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| Red | 
 enlarge | List Price: £11.99
Buy New: £7.70
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (based on 19 reviews)
Sales Rank: 68
Category: Music
Artist: Guillemots
Publisher: Universal
Studio: Universal
Manufacturer: Universal
Label: Universal
Format: Enhanced
Media: Audio CD
Running Time: 55 minutes
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
UPC: 602517625242
EAN: 0602517625242
ASIN: B0012RCXAK
Release Date: March 24, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Tracks:
| • | Kriss Kross | | • | Big Dog | | • | Falling Out Of Reach | | • | Get Over It | | • | Clarion | | • | Last Kiss | | • | Cockateels | | • | Words | | • | Standing On The Last Star | | • | Don't Look Down | | • | Take Me Home | | • | Get Over It |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.co.uk Review
It can be difficult to know how to condition yourself as a Guillemots fan. First there was Through the Windowpane, a great English pop record full of classy melodrama and widescreen elation, then there were the wilfully eccentric live shows, known to descend into mind-boggling bouts of freeform jazz bombast. And now there is Red, yet another altogether different dragon. You can talk about forcing a square where a circle should be, but this is more like teasing a dodecahedron through a drinking straw. And yet with slick feline agility they somehow wriggle through with little resistance. To get a measure of the differences, penultimate track "Don't Look Down" is one of a few that holds a torch for the first record, leading in with the keyboard twinkles and filmic slow pace, but implodes midway like a fully-laden milk float combusting, and comes out the other side like the Annie cast on helium set to a drum 'n' bass beat. Amazingly, it's as palatable as ever. But that's just for starters. "Kriss Kross" is the hitherto undiscovered melding point between 2Unlimited (of brief 90s techno infamy) and The New Radicals' chiming pop, "Big Dog" is bright lights arena R&B, robotic seduction with a Jacko scream at its heart, "Get over It" is glittery, steroid pumped modern glam and "Last Kiss" is Tubular Bells with distorted bass funnelled into a rave anthem. The whole album's a curveball, but the quality of the songs is undimming and maybe we just got a little closer to discovering what Guillemots quintessentially are. Or maybe not. --James Berry
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| Customer Reviews: Read 14 more reviews...
 Unique May 8, 2008
What do you get, if you put together a bunch of well educated and driven musicians - among others an extremely gifted singer/songwriter who happens to be slightly mad? You get - ta-dah - Guillemots!
This is most certainly not easy listening, although there are actually songs on this album with hit potential. This is quick shifts, unexpected turns, wonderful surprises and grand, almost epic arrangements. This is pop-rock-jazz-musical-funk-folk-ethnic - with a twist! So you really have to keep an open mind in order to stand it. But if you can do that, you're in for a very special treat.
As many have already noted, this album is a grower. There are a few songs that catches on immediately, but most of them take a little while to sink in. Don't worry, though: They will! And when you've been captivated by the sound, you'll start to notice the lyrics and discover yet another treat.
There may be a song of two on "Red" that are no more than average, but that is acceptable considering that several of them actually deserve more than five stars.
I really belive, that I'll still be listening to this album in ten, twenty, thirty years from now.
 Disappointing follow-up May 1, 2008
I love Through The Window Pane to the point that it is probably the most overplayed album I own, but something has just gone a little bit wrong with Red. Kriss Kross is a nice track, as is Get Over It but there are some really clunkers as well, Big Dog is just rubbish and Words isn't much better. They've lost the whimsical edge that made the debut so charming, and replaced it with dodgy 80's style production and an over-reliance on funny noises. It really pains me to say it, but this is a huge letdown from a band who are capable of so much more.
A grower April 24, 2008
I hate to be cliched, but this is an album that really deserves the appellation 'a grower'. Its frankly baffling mixture of styles is downright difficult to deal with on first listen. It's like browsing through a plethora of radio stations - a meaningless collection of noise punctuated by the odd moment of greatness that leaps out at you.
But the more you listen to it, the more you start to notice the connections. One of the songs ("Don't Look Down") begins with a deep Johnny Cash-esque vocal intoning a pretty melody accompanied only by a guitar, then you hear what appears to be a fridge being dropped from a great height and the whole thing goes mad! But on repeated listens, all the weird effects only seem to add to what is, in reality, a sensibly constructed verse-chorus-verse-chorus song. It's now one of my favourites.
The album kicks off with 'Kriss Kross', a bombastic orchestra hit-laden number tempered by a hauntingly elated refrain imploring the listener not to cry, but to go out on the town and enjoy themselves - 'the moon is gonna dance for us tonight'. It's what Suede's 'Saturday Night' might have sounded like had it been produced by Wagner. Next up is the groovy 'Big Dog', a cheeky, tongue-in-cheek hip-hop number whose self-conscious coolness seems deliberately undermined by its refrain of 'big heart, big hug, big dog, that's what I want'. It's a great live favourite and transfers well to CD. 'Falling Out of Reach' is a more standard affair - a chilled out song about getting 'burned out'. Bouncy fun and anthemic choruses follow in the shape of the album's first single, 'Get Over It'. Next up are a trio of songs that it's quite difficult to describe. One is a bollywood number called 'Last Kiss'. It's my least favourite track on the album and the only one I don't really like - it's not bad, but it seems an experiment too far. Perhaps others will appreciate it more. This is sandwiched between the more pallatable, but no less interesting, 'Clarion' and 'Cockateels'. After this, we get a very typical (but no worse for that) Guillemots song in the slow, jazzy 'Words' - another of the album's high points.
There follows the best Guillemots song since 'Trains to Brazil'. 'Standing on the Last Star' is an amazingly melancholic evocation of the end of the world. The way in which it evokes a genuinely elegiac sense of despair only to countermand it with a self-deprecating refrain that asks 'Will nothing in the world ever make you happy?' reminds one of The Smiths - as does the Johnny Marr-style guitar riff. It's truly wonderful stuff. There follows the aforementioned 'Don't Look Down' and the blues-influenced 'Take Me Home'.
All in all, it's an acquired taste and newcomers might well be better off listening to the band's debut album. Nevertheless, it is immensely rewarding on repeated listening. Challenging it is, but well worth the effort.
Here's to the next album!
Keep listening April 19, 2008
This is a fantastic album. The lyrics are amazing and the songs are put together beautifully. When I first heard it, it sounded like the songs were in a totally random order and didn't seem to fit together well, but having listened to it lots it is just right. Guillemots are very talented musically and Fyfe's voice is incredible - goodness knows how he manages to sing that high and that low! I was lucky enough to win the competition from Amazon and got to see them live in their studio. Wow - what a night... If you get a chance to see them live, don't think twice - just do it!
Fantastic!! April 18, 2008
I think this album is as good as the first album. It's refreshing to hear a band that are willing to try new things and willing to vary from the current dire indie music out there. At times this album may sound a little disjointed but the overall sound is superb. Some have criticised this album because it's so different from their debut album but surely thats the sign of a good musicianship! The ability to stand out and try different things rather than producing the same old thing. If you are willing to try something different then give this a go!! If you're expecting the same as the first album then you maybe very disappointed!
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