[Tom Davies]

yeah, just chiming in with what everyone else is saying about Red
Sails... Helps Me Helps You is raucous and terrible IMO, but the album as
a whole is experimental, challenging, and mostly successful. There are a
bunch of tracks that really grow on you -- for me, notably, Minutes to
Midnight, which I initially couldn't stand and now like rather a
lot. 

Coincidentally I find myself listening to Red Sails today for the
first time in a few months, along with the likewise experimental and
difficult Breathe. Both albums strike me as particularly thoughtful -- of
course, all the Oils' music is pretty damn intelligent... but right now
these two albums are just interacting interestingly with my mind at a time
when I've been seeing life as a cruel joke... both these albums seem to
get at something about the absurdity and mutability of life... "there is
room for make-believe out on the ocean" ... "everybody say god is a good
man" ...

well, those are my ramblings for now ... perhaps some of you will know
what I'm getting at...

td