Feels like 70's "Austin Powers" music
350437
My wife and I both said "This sounds like the music for the soundtrack to Austin Powers" about the first song. The second song isn't as entertaining but is a good vocal song. A Fifth of Beethoven is good. This is a good album to just sit back and relax to.
2267596
I can explain what this album is like by comparing the sound and style to three different Beatles songs-

"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"
"Blue Jay Way"
"Love You To"

The Piper at the Gates of Dawn is mostly an extremely heavy pyschedelic album that focuses on vocal melody for 80% of it, and the majority of songs almost seem like they were aimed towards children because of the nursery rhyme style they're written in.  Of course back in the day this was a revolutionary new style of rock music.  As a result though, for me at least, I can only listen to this album every once in a while.

"Astronomy Domine" is the highlight of the album, and really, most of the songs sound the same.  Whether you like that style or not is up to the listener to decide.  "Pow R. Toc H." stands out from the rest because of the piano jam, and "Interstellar Overdrive" is a VERY trippy and lengthy piece of psychedelic rock at its most hardcore.  Is it a masterpiece though?  No, not really.  It gets too messy and noisy after the fourth  minute or so.  I like the chicken-sounding effects on the guitar though, and when around the third minute when the guitars sound like a bunch of hens in a hen house cackling at once.

The song I don't care for is the closer "Bike".  Just a very bad chorus to me.  I like the rest of the songs, even more so when I'm totally in the mood for this style of rock.
4705349
Parts of this album I could give or take, but what makes the 4 star rating are the few tracks that get stuck in my head and won't leave.  The overall sound is kind of laid back but also charged with rock/pop energy.  Some of the songs have almost annoying riffs in the background that remind me of the beats generated by a kid's keyboard I had in the late 80's/early 90's.  It's still an interesting, unique sound, so I don't really fault them for it.  I applaud them for being different.
3247555
This collection of music from one of the summer of 2002's most anticipated blockbusters definitely has its moments. For the most part, it's a collection of great music, but it suffered from less-than-spectacular mixing. In fact, I think that my college roommate and I used to put more thought into the order of the songs on the plethora of mix tapes we used to make for our road trips.
After opening with the Spider-Man theme from days gone by, the album jumps into "Hero" -- the it-was-good-the-first-100,000-times single that you can't help but hear on the radio at least five times a day (though I'll admit it -- I still like the song). The Canadian boys from Sum 41 follow up with "What We're All About." And then it pretty much lost me in a sea of guitars and drums. For a while, the album just feels like one endless rock song. It gets a little sickening.
Corey Taylor breaks up the monotony with "Bother," a slower song with tons of feeling. And then the songs start to vary a little bit. A little bit. But not too much.
There are a lot of great songs on this album, but, in listening to it, I learned that you can, in fact, get too much of a good thing. Listening to this album is something like eating nothing but pizza for a month. I love that edgy rock sound, but the Spider-Man soundtrack opened my eyes to the fact that today's edgy rock bands pretty much all sound the same.
182408
This is an all instrumental late sixties early seventies slab of grooving funk, r&b and a little rock 'n roll thrown in for good measure. Some songs are straight up James Brown proto funk, some are more Booker T. & The MG's grooving rock and a couple wouldn't be out of place on a Cramps record! Sure the horns can be a little out of tune and the playing is sometimes a tad "loose" but these bands were obscurities for the most part that put out a couple of singles and disappeared back into the void. And damn, tuning and slop aside this is some great dance party music. Put it on and drive around your city and it becomes a soundtrack to a wild 60's, early '70s blaxploitation movie staring you in your leather coat, bellbottoms and shiny white shoes. This is some hot, funky summer music, can you dig?
2689459
This is a cd that sounds to me like what Uncle Tupelo might've sounded like if they'd grown up in New England.  Another comparison that occurs to me is that they sound old the way the Alarm did only better, or the way Steve Earle's "Train a'Comin" CD does so well.  BBB sing songs with lyrics about logging, mining, farming and the revolutionary war era but to electric guitars with some mandolin, fiddle and even hunting horn thrown in (as in fox-huting). And some at fairly breakneck speed.  The music is electric guitar based and doesn't really sound like old songs, but the themes of the lyrics do.
They manage to pull off this blending of old and new because the songs are sung with plenty of passion and conviction.  The energy and musicianship remind me a bit of early Joe Jackson.

This is the kind of music that sounds modern but also kind of sounds like it could've been written 50, 100 or even more years ago.  Kind of like the Band, in that respect.

I really feel that this is an album that fans of music like Uncle Tupelo, John Hiatt, Steve Earle, the Band, Adrienne Young and Little Sadie and other neo-trads would like.  I know I like it a lot.  I've had the CD for 15 years and still pull it out and play it more than a lot of stuff I own.  It's terrific music, plus how often do you hear a dog barking or a mourning dove cooing on a CD?
605916
Retro, though I'd say more to the late 70's rather than the 50's look of the cover. Lots of nice 70's guitar sounds throughout an otherwise mostly modern album. Lyrics vary from engaging storytelling to sneaky, with one track (I Plead the Fifth) starting out like it should be for Schoolhouse Rock and then taking a different turn.
1237024
It feels like a throwback to a rock era of the past (70s / /80s ). While it's the band's first LP album, it brings back a feel from a bygone era in rock.
2520950
From the same guy that brought you "Feels So Good" back in the 1970's.  This song is from an earlier album and brings a big orchestra vibe to his music.  Not one of his big hits, but a very good example of his big sound style that was different from the Jazz quartet sound he brought to "Feels so Good".
3448913
Dunno why, but it seems like the studio where these tracks where recorded just wasn't up to par.  I consider myself an audiophile, and for some reason every track is missing a certain crispness and quality ive come to expect.  Ive listened to it in my car and on my PC and was disapointed in both locations.  Some of the songs are really catchy and hot.  They have a new CD now too that I am debating on checking out.
2611260
Some of the songs have a UB40 kind of feel to them. Mainly bought because of the brain worm song Peace.
572683
I had the cassette of Rockers for almost 25 years and I loved it. I ripped it and put it in MP3 but the quality suffered especially due to the age of the tape. I have been waiting on this to be released on CD for years. Rockers was a very eclectic album with influences of popular stuff (at the time) scattered all over it. You can hear KISS' "Dirty Living" ('79) all in "Have You Heard?" and "Keep On Rollin'" is a definite nod to The Police. That being said, this remaster has been speeded up so fast that it reduces the length of every song by 15 seconds. The quality is good but the songs sound so different that they are not really what I was listening to 20 years ago. Haven't listened to V8 yet so I can't comment on that and I have nothing to compare it to. This would be a 4 or 5 star if not for the speeded up remastering.
1437986
Awesome seventies album feel like the cult you will like Molly Hatchet
1273634
Nice cool, laid back song. Sounds like something  from the 70s
150820
I have recently become an MGMT fan, with my favorite song being Electric Feel.  I knew they were a quirky, different kind of band, but some of the songs on this CD are just plain weird.  There are some good ones on this CD though, and I'm glad I bought it.
2130033
I've been listening to Iron and Wine since the start, and its hard to remember a summer night on the porch without The Creed drank the Cradle getting some play time. I loved the delicate organic feel, and the strength and restraint the writing used.

I've began to realize as I get older, that the music I used to love is slowly dying. Another user mentioned bands falling apart, or taking a step in a new direction as the years go on. And I'd have to agree, as hearing this album in this state has brought on the feeling of a candle finally burning itself out.

I had heard parts of the album performed in an acoustic session NPR over the last few weeks. The performances lacked all of this "clutter" that this album seems to have. The writing may not have been as strong as previous albums and EPs, but it still had that raw sound that I really enjoyed. Once the CD finally arrived, I found myself checking to see if it actually was the right one.

What are these sounds? Why are they here? When they performed in studio the music was free from all of this sampling, editing and mixing. Why are there sound effects? Obviously these stray sounds were not important enough to include in a live set, and I feel that they only bury the real music.

I appreciate an artist taking steps to explore other areas and methods to make good music. I just hoped that even with a new larger label, Sam Beam would have had the restraint he used in his earlier lyric crafting and applied it to the overall sound. This album reminds me of the first time I saw a "build your own sundae" buffet. I was so eager to try all of the sprinkles, syrups, bits of pineapple etc, that I ended up with an uneatable mess. I feel that that same may apply to this "new direction".

I've listened to it almost constantly since it's release, desperately trying to find some way to like it, but each and every time it ends I don't. Perhaps It's just me, as everyone can have their own opinion, but I spent some of the best years of my life living with an Iron and Wine album playing in the background. I hoped for another album that grew on those times, but instead this album serves only to remind me that those times are gone.
4525554
This is a good combination of musical talent. I hated disco in the 70s but in retrospect, with a more open mind, I like a lot of it now, particularly Nile Rogers and Chic. This is reminiscent of that music.