Iliketrains - Progress Reform

Album Details

Artist: Iliketrains
Album: Progress Reform
Label: Fierce Panda
Year of Release: 2006
ME Rating:
Reviewed by: mschmitt on 2007-04-20

Recommend

iLiKETRAiNS have two things that infuriate me. The first is their name, which leads to inevitable cursing when trying to type it out correctly. Most aggravating of all though, are the horrifying vocals plastered over an otherwise beautiful album.

Progress Reform is full of softly haunting shoegaze-esque guitar licks, steaming into and through symbol crashes and climactic moments of instrumental bliss. iLiKETRAiNS employs the type of pure masterful playing that pits one or two guitars, a drum, a bass, and the listener’s ear together without dance dance beats, annoyingly overabundant effects. Songs like the eight minute “STAiNLESS Steel” (yes there’s that blasted spelling style again) are pure ecstasy to an ear inclined to pure indie guitar solos.

The album loses face when vocalist Dave Martin shows his. He has a deep bass voice that clashes with the airy simplicity of the instrumentals. When his voice is first heard on the opening track “Terra Nova” it is almost laughable. Here we have a stripped down version of My Bloody Valentine, being plastered over by a voice that belongs singing gospel hymns.

Credit is due however for the extremely well done and haunting piece “The Beechin Report” that ends with all instruments stripped away, leaving only Martin’s chanting voice backed by more Martin-styled singers. The listener is shown the talent of the vocalist, but that doesn’t make up for the fact that the same talent has mucked up otherwise brilliant songs.

If you can get past the odd vocals (and the odd spellings) you’ll eat “Progess Reform” right up. As for me, iDONTLiKE.

User Reviews and Comments

User Rating:

Currently 4.50/10

Rating: 4.5/10
(2 ratings)
Sign In to Rate

Write your own review
Tell us why this album is great or sucks ass, or correct the reviewer. If you write enough quality reviews you may find yourself on the editorial staff.

Reviews have to be over 100 words, shorter ones are classed as comments.

on 2008-03-24 Smeesan Said:

I actually saw Iliketrains (I'm not screwing with the spelling) on the forums, so I gave it a listen. Here's my take - I liked it. I mean really liked it. The vocals, while deeper than they probably "should" be, combining with the nothing-short-of-awesome instrumental backdrop really do set for quite an epic scene. More that a few times I found myself tapping my feet or drumming my fingers on my keyboard to the beat. While I can't do a full review since I've only heard a few snipits, I do think that I enjoy this band. But I'm also an avid Interpol and Godspeed! You Black Emporer fan, so it's a happy medium, to me, between the two.
Not Rated

Review:

on 2007-11-06 dscanland Said:

Strangely enough, I just received this album from Beggars to review. It is getting a proper North American release now. I was going through Progress Reform ready to review it and researched it and came across your review Mike. I was thinking that this was an older release but here it is. iLiKETRAiNS are getting ready to release Elegies To Lessons Learnt, their actually first full-length. I'm on the other side of the fence. I quite enjoy what I heard on Progress Reform. The dark Nick Cave-like vocals mixed with the Interpol like instrumentation really make for a moody listen. "No Military Parade" stands out as one of the most memorable of the set. If you are a Nick Cave fan or enjoy the likes of Interpol or other spin-offs then iLiKETRAiNS will go down nicely.
Rating: 7/10

Iliketrains Resources