Arab Flac

Excellent addition to any prog rock music collection.
Although admittedly a posthumous release, I was very surprised at the rather dismissive tenor of many of the reviews of this album to date. Hopefully this record will be reappraised soon as being a release worthy of anyone's consideration as I feel it does enhance an already rich legacy left behind by this very fine and innovative band. (So what if Charisma wanted to ride the slipstream of the lucrative ELP juggernaut?)

Belle & Sebastian - The Boy With The Arab Strap
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 297 MB | Artwork: 160 | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Toshiba EMI Ltd # VJCP-25383 | Country/Year: Japan 1998
Genre: Pop, Rock, Folk | Style: Indie Rock, Chamber Pop, Folk Rock, Folk Pop

…His vicious wit, often overlooked in favor of his poetic narratives, surfaces on the title track, while "It Could Have Been a Brilliant Career" summarizes his effortless gift for elegant melancholia. Such small, precious gems are what Belle & Sebastian are all about, and The Boy With the Arab Strap offers another round of timeless, endlessly fascinating folk-pop treasures.

The Arab Orchestra of Barcelona was born in the late twentieth century in Barcelona and up musicians from different backgrounds, such Chefchaoen, Tangiers or Thessaloniki. Its founding members are Mohamed Soulimane (director and violin) and Mohamed Ayoub Bout (voice).

Paranoid was not only Black Sabbath’s most popular record (it was a number one smash in the U.K., and “Paranoid” and “Iron Man” both scraped the U.S. charts despite virtually nonexistent radio play), it also stands as one of the greatest and most influential heavy metal albums of all time. Paranoid refined Black Sabbath’s signature sound — crushingly loud, minor-key dirges loosely based on heavy blues-rock — and applied it to a newly consistent set of songs with utterly memorable riffs, most of which now rank as all-time metal classics. Where the extended, multi-sectioned songs on the debut sometimes felt like aimless jams, their counterparts on Paranoid have been given focus and direction, lending an epic drama to now-standards like “War Pigs” and “Iron Man” (which sports one of the most immediately identifiable riffs in metal history).