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Originally Posted by atsonicpark
Their best album since Daydream and no album has better it since (though "Ghosts and Flowers" come close). Oddly, this album has always reminded me of Bad Moon Rising in a way.. seems to have a lot of similiar ideas and tones emerging.. One of the first times I robo'd, I was listening to this album.. Hits of Sunshine was swirling around and filling up the room.. it was amazing... Karen Koltrane and Hoarfrost remind me of the winter time.. perhaps because I had listened to the whole album in a cold basement in the middle of winter and it was about negative 20 degrees and covered in snow outside.. so, yeah, a very wintery album (I think most SY albums are "spring" or "summer" albums, but this reminds me of winter and Bad Moon Rising reminds me of autumn)...
Lots of interesting riffs, chiming sprawling long instrumental passages, not really anything offensive or uninteresting in the mix or lyrically; it's all very very good, almost seeming effortless, like SY could pop out 50 albums like this but just.. don't...
I happen to agree that Kim must've been a nightmare at this point.. to the other band members, at least.. can you imagine Lee and Steve sitting there, helping to construct this brilliant song.. and then hearing Kim's awful awful bland shit poetry being lack-of-Midol-inspiredly-shit-upon by her awful voice? Man. Kim has the vocals of a chick who is bleeding all in her panties and is screaming at everyone like she needs to be strangled. Just excruciatingly bad and not in a cool way.. completely embarassing.. it doesn't ruin the music, but Jesus... I think she finally learned to sing around "Sonic Nurse".. (I think Lee and Thurston learned to sing many albums before this one) but yeah.. definitely always has been and always will be the weak link in the band.
"hits of sunshine" really is amazing, though, and not just because of the drugs... I don't think they ever have or ever will do something similiar to that again... the middle part which is really straight forward and just filled with guitar effects.. beautiful.. I never connected it with Can before, but I can totally see that now..
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Great points. I probably come across as a bit of an anti-Kim guy which wasn't always the case at all. I think she started going down hill with maybe Dirty. She's amazing on the early stuff like Ghost Bitch, Flower, Halloween, Beauty Lies, Shaking Hell, etc. I blame the menopause.
I think the thing I love most about Hits of Sunshine and Karen Koltrane is the way they've managed to create this totally organic sound that doesn't rely on what they'd done before or see them trying to fit in with what was happening around them.