Mediocrity

The short version:
The Mars Volta—Amputechture: 3/10
Dennis McCarthy—Star Trek: Generations: 3/10

Recently I've been listening to a couple albums, including Amputechture by The Mars Volta. It's pretty mediocre. I wasn't a huge fan to begin with, but their last couple CDs were interesting enough that I bothered buying this one. I think I'm done. I like that it's creative and unusual music, but they're just too high for me. The best tracks on here are Vermicide and Viscera Eyes—Vermicide is pretty good, but it doesn't keep the album afloat, and the rest of the disc is nothing to, well, blog about.

I also have been listening to the Star Trek: Generations soundtrack by Dennis McCarthy, which is also pretty mediocre. McCarthy is the guy who they get to do Star Trek soundtracks when Jerry Goldsmith wasn't around, apparently; he also did a lot of the TV music. And, TV music is really what this sounds like. There's not a lot of punch, and almost everything on here is forgettable. The best stuff on here is Deck 15 and The Nexus / A Christmas Hug, both of which are pretty to listen to but not particularly exciting, and most of the rest is even more bland.

Neither disc is awful, but I'm not feeling very generous, so I give them each three out of ten, though four would probably be almost as fitting.


I have finally almost emptied my music queue. At one time I had forty unlistened CDs, and now I'm down to two: The Virgin Suicides by Air, and Afterhours 3, a compilation that I am hoping may lead me to more interesting artists. I've got several more discs on order, though, so I won't run out quite yet...