The Orb - Prism (April 28, 2023)

That music video was like a commercial for Soundcloud 

the ghetto love story shit might be the worst track the orb have ever farted out

Oh dear, this is absolutely dreadful.

I just wanted to bump this because there aren't enough people talking about how fucking terrible this album is. Last track's lovely, but my God this is by far the worst Orb record to date. No idea how this happened, given that Abolition is my favourite non-Thrash, non-Fehlmann Orb album, but this is so utterly horrible. It's like those few middling tracks at the start of of Abolition mixed with the worst bits of The Dream and then somehow made even worse. 

One thing about '90s Orb albums is the huge teams of people working on them. Alex would get various friends, musicians and producers together and jam, guiding them, finding samples, coming up with thematic ideas and stuff, and the final thing would be a mad, dense patchwork. If he still did that rather than spread everything thin on a collab-by-collab basis over The Orb, OSS, Sedibus, Chocolate Hills, Roland & Albert, etc., I reckon there could be a fairly decent album somewhere. Instead we just get... this.

The ambient track Prism is lush.

I know you've pretty much all talked this one down but I'm curious...

My first listen through a new album of theirs...since Metallic Spheres tbh

Can only assume that the listen went so well that you drank enough to forget you actually listened to it.

Tried to listen again the other week when an Orb fan friend visited, we got as far as 'Ghetto Love Story' before turning it off. Fucking hell Alex, what the shit were you thinking?

Ghetto love. ROTFL

That final title track is mesmerising. Been playing it for months. The rest of the album is forgettable.

  On 9/3/2023 at 7:44 PM, fumi said:

That final title track is mesmerising. Been playing it for months. The rest of the album is forgettable.

Expand  

Thanks for this message, almost like everybody else I gave up on the album by the ghetto love story track but this last track is very good.

(Also : I still enjoy Recycled Times!)