[kj] Anniversaries - Brighter 86 / Democracy 96 / Hosannas 06

[T.B.]

For me, Id rank these three from best to worst as:

Democracy - I actually love about half this album.  The drums are kind of plodding and indistinct, buried in the wall of sound production (that reminds me of Steve Brown's work on The Cult's aborted "Peace" album) on most tracks but the title track, Absent Friends and Lanterns are standouts that I never get tired of hearing. If "Mass" and Four Stations Of The Sun" had made the album instead of a couple lesser tracks, this would rank much closer to Pandemonium.

Hosannas - Probably the closest thing to hearing Geordie's raw demos.  It's far from a good album, but some songs have an almost hypnotic quality, "Judas Goat" being the best example.  I'd almost like to hear this album with no vocals, it would probably work better for me.

Brighter Than A Thousand Suns - I actually went and pulled my original EG cd of this album today and attempted to give it a listen for the first time in several years....  I (still) really do not like anything about this album, the dated production, especially regarding the drums and the synth-heavy angle they took with this album utterly kill this one for me.  I never would have guessed Big Paul played on this album without looking at the credits.  For me, this album is in a dead heat with Outside The Gate as worst KJ album - I suppose it's no shock they are consecutive albums in the bands period of steep creative decline.