View Single Post
Old 09-3-2013, 10:09 PM   #127
rayword45
Local Teenage Wastebasket
FFR Simfile AuthorD7 Elite KeysmasherFFR Veteran
 
rayword45's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: My bed
Age: 26
Posts: 3,186
Default Re: Daily Music Reviews (Summer Challenge)

It's the last day of summer, 12 PM EST. I have to do 4 album reviews to reach 100 reviews, and I'm not going for any of that mini-review crap. And 3 of the albums I chose are double albums, so that's around 4 hours total music to review in 12 hours. And I still haven't done my summer reading. Today is going to be a fun day.

Day 68-1: Castle Talk by Screaming Females (Album Choice: dAnceguy117)

Let's start with the short album, right? 37 minutes of power trio indie punk with female vocals. This band enjoys basement shows (since people under 21 can attend which I assume must be a good fraction of their fanbase) yet they've toured with bands as big as Garbage. And they've toured with somewhat less popular but much better bands like Dinosaur Jr. The shortest album gets the shortest intro.

As many people have pointed out, there's only one female in the band, so the name Screaming Females is a bit misleading. Especially considering in this first song she doesn't really scream much at all. The production here is pretty garage-esque, the guitar is pretty lo-fi (like it's run through a cheap box amp), the vocals are untreated and often slightly muffled, but hey, at least you can clearly hear the bass. That's superior production to most rock bands. Speaking of the guitar, I think every song on this album has a guitar solo. And most of the guitar solos are pretty good! I can see why this band opened for Dinosaur Jr. Actually, no I don't. They're not that similar, why did I say that? But yeah, the fact that she can sing and play solos like that at the same time is pretty impressive. Unless they didn't record this live. That means that one, they need better producers and two, playing these songs live would be pretty crappy. Through all the low fidelity basement punk, there is a consistent pop sensibility spread all over the album. I mean, Deluxe basically sounds like a home demo pop song. The last track is more indie-lofi-pop-punk so I won't go any deeper.

The shortest album also gets the shortest conclusion. It's a good album. The production is somewhat crappy but it fits the album. The guitar work is great, the bass is thick, the drums are average drums. The vocalist isn't the best, but hey, I have no right to criticize vocals! She's better than Liz Phair on Exile in Guyville and that's a great album. Next.

Day 68-2: La Barca by Thomas Koner (Album Choice: Choofers (with approval from Spenner))

How much ambient music have I reviewed? Like, 3.5 albums, one wasn't exactly "ambient", more like horror film score, and the other 2.5 were all from the same guy. New artist to review. This album mixes ambient soundscapes and field recordings, and every track is named after where and when (in the order) the recording was done. But instead of the name of the place or whatever, we're given coordinates. I guess he wanted to be as specific as possible. For most albums, the field recording bit either sounds slightly gimmicky or underutilized, but here it actually sounds pretty intriguing. And this is the first double album of the day.

I expected the wrong kind of field recording. Why? The word "field" makes me think of nature and grass and such. I was expecting birds to be chirping and little more then the sound of small animals. Most of these recordings are of people, living their lives I assume in places like parks, tech support, they're swimming in Hour Nine (not typing the coordinates). Nature sounds pop up here and there but that is never the focus. It's the sounds of people behind some very low, menacing ambient music. Compared to the crumbling, defeated-sounding Disintegration Loops and the horror-meth of Transformalin, this sounds very dark, often disturbed. There are sounds like light strings that aren't as chilling, but, refraining from calling it the "focus", the clearest sounds are the constant low frequency drones throughout every song on the album. I sort of want of to look up these GPS coordinates, but I'm refraining. I had to do it for Hour Five and I'm still not typing the rest of that song title. The song sounds like he recorded rough sex or something.

I got an error. I'm not trying anything else.

This is classified as "dark ambient", and it sounds pitch black. Let me use the same formula as I did for the two full length Basinski reviews. For Melancholia I said "This album features a very icy, barren sound, akin to melting glaciers or snowy winter woodlands." For Nocturnes I said "If Melancholia is a winter forest, Nocturnes is the same forest except late at night with less snow and more cold, dry winds. And someone stuck in a piano in there somehow." And for La Barca, I hear the mind of a somewhat disturbed man observing life as it is. It's not always dark, but sometimes it is. I doubt that's what Koner was going for, but whatever. The whole field recordings shtick? It works! Just not the way I predicted it to.

Day 68-3: cLOUDDEAD by cLOUDDEAD (Album Choice: Lord of Sushi)

Why is it that pretty much every rap album I've been recommended is white people? Yes, that's a legitimate question. In this case it's nerdy white guys, and that typically makes the caucasian-ness more noticeable, but in a likeable fashion, just like nerd music in general (hello there, They Might Be Giants). This is described as "abstract hip-hop". What the hell is that? Like abstract poetry? Does that make Whoa by Earl Sweatshirt abstract hip-hop? I don't understand this tag. This is a compilation album but I've seen it being referred to as a studio album, probably because these guys hadn't released an album at that point. This compiles the first 6 singles the band released, and who the fuck makes all their singles over 5 minutes? How much radio play can you get out of that? The guy who recommended this album had a long list of albums he recommended (I wish I knew how to make that sentence palindromic) but for the last few days he narrowed it down to this album only. That basically means I have to review it.

Yeah, this is definitely legitimate nerd music. Not like those posers Weezer! I don't have anything against Weezer, I just don't think they're actually nerds. These guys definitely are nerds, weird nerds at that, or they're just better at playing up the act. I now understand the "abstract hip-hop" tag. Rather then a typical beat, pretty much everything is placed behind downtempo/ambient music. It's unique, and it's a pretty awesome idea. And these are more like collages than songs, with rap popping up in places about as much as odd samples do, ranging from jazz music (I assume that's sampled) to random tape recordings to phone calls. And that's a good thing. The rapping here is pretty odd, to say the least. The lyrics don't really have too much meaning at all, the guys voice is pretty odd and the flow isn't stilted, but it's not impressive either. It's pretty obvious that these guys don't take the whole thing too seriously, and, yet again, that's a good thing. The worst thing you can do when your rapping completely fails to impress is take yourself way too seriously. Case in point: Bangs. That's a very extreme case though, not comparable to these guys at all. This just comes off as very prankster-esque. Like if these guys wanted to make a ambient hip-hop version of Lumpy Gravy. I'm not commenting on any last songs. These songs are impossible to dissect.

Very interesting album. I'm a bit reluctant to base my opinion off of one listen, as the album as a whole is somewhat impenetrable. These were singles? What damn radio station wanted to play this? That doesn't mean it's bad, it's like "what damn radio station wants to play Lumpy Gravy?" This work is so bizarre that I can totally perceive why some view it as "hipster bullshit". Regardless of any rapping skill (or lack thereof) these guys were a very creative bunch, and like many other artists decided to say "screw song structure" but took that to an extreme. This is definitely what I'd think of as a psychedelic album, but to a very different extent compared to that of classic 60s rock or stoner metal or anything else. The ambient music bit is good too.

Day 68-4 and Review 100: The Wall by Pink Floyd (Album Choice: Nathan O)

Yes, I have never heard one of the best selling albums of all time in full. Hell, I haven't listened to neither Thriller nor Dark Side Of The Moon in full. I never really felt like it, bite me. I think this is a pretty decent closing album, wouldn't you say? It would've been straight up dumb to conclude with The Director's Cut or something. It doesn't scream end of summer or anything but who cares, I'm satisfied with my choice and you should be too. Or you're a communist.

I remember saying how I don't really understand progressive rock. That's not always the case. There's Ween's The Mollusk, for example!

That's not real prog, you say?

Then there's some great progressive metal out there! I've mentioned my love for Protest The Hero before, an-

Doesn't count? Damnit!

How about Emerson, Lake and Palmer?

They suck, nevermind.

Bad jokes aside, I've heard a couple songs off of this album, and it's not nearly as overlong or impenetrable as most progressive rock. That Magma album, for example, was damn near impossible to understand in more than one way. These guys never really deviated too far from comprehensibility. Of the songs I remember, Comfortably Numb basically sounds like hard psychedelic rock, and Another Brick In The Wall Pt. 2 sounds like disco-infused post-punk to me (despite basically being released at the same time as the first wave of punk rock). Also, I'm not going to review the concept or anything, I can do that by watching the movie. Rather, to extend this review, I'll review each disc individually. That's like one whole extra paragraph!

First couple of tracks are more of that psychedelic hard rock, eventually we reach that same funky post-punk of Another Brick In The Wall Pt. 2 (the prior track basically acting as an intro to that song). Then, we have, what is this? Folk? And this shows just how blind I am to this album, all I can think about for the song Mother is Husker Du. You know, Never Talking To You Again. That song broke the mold after a short time on Zen Arcade. Here, it almost does the same, but like all great folk songs, they include an electric guitar solo among many other songs. The next song is also folk, and a bit purer than the last song. The rest of the album? Psychedelic hard rock and post-punk sounding songs galore. I remember I used to liken progressive rock to basically odd psychedelic rock, when this was the only progressive rock band I knew. Then I realized it was a genre dedicating to wanking. The only real wanking here is the guitar, thank god, and it's not completely overblown. I'm finding it hard to not touch on the concept. It's really clear even if you TRY to pay no attention to the lyrics, and I feel I'm doing the album injustice as well as missing a huge chunk of potential text. Oh well. I'll continue to refrain anyways. Side one is done now. Conclusion? Pretty much what I expected.

I decided to pay attention to the lyrics (but not the concept as a whole, sticking to my word) during the second half. And I stopped. These lyrics are so self-absorbed I refuse to believe they were being 100% serious. There were aspects based upon their former bandmate, but sources I read say that the main character was based primarily off the lyricist. What the hell is this? Madonna's autobiography? Look up the origins again, and he actually felt this way about his fans! Whether or not the instruments are masterful, the lyrics and concept are so narcissistic I refuse to take them seriously. But yes, the song structures and instruments are still top-notch. And look at that, with one simple sentence, the narcissism somewhat redeemed itself with the simple presence of one sentence, "Have I been guilty all this time?". Thank you. The penultimate track (and the real conclusion) puts the "opera" back in "rock opera". And no matter how obnoxious those kinds of sentences are, it's completely true. The last track (and the epilogue) puts a whole "book ends" sort of closure, with the "isn't this where" line and the exact same music as the first song. Maybe I should've played this album on loop! (Hint: That's a dumbass idea).

Was The Wall a good album? Yes. Great? Yes. Fantastic? Maybe, but I don't understand the status that it was given, to be honest. Maybe it's because I didn't pay attention to the concept, but the little I got out of the lyrics were (for the most part) so self-absorbed I can't understand how anyone sympathizes with this album. Yes, the last few tracks basically show how he was wrong, but that's still 23 tracks of narcissism. The music was excellent, and much more comprehensible than the average progressive rock album, so I'll give it that. And check one album off the standard "essential listening" list. There's way too many more to go.

And here ends my writing journey across the summer. It was fun. Now let's look back in a year or two and see how cringe-worthy I find my own writing.

My original plan was to rank all the albums I listened. Rank 100 albums? Screw that! Here's a list in order instead.

1. Repeater + 3 Songs by Fugazi
2. Immersion by Pendulum
3. Metaphorical Music by Nujabes
4. Alien Youth by Skillet (Aborted)
5. The Strange Case Of... by Halestorm
6. Hypnotize by System of a Down
7. A Different Arrangement by Black Marble
8. Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys
9. For Segregationists Only by Johnny Rebel (Aborted)
10. Amy MacDonald - Life In A Beautiful Light (mini)
11. Galaxie 500 - This Is Our Music (mini)
12. Kelis - Flesh Tone (mini)
13. Shooter Jennings - Put The "O" Back in Country (mini)
14. Soundgarden - Superunknown (mini)
15. X - See How We Are (mini)
16. Bundle of Joy by Land of the Loops
17. Mixed Melodies EP by SourceForm (mini)
18. The Director's Cut by Fantomas
19. The Grey Album by Danger Mouse
20. Rescue and Restore by August Burns Red
21. Cult of Mictlan by Oral Fistfuck (mini)
22. The Sophtware Slump by Grandaddy
23. Highly Refined Pirates by Minus The Bear
24. Until The Quiet Comes by Flying Lotus
25. Surtur Rising by Amon Amarth
26. The City EP by Madeon (mini)
27. Transformalin by Diagnose: Lebensgefahr
28. This Is Our Science by Astronautalis
29. For Now I Am Winter by Olafur Arnalds
30. Halycon Digest by Deerhunter
31. Soulbleed by Soulbleed
32. Dusk to Dawn by Emancipator
33. Tempel by Colour Haze
34. Rubenesque by Caligula
35. Black Diamonds by Issues
36. Ground Dweller by Hands Like Houses (I have a strong disdain for Rise Records)
37. Born to Die by Lana Del Rey
38. Kingston Story by Vybz Kartel
39. Tango In The Night by Fleetwood Mac
40. Kollossus of Makedonia by Hurra Torpedo
41. This Couch is Long & Full of Friendship by Tiny Moving Parts (with bonus review of Pac-Man TV Show)
42. The Unforgiving by Within Temptation
43. Melancholia by William Basinski
44. Nocturnes by William Basinski (with bonus review of High School USA)
45. Cheese by Stromae
46. Burzum by Burzum
47. You Can't Tell by Tartan Rascals
48. Demur by Kandma (mini) (with bonus review of Axe Cop)
49. Tattered Youth by Attention
50. Sounds Of The Universe by Depeche Mode
51. Figure 8 by Elliott Smith
52. Greatest Hits by Dave Koz
53. It Was Written by Nas
54. Hard To Be Up by Bangs (LISTEN TO THIS ALBUM)
55. Recovery by Eminem
56. Donuts by J Dilla
57. The White Apple by of Verona
58. This Binary Universe by BT
59. The Hass Effect by Electrocado
60. Not Even Once by Approaching Nirvana
61. Fizzy Fuzzy Big & Buzzy by The Refreshments
62. Classical Mushroom by Infected Mushroom
63. Good and Evil by Tally Hall
64. Commercial Album by The Residents
65. Surfer Rosa by Pixies
66. Opus Eponymous by Ghost
67. Cure for Pain by Morphine
68. Surfing the Void by Klaxons
lol. Pop Tatari by Boredoms
70. Brother, Sister by mewithoutYou
71. Gonglot by Frog Pocket
72. Udu Wudu by Magma
73. 69 Love Songs by The Magnetic Fields (mini)
74. The First Disintegration Loop by William Basinski (mini)
75. #1 Record by Big Star (mini)
76. Fast Forward Eats The Tape by Belvedere (not counting The Freed Weed sentence review)
77. The Glow, Pt. 2 by The Microphones (mini)
78. Oh No by OK Go
79. Up In Flames by Caribou (mini)
80. Fevers and Mirrors by Bright Eyes (mini)
81. Piramida by Efterklang
82. Wonderful Rainbow by Lightning Bolt (mini)
83. Rusty by Rodan (mini)
84. Slanted and Enchanted by Pavement (mini)
85. Lateness of the Hour by Alex Clare
86. Play Hard EP by Krewella (mini)
87. GODLOMANMACHOPANZILLA by Computer Jesus Refrigerator
88. In The Court Of The Crimson King by Crimson King
89. Strong Bad Sings and Other Type Hits by Strong Bad (or Various) (Should've been a mini)
90. Akron/Family by Akron/Family (mini)
91. Nothing Lasts... But Nothing Is Lost by Shpongle
92. Vicious Delicious by Infected Mushroom (mini)
93. Soft Focus by Vanilla
94. October Language by Belong (mini)
95. Thank You Happy Birthday by Cage The Elephant
96. Brontosaurus by Da Vinci's Notebook
97. Castle Talk by Screaming Females
98. La Barca by Thomas Koner
99. cLOUDDEAD by cLOUDDEAD
100. The Wall by Pink Floyd
__________________
The above post has a 50% chance of being useless. Potentially. Maybe.

BEST AAAs: WANDERLUST, Pandora, Necropotence, Mourning The Lost, Eradication, Feldschlacht

Hey, we need some users on this site. Please join.

And if you have not recommended any albums yet, do so. Please. I have a goal to reach. Here.
NO WAIT THAT SHIT'S OLD GO HERE INSTEAD.
rayword45 is offline   Reply With Quote