wanted More. And I need all the love I can get.

H. Blackrose wrote: ↑08 Oct 2024, 22:40
"Ribbons" was the first TSOM song I ever heard, from the next room at a party. I couldn't believe it. I'd literally heard nothing like it in my life. I wanted More. And I need all the love I can get.

I started with FaLaA in Summer of 87 and simply was blown away, next bought the "Enter the Sisters" compliation two months later or so and was really blown away. It starts with "Temple of Love", and i was signed full membership in the first four bars.

In November Floodland was issued, "This Corrosion" had heavy airplay already and I had a crush on one Miss Morrison. Who didn't, then?

When "More" was issued I heard it once at the U4, a then famous underground club in Vienna, and liked it, but did already came over the madness of first love, and so, when VT in full was issued, well; tad too much metal for me. Or maybe just missed the sensation of first sight two years before. But I listened to it up and down nevertheless (one a walkman, if one remembers), and could connect very much to the lyrics.

But the appreciation was more intellectual, not the merciless, ruthless love from first site. Maybe I missed the black winds from a black planet...

H. Blackrose wrote: ↑07 Oct 2024, 08:56

ribbons69 wrote: ↑07 Oct 2024, 07:31 Without checking, I wonder if the current setlist only includes one song from Wake, that being "Alice"

"Marian"

No, on recent dates they are not playing it, rather they are playing the new song Quantom Baby. They may have switched it back in again but certainly on some on the dates no FALAA material was played at all.

setlist with thanks to Husek

Doctor Jeep/Detonation Boulevard
Don't Drive on Ice
Ribbons
Alice
Summer
Dominion/ Mother Russia
I Will Call You
We Are The Same Susanne
Quantum Baby
Eyes of Caligula
More
But Genevieve
I Was Wrong
Here
When I'm On Fire
On The Beach
Temple Of Love

Encore:
Lucretia, My Reflection
This Corrosion

But more than half of VT

To be fair, post 85 ,they only ever played half of F&L&A. Black Planet never, Walk Away almost never, No Time to Cry rarely, A Rock And A Hard Place rarely, Marian regularly. F&L&A regularly, Possession never (apart from at a soundcheck!) Nine While Nine never, Logic rarely, Stranger never apart from the Comfortably Numb phase (which was great). Personally I'd like a return of Lights, Burn, Fix etc. I'm happy with lots of VT being played. Three of those they rarely or never played pre 1985 either.

abridged wrote: ↑11 Oct 2024, 11:49 To be fair, post 85 ,they only ever played half of F&L&A. Black Planet never, Walk Away almost never, No Time to Cry rarely, A Rock And A Hard Place rarely, Marian regularly. F&L&A regularly, Possession never (apart from at a soundcheck!) Nine While Nine never, Logic rarely, Stranger never apart from the Comfortably Numb phase (which was great). Personally I'd like a return of Lights, Burn, Fix etc. I'm happy with lots of VT being played. Three of those they rarely or never played pre 1985 either.

Posession and Marian were semi regular in 91/92.

Husek wrote: ↑11 Oct 2024, 15:07

abridged wrote: ↑11 Oct 2024, 11:49 To be fair, post 85 ,they only ever played half of F&L&A. Black Planet never, Walk Away almost never, No Time to Cry rarely, A Rock And A Hard Place rarely, Marian regularly. F&L&A regularly, Possession never (apart from at a soundcheck!) Nine While Nine never, Logic rarely, Stranger never apart from the Comfortably Numb phase (which was great). Personally I'd like a return of Lights, Burn, Fix etc. I'm happy with lots of VT being played. Three of those they rarely or never played pre 1985 either.

Posession and Marian were semi regular in 91/92.

Fair enough. Me memory isn't what it was!

Chief Cohiba wrote: ↑11 Oct 2024, 10:46 But more than half of VT

Well, it's a North American Tour ... ...

They planed "Rock and a Hard Place" last night