Daily Music Reviews (Summer Challenge)

[rayword45]

Day 49: Commercial Album by The Residents (Album Choice: Victor Van Ed)

And into the avant-garde we go. This here is an art collective who make experimental works in several different types of multimedia. They usually dress like it's Halloween with eyeball helmets and formal clothing, and their music is either deconstruction of modern Western music or more experimental collage crap. This album is the former, consisting of 40 one-minute tracks based around commercial pop music, hence the title (or, according to other sources, ad jingles). Since it's recommended to loop a track 3 times to make it sound like a proper 3-minute pop song, I'm going to do that twice for random tracks. See how it works.

The experiment must have dated terribly because in 1980 this may have been pop but now it sounds like especially weird New Wave, or the brown sound Ween albums with a bit of prog. I'm probably a complete idiot for expecting it to sound similar to today's radio music but seriously, in what country does this sound like 70s pop music? It's too psychedelic, too abstract, and above all too cracked-out to be pop music. It's also kinda hard to choose the best song when they're all 60 seconds, you don't get time to focus. But as a whole the songs are typically noisy, often atonal and laced with synthesizers. I chose to loop Give It To Someone Else and... It still doesn't sound like pop music. I did notice just how effed up the lyrics are though, before I was just assuming these lyrics were effed up. And around 30 tracks in I want to fix my comparison. Don't compare this to Ween, compare this to The Beatles if they did bath salts. I've officially decided against looping a second track, I think I've gotten as good of an idea of looped tracks as I can with one listen.

And after 40 minutes... What the hell was that? Either I need to give this a second listen or just conclude that I don't get it for the day. And I have no time so we're going for the latter today. This is the weirdest pop music I've ever heard. Most tracks are skeletal with an emphasis on synthy weirdness. Others are noisy. Not feedback and guitar clang noisy, but just bizarre noisy. This kind of album definitely fits the way these guys dress. If I had more time I'd give this album more time as I love experimental shit but I don't. So I conclude with "It's fucking weird".

[rayword45]

Day 50: Surfer Rosa by Pixies (Album Choice: Victor Van Ed said Doolittle, this is close enough)

As I said, I have better shit to do than write music reviews these 3 days. So I'm deliberately choosing albums that are short. This band is from my hometown and they don't require too much of a description. Apparently, I should be a fan of this band because I like bands like Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr but I've never bothered listening to them. I have no idea. This album was produced by Steve Albini and is known for bizarre lyrical subject matter. That's the two most important factors for a Jesus Lizard album, and I already know this sounds nothing like The Jesus Lizard. Also, boobs on the cover equals win (even though the picture looks pretty damn old).

I just realized I have no access to lyrics. Damn. And this will definitely be a short review. This guys vocal style (not voice) reminds me of a southern D Boon. But the instruments and song structures are completely different. Less treble in the guitar, female backing vocals, bass is less awesome. And oh yes, the vocals are definitely produced by Albini. I can't consistently understand these vocals to be honest, but I hear a lot about bones in the first two tracks, which indicates either sex or skeletons. Song titles like Broken Face and Gigantic make me lean towards the former. River Euphrates sounds like Lady Gaga stole it, except not really. I change my vocalist comparison from D Boon to a cross with J Mascis. Both from bands I like, neither of which is known for their voice. Kim Deal on the other hand sounds vaguely valley girlish, but I don't mean that in a negative way. Seriously, listen to Tony's Theme and tell me I'm wrong. I'm still wrong? Oh well. Either way I'm completely lost on how her vocals are "breathy" or "sexy" (except maybe Gigantic) but again I'm trying to not be condescending. A few tracks later, goddammit I need to start paying attention in Spanish class. Off of the vocals, the instrumentation is exactly what I expected from descriptions I read. Psychedelic indie rock with bits of surf, lots of guitar noise and ass-kicking drums. All of which I'm a fan of and now I get the whole Sonic Jr. comparison. I'm not sure I agree though.

After coming down on the vocals like an asshole, I'm gonna say I like this album. The Albini production doesn't work the best on this album (I don't know, I'm used to it being used on more abrasive music) but otherwise I enjoyed the album. If I were to compare this to Sonic Youth/Dinosaur Jr I'd rank this third but I have yet to give this album multiple listens like I did for the other artists. And both of those definitely aren't one hundred percent appealing to most people first listen.

[rayword45]

Day 51: Opus Eponymous by Ghost (Album Choice: sonicman68)

So when you use a saved page on the default browser for Android (I typically use Dolphin) it basically acts as an image. I can't click anything on the mobile Wikipedia page. This is proving quite difficult when I could be doing something other than listen to music. So let's do this entire review starting from here in broken/partial sentences! Or at least the next paragraph.

Ghost. Swedish doom metal band. 6 band member names undisclosed. Dress up funny. Compared to other metal bands.
Debut album. Won Swedish Grammy. Got them major label signing. Bonus track Beatles cover. Not on American version. Prediction is positive. Stoner and Doom is good.

Song titles looks not Swedish. First two tracks Latin or Italian. Rest of tracks English. First track minute and a half of distorted piano(?). Con Clavi Con Dio vocals sound English.

Okay this gimmick sucks dick. But anyways, a few bands this was compared to were Black Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult and Kyuss. I can see the first and third, and I don't really listen to BOC so I don't know. And the vocals fade out to Latin or something. Oh, and I'm not listening to this in one piece. Everything before that last sentence was written in the morning, now it's 11 PM and I want to get this done with. The song Ritual is pretty cool, the chant is pretty damn cool in the middle. Through all songs up to track 5, the vocalist uses a soft singing style, almost like a croon. Which is in my opinion a good approach to singing over the heavy riffs, contrast is good. One thing I want to know is how goddamn hard are these guys trying to be satanic? The band logo, the album cover, the way the singer dresses, song titles like Satan Prayer and several lyrics, holy shit these guys are trying way too damn hard. Even if you find Satan cool you don't have to be so over-the-top (though truthfully the only reason I say that is because it isn't Black/Death Metal.) Back to the music, the instrumentation is good. It's not too different from what I'd expect from Doom Metal but nonetheless it's good overall. The production isn't wow-worthy but it's tolerable, and the use of synths and well-timed sounds like chimes are a plus. I have no good way to conclude this paragraph. The last track is pretty awesome. Easy way out.

These guys have a pretty cool sound but the whole Satan thing feels forced. It doesn't detract too much from the music but I don't wanna review this and I wanna complain. The instruments are good, the singer has a good voice (although my favorite track is the instrumental Genesis) and the production is perfectly passable. Not a bad album at all. And I have nothing good to write. Holy crap I don't want to write. I want to do something that isn't writing. I'm gonna shotgun the next review 4 hours from now.

[rayword45]

Day 52: Cure for Pain by Morphine (Album Choice: Gus V's Uncle)

Seriously, saved pages suck. It's 3 AM and I wrote the last review 4 hours ago, I kept to my word. Let's write this intro paragraph.

Morphine was an alternative rock band from my area of living (or close enough) that started in 1989. They were (according to this saved page) always signed to a major label despite never really reaching above the underground in the US though they were pretty popular overseas. They mixed blues, jazz, and rock song structures and were known for a low-key, minimalist sound. This was their sophmore album and several songs from it were used in movies and TV shows I don't really care about. 10 yeara after the band started the frontman died. The end.

And this is jazzy, at least based off of the first track. The second track reminds me of Colour Haze at first with less Stoner fuzz and more horns, but that doesn't really apply to later tracks though the vocal performance is similar enough (Here it's a bit more straightforward, no screams or falsetto or anything) and I get a bit of a jam band feeling from both. There's way too much background noise for me to say anything for sure (damn the casino and drunk people dancing), but if I'm hearing the bass it's really thick, while the drums match the horns with a big jazz influence. Guitars are present but they almost never take charge. In fact several tracks I can't hear any guitar. In Spite Of Me has no horns! Just shockingly beautiful strings and guitars along with whispered vocals. And with slightly less background noise, I can now say for sure the bass is thick, heavy and probably distorted, at least on the track Thursday. And I can understand the lyrics! Don't cheat except on some days of the week. The title track shows me that these guys know how to write great pop tunes (layered with jazz). And Mary Won't You Call My Name is an uptempo swing tune compared to all the not quite uptempo tracks on the album. The last track is more no horns, or are there horns? I can't tell with this goddamn background noise! But either way it's very quiet and relaxing, I guess a tribute to Miles Davis' Funeral.

And now it's almost 3:40. I want to get this done with so summarize quick. I liked this album. I say that a lot but I try not to hate on music. This is a very interesting sound, and as described it was definitely a bit more low-key then one would expect out of rock. The vocals in particular I thought were pretty nice and complimented the music very well. I would nitpick just so I can make this review longer but screw it I'm going to bed.

[rayword45]

Day 53: Surfing the Void by Klaxons

I don't want an LOLcat for an album cover. Ever.

And now that that's out of the way, let's write this. I have to start listening soon so I have time to write my concluding paragraph. This is indie/electronic/noise rock according to Wikipedia and I'M NO LONGER LIMITED TO SAVED PAGES THANK THE FREAKING LORD. The main thing this band is described as is Nu-Rave. What the hell is Nu-Rave? My assumption is that's a mixture of new wave and techno and it seems I was right! I'm definitely enjoying the liberty of being able to surf the web without paying heinous amounts of cash (though I'd prefer cruising still).

But yeah let's start already.

Like many albums throughout this challenge, they chose to start with deceptive lo-fi noise which turns into another genre. Here it sounds like spacy, lightly noisy pop, but it could just be these crappy headphones. That seems to continue on after the first song, then the next two tracks (which flow perfectly into each other, to the point where I think they split one track just so they could have a title track) gets progressively less poppy and noisier and rockier, the title track containing loads of guitar noise and shouted vocals. Extra Astronomical sounds like freaking industrial prog rock or something. Not nu-rave. I forgot about the whole nu-rave thing up till now but I still don't understand what that really means. There is an electronic vibe to the whole album as well as a slight progressive feeling. The two singles in particular, the first track and Twin Flames, are some of the more accessible tracks (probably why they were chosen as singles) and make me think of progressive pop music. Also I looked it up and they disowned the new rave term. Good enough for me. The last track seems to try to cram in a lot, like they want to get a bit of each genre they've gotten thus far (not Mr. Bungle style, something a bit less schizo than that).

Because I'm freaking sick of writing these concluding paragraphs, let me try something different. Let's list all the genres this has been described as.

Nu-Rave: The hell is Nu-Rave? They disowned it but whatever.
Indie Rock: Fairly broad term, they have a pretty unique sound.
Noise Rock: They use liberal amounts of noise but I'm not sure I'd call this noise rock.
Post-Punk: See indie rock. There is a bit of a punk sound here but not a whole lot.
Dance-Punk: See Post-Punk.
Electronic Rock: Meh, close enough.

My opinion is not important.

[rayword45]

Day 54: Pop Tatari by Boredoms (Album Choice: Spenner)

I miss cruising. But now I can focus on less concise reviewing again!

Except I'm still limited to my phone for the most part. Goddamnit.

Oh and I'm still pretty much limited to noisy areas. This isn't much better.

But anyways, Japanese noise rock. With heavy post-production and laters of ambience and psychedelia. Over an hour of it. I know nothing about Japanese music nor do I really plan to get acquainted with it, but hey at least I don't have a bias! This band features the girl that The Flaming Lips named their biggest and most overrated album after, Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots. I don't have the time to write a long intro, let me listen as a get a lapdance from this aging stripper.

This intro is not making things promising. And holy shit the noise in this arcade is too damn high. But I hear the average clangy noisy guitar and pounding drums of so many noise rock bands. Hell, the slight genre fusion does nothing for me. What is special is the vocal performance. Holy shit is this guy nuts. My preoccupation with the movie on the screen right now means I'm not picking out specific songs as "highlights". There's not much of a need to anyways. There's bit of jazz and ambience here and there but mostly the instrumentation sounds like every other noname noise rock band out there. The vocal performance is something else, to the point where I don't care if it's Japanese or English. I'd liken it to a noisier, louder Mike Patton in his Fantômas works. That's boring as hell for a description. I'm obligated to make one unfunny joke per review and I've already been not adhering so let's try this out.

The guys from Boredoms are big fans of Sonic Youth, citing them as a major influence. In particular, the lead singer is extremely fond of Kim Gordon and her unique singing style. He decided to try and imitate her singing style. However, his English sucks and she's a woman, he's probably a man (hey, Thailand is in the same continent as Japan). Thus, his imitation failings are what really give his band their unique sound.

Like my origin story? No? Whatever I tried my best. Frankly it's not even accurate. It's hard to write because the music is really loud in this Mexican restaurant. However, I went to the bathroom for a few tracks. Not worth it. And I was about right with my description. The noisy, atonal guitar you expect with pounding drums. The bass is bassy if there is one, can't tell because there's still music coming from the outside and lots of noise rock bands lack one. There's slight genre hopping with small amounts of jazz, experimental and psychedelia here and there. But the main defining factor is the manic vocals. Third time I've described the bands sound. I decided to leave the football stadium just in time for the last 2 songs. The album ends with the title track which was relatively calm compared to the rest of the album. Bits of doo-wop and ambience there.

Unfortunately, the dance floor was just too loud for me to focus and form much of an opinion. My fault for choosing a long album. But what I did conclude is that this is a pretty interesting album, though I'm not sure just how interesting it would be if the singer didn't enjoy his crack cocaine a lot. I'm gonna compare this to a noise rock Fantômas and say if you like experimental stuff like that give it a try. Either way my opinion is definitely to be taken with a grain of salt for obvious, repeated reasons. And either way I should be given an award for completing a writing inside of a brothel.

My life is more interesting than yours.

[Spenner]

Awesome hahaha. I almost think that you immersed yourself in a proper setting for a band like Boredoms, which almost has a way of distracting itself from its own music-- guitars to vocals, to noise to screams, etc. Well put review for an album I can't really pinpoint what I think of

[rayword45]

Day 55: Brother, Sister by mewithoutYou (Album Choice: ChikaraGuy)

My original plan was to do some electronic album because I was really sleepy (don't question my logic). Unfortunately, I procrastinated up until 11 PM and all these douchebag artists think that it's necessary to make every electronic album a double album apparently. So here's some art rock music, I guess. Or post-hardcore. The tags vary. According to Wikipedia, lots of free-range instruments (like chickens) and spoken word vocals. And the songs are all about religion but it isn't Christian/Jewish/Muslim/Scientologist rock. And the album that followed this one was apparently a Neutral Milk Hotel ripoff. I wish I was recommended that album but hey, more diversity in these last couple of weeks.

Well, another unique vocal style. Not extremely unique like yesterday as I can easily compare this to the Tiny Moving Parts band from 27 days ago except with the addition of actual sung passages, and a much milder form of screaming. The instruments are similar, guitar that's often mathy and a similar drum sound. One difference is the album basically being 40% longer. Another is that instead of short experimental tracks, they added short acoustic tracks about spiders, which is a much better decision in my opinion. For a 21st century band, this seems to be as close as I'll get to the old post-hardcore that I enjoy much, much more than the screaming emo stuff with too many breakdowns/autotuned choruses/general whininess. It's not something I can honestly say I'd listen to a lot, and it's still nowhere near the pleasure of The Jesus Lizard (or is that noise rock?) or Slint (or is that math rock?) but I'll take this over shitty bands like Bullet For My Valentine anyday. As for the lyrics, I really can't pay attention right now but they range from crap about religion and spirituality, to more crap about religion and sprituality except even more bizarre like "I'm still technically a virgin after 27 years". The last track starts out with some of that folkiness and then goes back to more of the other tracks that I don't feel like describing again and let me stretch this sentence out for at least a few more words for the sake of filler.

And so this album ends. I have four minutes to go. I don't think this band is bad, and it's a far cry from both the post-hardcore bands that I love and the post-hardcore bands that I loathe. The art rock tag somewhat fits why didn't I mention that during the second paragraph at all? To be honest, this isn't the kind of music that appeals to me, but if you like free-range guitar and drums and poems about Jesus go ahead. I think you could do much worse. I'm still more interested in that follow-up folk record though.

[rayword45]

Day 56: Gonglot by Frog Pocket (Album Choice: GammaBlaster)

Yeah, I only have about 4 minutes to write without listening. Gotta make this brief. This guy lives in Scotland and mixes experimental and electronic music with folk. I have no idea if that means singer-songwriter stuff or the other kind of folk that I don't really care about. They incorporate complicated beats and string parts. I chose this album so I could have another electronic album under my belt after non-stop rock, metal and noise the past few days.

The first song is very little other than slightly distorted guitar playing some odd rhythm. I guess that's why it's an intro track. The next track doesn't follow. It's just really fast glitchy breakbeats (fast to the point where I almost think "grindcore" but not quite, actually I don't think that's usually faster than IDM) over some ambient techno as a backdrop. Good and all but I'm failing to see the folk. The next track I see a bit more folk, and it isn't the singer-songwriter type. Disappointing but then again I'm an idiot for expecting that out of instrumental music. There are guitars and some instrument I don't recognize in Oben, but it sounds vaguely similar to an accordion. Plinty on the other hand is, like the title track, made up almost entirely of acoustic guitar, pretty much just arpeggios for two and a half minutes. There's a very warm, acoustic sound to these first few tracks, which makes good contrast to the odd-signature glitch beats in several of the tracks. Now that I think about it, the concept of warm music behind fast, erratic beats? Completely unoriginal! But hey, it isn't done poorly here. One thing that struck me out as "rip-off" though is that, like 99 percent of IDM artists, all these song titles are COMPLETE NONSENSE. Or Google Translate is being a fool, but hey, they speak English in Scotland so I think not. Vaedre is a particularly good choice for a penultimate track. Going from pure ambient techno, adding glitch, going back to the ambience and then building up and adding layer upon layer of noise, getting louder until it ends with pure cacophony. That's 10 minutes of pure bliss right there. The last track isn't much more than a melancholy violin for three minutes so there isn't much to comment on.

Going from pure acoustics to warm folktronica to speedy breakbeats over ambience, this album is definitely diverse yet it stays cohesive at the same time. That's a skill right there. Regardless of that however, this is yet another album that doesn't scream of a classic to me. It's good, especially the longer tracks like Vaedre, but it doesn't make me think this guy is a master of the genre, just that he's quite good at it. To sum it up, it's been done before, but regardless of that he does it very well. Oh my god this is the most slapdash final paragraph I've done yet.

[rayword45]

Day 57: Udu Wudu by Magma (Album Choice: PurpleVision)

I know very little about French music, though I like their house music. I don't listen to much progressive rock, mainly because most bands feel the need to make every album 3 tracks long and every track 25 minutes (that's not to say all bands though!). That French bit isn't very important because most of these songs are written in some made-up language called Kobaian, hooray! But yeah, 40 minutes of jazz-infused prog rock with lyrics I can't understand or translate. 6 tracks, and the first 5 are all around 4 minutes. Let's start because I only have 45 minutes (man, I procrastinate too much).

Since it's only 6 tracks I see no real problem in doing a semi-track by track review. The first and title track sounds like a mixture of lounge music and a tribal chant, but that's only because I don't know this language. I don't think anyone does. The track doesn't seem to go anywhere but again, I don't know the lyrics. The next track is a bit more complex, adding synthesizers! Exciting! ...You know what? Screw track by track. The next few tracks get a bit more menacing with a lot of experimentation. Soleil D'Ork {Ork' Sun) is basically dark funk rock, complete with slap-happy bass, while the other tracks are basically more jazz fusion with creepy chants on top. Also worth note is that every track on the first side (remember, that means all tracks besides the last one) fade out. When I hear that effect in pop or rock music, I often think "cop-out!". When they use it here, it adds to the creepy atmosphere.

The last track gets a paragraph of its own. Why? Because it's nearly half of the entire album and I should go in depth a bit more for an 18 minute track that's regarded as "complex". Apparently this track is telling some sort of space story but I'm not going into that because I can't even read the damn lyrics. Seriously, what was wrong with the concept of using a common language, one I could go to Google for? It's not so bad for most tracks but now this is supposed to tell a story? Either way, the track is another dark one. Lots of creepy quiet bits, contrasting with loud sections with plodding drums and thick fuzzy bass. It's like proto-grunge (or not)! There's also a lot of speed-ups in this song, which creates an increasing tension to this track. And does this all sound like filler? I'm actually not trying to make it sound like it is for once. I keep expecting a guitar solo to pop-up with the increasing speed but NOPE, actually, there isn't really any guitar. There's a bass solo in there though! At 15 minutes in, the speed up just stops and starts again. And a few minutes later it ends somewhat anti-climactically. And that's my journey through 18 minutes of prog rock! Something I don't normally do.

Like much progressive rock I've listened to before, I don't really "get it". The whole "different language" thing evades me, and musically I'm not that excited by most tracks (though I do like the proto-RHCP Soleil D'Ork, and I don't even like RHCP!). I don't dislike this album, I just don't understand it. Either this is another "inaccessible" or "challenging" album or I'm really bad when it comes to prog.

[rayword45]

Day 58: Fast Forward Eats The Tape by Belvedere (Album Choice: Benjamin P.)

Today, I listened to The Disintegration Loops by William Basinski, 69 Love Songs by The Magnetic Fields, Number 1 Record by Big Star and part of The Freed Weed by Sebadoh. I've decided to write a paragraph about each of the first three (in the order of how much I enjoyed them), in an attempt to get my total album count to 100 (including mini-reviews). With ratings.

1. Because these are only paragraphs introductions are not gonna be in here. You want information look it up yourself fool. But anyways, I sat through 69 Love Songs. I remember how I said I couldn't review this one but I'm doing it now. And as I think I've said before, Stephin Merritt is an indie pop genius. With 69 songs you'd expect a few clunkers, and there definitely were some (Punk Love I didn't like at all, and Zebra wasn't bad but one hell of an anti-climactic closer). Either way though, there's at least 45 good songs here, my personal favorite is probably I Think I Need A New Heart. One thing that irks me about the album and most of The Magnetic Fields' work is how some songs seem insincere. I don't and probably will never understand why Merritt thinks actual emotion doesn't belong in music, but either way, there's too many good songs with great lyrics here for me to not put this at the top. 10/10 because there's 4 albums worth of good music. Who said you need to be concise? Did I? Whatever.

2. I have a certain friend who dislikes ambient music. A quote from his "Classical tells a story ambient gives a repetitive drone high". And while I've never tried LSD I could care less about the imagery then, because when sober, The Disintegration Loop(s) is still fairly harrowing. The famed story, some guy tried to preserve old, old tape music, the digital transfer process caused the tape to wear out. Around the same time, it was 9/11 and he saw imagery between tape deterioration and tower deterioration. Get famous. Having only heard the first one, the "repetitive drone high" seems apparent for the first 20 minutes. You think "what's so special about this"? Then you notice that the sound is starting to fade, and by the time you're on the last minute, the original, somewhat full-sounding loop is nothing more than tape warmth and an extremely lo-fi horn blaring one note, like a defeated soldier. The imagery is very apparent though I didn't watch the video (which is just the last hour of 9/11 in New York). I can see why many people don't like ambient, but goddamn this is a depressing and very engaging work. You don't want to get up or check how far into the song you are once you get into it. I'll give it a 9/10 only because of how bored I felt during the first 20 minutes which means I kinda missed the point at first.

3. Freaking technical restrictions. But yeah, you know which one this is. It was just power pop. Well made with lots of catchy melodies, but nothing about this album felt so special, and having listened to 69 indie pop songs I probably wasn't in too much of a mood to listen to more. The other two albums from this group are supposed to be better so that gives me hope, and I can see why this would be influential to many groups. 7/10

And I give the first 14 tracks of The Freed Weed a 5.5/10. Didn't do anything for me having heard the still acoustic and folky but infinitely superior III. I'm not putting that on the list since it isn't a full album. Now, onto the real review!

I'm doing an introduction again, this is a full review after all. Because of a misunderstanding last time, I need to state this now. I don't hate all pop punk, I just dislike the majority of it. There are some really great pop punk bands out there (the most cliched example of "not all pop punk sucks" being Descendents) but a lot of it is crappy pop melodies with emotionless power chords and general suck. But this isn't really pop punk, this is skate punk with melodic hardcore (and some pop punk)! There are two bands I can think of who I know are described as such a mixture. There's Adolescents, whom I've only heard the debut from (that's a punk classic) and Pennywise whom I don't remember jackshit about. Not a single song. Also worth note is that they're Canadian. Well, that's not noteworthy for most people. But for me if it's Canadian it's either incredibly awesome (New Pornographers, Protest The Hero) or incredibly lame (avoiding the extremely, painfully obvious first 2, I'll say Drake and Three Days Grace).

This first track isn't very poppy, that's a somewhat noisy beginning, and more jarring than I'd expect out of something with pop in there. The vocal performance reminds me of several pop punk bands (besides the ocassional screams), but the speed and guitar leads don't! There is a lot of speed and speedy riffs in here, like punk should be. The guitar is speedy and has more than just power chords (which is fairly rare), the bass is thick and also fast, and drums are completely ass-kicking in how fast and pounding they are. The only thing that comes to mind for this record is speed, which is what I usually liken to IDM or speed metal. The short tracks in particular are awesome in how fast they are, that is my idea of what punk should sound like. There are a few clunkers, which put me to the conclusion that the less poppy the track, the faster it is, the better the song, the harder I fight, the more I love you. The last track contains more of the same, speedy instruments with pop-punk vocals and a bit of shouting here and there. The only reason I wrote this sentence is so I could add some filler to a 3 paragraph review.

Either my standards were set low by my expectations of pop punk (and I say again, it's not all pop punk, it's most of it, especially the stuff on the radio) or this album is actually quite good. For the sake of having an opinion for this review I'm assuming the latter. Punk and speedy riffs go well together, and this is a prime example. The slightly slower songs don't do anything for me. All About Perspective for example isn't slow at all, but it's slower than the rest and it bores me to tears. The minute long tracks on the other hand are like little bursts of joy. If you like punk rock, I'm not gonna go as far as to say this should be a classic, but it's got some catchy riffs and SPEED. SPEED. SPEED. And then they broke up due to their meth addictions I assume.

Also, on another note, the new Wolverine movie SUCKED.

[Arkuski]

Okay, here are a few of my favorites you should listen to;

In the Court of the Crimson King - King Crimson
In an Aeroplane Over the Sea - Neutral Milk Hotel <-------- Just put up a review after I posted lol
Immunity - Jon Hopkins
Parachutes - Coldplay
Madvillainy - Madvillain
Discovery - Daft Punk
Random Album Title - deadmau5
Maybe I'm Dreaming - Owl City
Aguas da Amazonia - Uakti & Philip Glass

[rayword45]

EDIT: The recommendation above is semi-well timed.

Day 59: The Glow Pt. 2 by The Microphones (MINI-REVIEW)

Mini-review again! I'm gonna do a lot of these in an attempt to get to 100 albums. Only one today. Next paragraph.

One of the albums that I decided against reviewing was The Glow, Pt. 2 by The Microphones. Because I wanted to cover more requests. Then I started this goal and said "What the hell, give it a paragraph." So here we are. The reason I found out about this band is because of comparisons to Neutral Milk Hotel's magnum opus and I'm going to spend most of this paragraph comparing the two albums. I don't agree with that stance at all. Seriously. Some very important differences make all the difference. First, the recording quality is actually lo-fi (with the all the static and tape hiss you'd expect), whereas I assume Jeff Mangum's idea of lo-fi was hideous amounts of clipping. And the album length makes all the difference, this album is quite long whereas In The Aeroplane Over The Sea was really concise (except for the epic rocker of Oh Comely). And then the music itself. I'd liken this much more to On Avery Island than the other NMH record, but still wouldn't compare it to either. This album has a much more homemade feel to it, with song arrangements being looser overall (there's a lack of pop hooks) and as said before, the production quality. Not that similar to Mangum. Now, off of that, either way this is some great indie folk. It's not nearly as accessible as ITAOTS (damnit stop the comparisons) but who said that's a bad thing? The mixture of solo acoustic tracks, fuzzed out noisy songs and songs that partially sound like a full band come together quite well, and the vocal delivery is very understated (except for the hideous You'll Be In The Air) while the lyrics are very dense and poetic but don't come off as pretentious. I give this a 9/10 and back to the comparison, I feel as if this is a better album than Aeroplane but I still prefer Aeroplane. I don't know why.

Day 59: Oh No by OK Go (Album Choice: Jonlovesddr)

And now it's time for pop music. Power pop music, which is still pretty much rock. These guys are known more for their music videos than their music. One of their videos was on Nintendo Video on the 3DS but I didn't watch it. Nobody I know uses that app. But yeah, power pop music. Basically pop music with more guitar. I've already stated my affinity for one power pop band at least 7 times so I'm not gonna say it again, but there's very little power pop I find to be excruciating, and a lot of it is quite enjoyable. It's my idea of feel-good music usually. My hopes are high.

I think my hopes were a bit too high, because this music isn't bad at all, I'm just not impressed with it. There are a lot of great pop hooks with fuzzy guitars and pop vocal performances, as I'd expect from a power pop album, and to add their own flair to it there's a lot of punk vocals and energy as well. Either way, I'm just not feeling mesmerized by this album. The whole thing seems kinda contrived despite being very contrived. Songs like Do What You Want and No Sign Of Life (with a sound almost reminiscent of Bon Jovi) are pretty damn catchy, the others fail to captivate me. I feel like I'm being hard on this album, because it's not bad. It's just mediocre. I have the same problem with recent Weezer, and that's my obligatory same-genre reference. I'm not even commenting on the last track, that's how bored I am.

As I said, there's very little power pop I find to be excruciating. And that stands true, in fact no examples come to mind. This album I just thought was boring. For a band famous for all those wacky videos, and having listened to much (don't say it) amongst other bands I think my expectations were too high in the first place. Oh well. If my expectations were lower, I suspect I'd still find it rather ho-hum. There's too much calculation here. And that's my conclusion.

[Choofers]

Originally Posted by Arkuski

Okay, here are a few of my favorites you should listen to;

In the Court of the Crimson King - King Crimson
In an Aeroplane Over the Sea - Neutral Milk Hotel <-------- Just put up a review after I posted lol
Immunity - Jon Hopkins
Parachutes - Coldplay
Madvillainy - Madvillain
Discovery - Daft Punk
Random Album Title - deadmau5
Maybe I'm Dreaming - Owl City
Aguas da Amazonia - Uakti & Philip Glass

shiggy

[rayword45]

Day 60: Piramida by Efterklang (Album Choice: Gus V.)

It's the last multiple of 10 for the summer! Time for mini-reviews (yes, I'm going to be doing this pretty often)

1. Folktronica is a genre I always assumed one thing about, and never really bothered to listen to much. Now I've listened to one "seminal" folktronica album, Up In Flames by Caribou (formerly Manitoba). And I liked it! There were underlying folk influences but the main thing that came to mind was psychedelica. The entire album is swirling in layered sound with loads of IDM influence, like a more electronic and less falsely-orchestrated Flamings Lips. It's a short record (clocking in under 40 minutes) and still feels packed (in a good way). 8.5/10

2. Here's another album recommended to me because I liked Neutral Milk Hotel, but no comparison this time. Fevers and Mirrors by Bright Eyes is yet another folk-influenced album. I don't know why this one was recommended to me, it's way too bleak for me to draw a comparison. That's the only thing I get out of this album. Bleakness, complete with constantly wavering vocals and depressing lyrics. Well, the lyrics themselves are actually pretty good. The album as a whole, though, seems sort of self-indulgent. I mean, he inserted a praising radio interview into a studio album. What kind of move is that? Either it's a tongue-in-cheek joke or this guy is really self-obsessed. And if it's the former, I can barely take any of the album too seriously. Which would make sense, because this album really overdoes the bleak aspect. Still, the instrumentation is fair enough and the lyrics are nice. 6/10

And now the real review.

I said my sentiments about power pop yesterday, and I have the same sentiments about indie pop. However, because of the broadness of the genre, I'm going to avoid generalizations, or any really high predictions. So less disappointment for me! From Denmark, we have a indie pop group that formerly dabbled in post-rock with a sort of "rock orchestra" like many other post-rock groups that I don't feel like naming. Then they fired half their members. Now they switched to synth-heavy indie pop. Which is probably why they got signed to 4AD in the first place. I like a lot of 4AD though.

And yeah, it sounds like 4AD. Well, that's not completely accurate. Truth be told I don't think there's a definitive 4AD sound (like there definitely is with Touch and Go or Rise Records) but what I imagine is basically either folk rock (not this) or pop/rock with synth in it. That second one is pretty vague and we have people that don't fall under this tag like The Breeders, but I think it's fair to link it partially to this album. A fair amount of synths behind dream pop loaded with interesting instrumentation and field recordings. And that goes for every song. Except the synth part, that's only a few tracks. Almost every track incorporates aforementioned field recordings to an extent that captures some amount of interest, but as a whole the album feels really cold. Actually, that probably was the goal, considering they went to an abandoned Russian settlement near the north pole for this album. But still, the icy sound is kind of disappointing, with the well-crafted instruments feeling a bit underutilized (and that's pretty odd, they had a 70 piece girls' choir). Jesus this album is hard to review.

This is another case of "fair enough" music for the entire album. With all the field recordings and the lush instrumentation, and the extremely clear talent and effort put in (going to the north pole for example), this album feels awfully static in terms of risks taken. They could've made it sound a little warmer and this would probably be a very whole-hearted recommendation. As it stands, I'm probably missing the point with all the coldness. For me, the undaring sound throughout combined with sterility makes it oddly impenetrable. I'll give this another listen sooner or later, to see if my opinion changes.

I have to listen to 19 albums in 8 days to reach 100. I think that's pretty doable.

[Arkuski]

Also check out Dive by Tycho. Great chill-out album.

[rayword45]

Day 61: Lateness of the Hour by Alex Clare (Album Choice: David H.)

3 mini-reviews, ranked like last time. I think I can do this 100 thing!

1. Noise. One of the greatest, most underrated elements in music, in my opinion. Except when it sucks, for example Arab on Radar. And then we have the bass guitar, also a very underrated element in music. Well, it wouldn't be underrated if so many bands nowadays decided they don't need bass guitars (looking mainly at Black Keys here). Some bands, on the other hand, rely on only bass guitar and drums, and Lightning Bolt is one of them. Of course, it's a bit of a stretch due to alternate tunings being used, as well as replacing the A string with a banjo string and running through loads of different types of distortion and effects. So it doesn't really sound like a bass. But it's noisy! And repetitive but not annoyingly so! With elements of punk and DnB (it's not electronic at all)! And noise always equals good except when it doesn't. This review sucks. 9/10

2. In the reviews I've written for the few math rock albums I've recommended, I'm pretty sure I've mentioned Slint at one point or another. I really like Slint. And I was told by some people to listen to the band Rodan because of that. They're also math rock, and people claim they're the most similar I'll be able to find to Spiderland. To quote myself from another forum today, "The first track reminds me of the untitled or self-titled EP. The second song reminds me of a more hardcore (and infinitely superior) Tweez. Nothing thus far really sounds like Spiderland."

At that point, I had only listened to the first 2 songs and a minute of the third. And by the end of it, while I had made somewhat a connection with Spiderland it still was a lot closer to Tweez as a whole. But unlike Tweez, this album was actually a pretty enjoyable listen. The mixture of math and hardcore punk goes very well, and they have a female singer! I remember somewhere on one of their records Slint was looking for a female singer because the lead singer couldn't sing for crap (and thus usually stuck to speaking). Unlike Slint however, they lack a lot of the dark, brooding atmosphere that made their sophomore album so compelling. Still, it's better than Tweez and close enough as a whole. 8/10

3. I finally listened to an entire Pavement album, going with their debut, Slanted and Enchanted. My opinion? Exactly the same sentiments I had about the band as before. I can understand their influence and such, but the album does nothing for me. There were a few good songs, such as In The Mouth A Desert, and I especially liked the punkier tracks that everyone else seems to hate like No Life Singed Her, but other then that I don't get it. Malkmus is a crappy singer with a giant ego and the songs seem like pretty average lo-fi slackerish guitar pop. It's not bad, I just don't get what the hell is so special about it. 6/10

It's Still Day 61: Lateness of the Hour by Alex Clare (Album Choice: David H.)

Some British guy mixes blue-eyed soul with DnB and other types of electronica as well as alternative rock, and because of a commercial for Internet Explorer (of all products to sell your soul music to) he managed to score one hit single (which I've heard way too many damn times). He kinda looks like Iron and Wine (Maybe it's his beard) and he's also a born-again Jew. His debut album picked up some mixed reviews. Time to form my own opinion! I need to start writing these things earlier in the day.

Yep, it pretty much sounds like it was described. White people soul music on top of electronic backgrounds and a dash of pop sensibility. It's not terrible, but not something I'd go out of my way to listen to (for the most part). It's a bit scattershot overall, with some songs a bit more on the soul side (I Won't Let You Down is pretty much a piano ballad, while Hands Are Clever is really funky) and some more electronic but overall, there isn't much to talk about. The Prince cover is the track I feel most obligated to comment on and it pretty much falls right between the two genres without much to comment on. The production is really heavy here, and the songwriting is a bit weak. That's what I expect out of any album with a mixture of electronic and soul, though, so that's not a big surprise.

Combine white soul, dubstep and a bit of dance-pop and this is what you get. That's how I sum it up. It's not too generic yet there isn't much to comment on here. Like many albums I get the impression that this guy has talent but it isn't being used to it's fullest extent. Other then that, read my first sentence and you have a great idea of what this sounds like! Or just listen to the radio, do they play Too Close anymore? I don't know I don't listen to the radio much. Not my kind of music (or pretty much any of those genres that he mixes, DnB isn't nearly as prominent as Dubstep), but that shouldn't stop you if you like those three genres.

Yes, I need to start writing these things earlier. I don't enjoy rushing.

[rayword45]

Day 62: GODLOMANMACHOPANZILLA by Computer Jesus Refrigerator (Album Choice: ToasterCubed)

Only one mini-review today, of Play Hard by Krewella. And, wow, it's dubstep/electro house and poppy vocals. This combination is already extremely common, and nothing in this genre interests me. Do I need to go in depth? That description should be apt enough so you know your own opinion, since it isn't really much new at all. My opinion? 6. Out of an even number above 8.

And now, time for noise. With glitch. Did I do an album with that description before? I remember yesterday I wrote a mini-review without mentioning the album name like the idiot I am.

THE ALBUM WAS Wonderful Rainbow by Lightning Bolt BUT I SAID THE ARTIST NAME.

This time I said the album name already. This is noise and glitch with an obnoxious album name that I don't want to type again and eyesore cover art. One guy does drums and sampler, the other guy does keyboards and sampler. That's doesn't sound noisy, that sounds like what street musicians use. To make that noisy will either be incredibly awesome or incredibly awful. I chose this album like many others because it's short. It's like 26 minutes or something, and over half of the 16 tracks are under 2 minutes. That should make picking stand out tracks easy. Or would that make it hard? I don't know.

The first 2, I mean 3, I mean 4 oh whatever. All these tracks seem to flow right into each other. Which isn't hard to do here because this is just live drums and sampler cacophony. That's not what I assume when people say noisy in music. This sounds like some crappy collage smash I made in 7th grade on Audacity, in other word, this is like the musical equivalent of abstract art. Not the kind where they just draw one shape and call it day, the kind where they throw splotches of paint everywhere and ask you to find meaning. Choosing a standout track is hard for obvious reasons, and I love noise rock. Long-Form Epic, at least, is pretty funny in name since it lasts 0 seconds. And The Satan-Strawberry Connection SORT OF has a melody... That was a lie, I think. The rest, I don't understand what the hell is going on.

What the hell was that? I had the same reaction for Transformalin but this time it's a lot different. That was like horror film ambient music. It sounded disturbing. This is like a guy on crack using Audacity. It sounds... Confused. Like an album if Felix Colgrave wanted to make a whole album and hired a live drummer for no real reason. I basically just listened to 26 and a half minutes of mindless sampler noise. Yep, that's the best way to describe it. Mindless sampler noise. I was expecting something like atonal guitars, and I got this. And I sat through the whole thing. Wow, what the hell am I doing?

I'm gonna go sit in the corner and re-evaluate my life.

[rayword45]

Day 63: In The Court Of The Crimson King by King Crimson (Album Choice: Arkuski)

Do I really need to write an intro for this album? Well, here we go. This is one of the most influential progressive rock albums of all time, and I have never listened to it. These guys were one of the first bands to be considered prog rock, since they said "screw blues" and instead decided they'd add the furthest two genres away from it. Jazz and folk! And some symphonic elements among other things. The album art is pretty famous, even among people who don't know what it belongs to. And I'm listening now, been doing so for around 3 minutes.

And these 3 minutes have been pretty damn decent. We start with some good hard acid rock, which switches into jazzy guitar soloing/noodling. A fine mixture, if only because they don't waste too much time with the jazz part like I was expecting out of a 7 minute song. Changing direction, the next song is Beatles pop with more flute, which ends with flute soloing/noodling. Epitaph is a folk rock song layered with mellotron, with a long midsection made up completely of mellotron and acoustic guitar soloing/noodling. Fantastic song right there. Moonchild starts out with some promising psychedelic progressive rock (reminds me of quebec by Ween) then after about two and a half minutes, I'm required to sit through 10 straight minutes of keyboard soloing/noodling, emphasis on the noodling. Why the hell do these assholes think this is worth extending the album? Cut the damned solo by two-thirds!

The last song gets its own really short paragraph, because I want to extend this review and because it's the best song. Also it represents a lot of the rest of the album pretty well. The title track starts out with more of that progressive pop rock sound that works so well, and you know what else they continue with. THE MINDLESS SOLOING/NOODLING AT THE END! WHY DO THEY INSIST ON DOING THIS?! If I'm "missing something" with all these little improv sections, I can safely say I don't care. I don't want to get it.

For a classic album, I can certainly see all of its influence. And for a progressive rock album, I definitely understood the album better then I expected to. The arranged musical parts are freaking fantastic. What drags this album down by a few points if I were giving a rating are the improvised solo sections. That's not correct, I'd say about 3 of the songs have great solos of whatever instrument. The last two songs, however, are a wasteland here. And the solo section of Moonchild is 10 minutes. So that's about 13 minutes of crap on a 45 minute album. A little editing and this would be fantastic. But I still can get behind the influence, and the other 32 minutes are still fantastic.

That's the end of that review. Originally this was to be a mini-review, but I got carried away and made this longer then the main review.

I'd argue this album review is late. Listening to the album is late by around 1.5 years of having the album and about 4 years since any potential relevancy. For approximately a year and a half now, I've had Strong Bad Sings and Other Type Hits on my phone but never bothered to listen. I guess I always had better stuff to do for 40 minutes, until now that is. And I never had better stuff to do, because this album wasn't a waste of time after all. Actually, did I ever think it was a waste of time? Why would I waste my download ratio on a waste of time? The fool in me. I actually learned about this album long ago but couldn't find it anywhere, then I realized it was online purchase only. I'm an idiot.

From a comedic standpoint (which should always be the first thing reviewed in a comedy album, because stand-up albums) some of the jokes drag on way too damn long without the Flash animations (The System is Down times one hundred considering it manages to overstay its welcome in less than 2 minutes, other songs to a much weaker extent such as These People Try To Fade Me and Sweet Cuppin Cakes Theme Song) but many songs remain hilarious without the accompanying video (The Ladies In Town All Know My Name, Sensitive To Bees). In fact, most of them do. Because for most of them, there isn't an accompanying video.

Musically, these guys are as diverse as Beck! Or Ween! Except they aren't nearly as musically talented, but they are funnier at least. You have your bad techno parody (the aforementioned The System is Down and to a less heinous extent, I Think I Have A Chance With This Guy), your bad punk rock (Oh Yeah Yeah), bad white rap (These People Try To Fade Me) and many others. But not all is bad! I don't think it's fair to call Sweet Cuppin Cakes bad because it's a perfect copy of saturday morning cartoon themes, and then we have the songs I'm actually confident in calling good! (Note: At this point, I decided this was way too long to be a mini-review. Damn the long song titles). Moving Very Slowly is an accurate send up of every average thrash metal band, but in this context it sounds effing great! The same goes for Trogdor though it's quite different (with over the top dueling guitar solos! And spoken passages!) Circles, if recorded on a 4-track, could easily pass off for a college rock song, and be better than most songs of its genre. And through its entirety of 65 seconds, the power ballad of It's Like It Was Meant To Be will make you want to cry. It won't make you cry, but you'll be close enough. The two definite highlights here are the two Limozeen songs, Because It's Midnite and Nite Mamas. These are an ABSOLUTELY PERFECT caricature of all that's right and all that's wrong about glam metal. They don't even sound like joke songs when you put them in the middle of a bad Warrant album. Why these weren't pressed on vinyl as a single is beyond me, that would've been perfect. I guess sales probably would've been weak, nobody cared about vinyl in 2003.

This album is the definition of a mixed bag. Genres shift like crazy, and many songs are mere snippets lasting less than a minute. For every overextended joke, there's one song that'll hit you with an unexpected laugh. For every crappy genre parody (which is often the fault of the genre) there's a really good genre parody. For every The System Is Down there's one Because It's Midnite. A total mixed bag, but hey, if you liked Homestar Runner when it was alive, chances are you already know about this album. If you haven't listened to it yet, it's worth at least one listen. If you don't know Homestar Runner don't bother you'll be completely lost with all the jokes and there aren't enough good songs to make up for it. Since this was originally a mini-review let's give it a rating. I give it a 7/10 for humor, 7/10 for music (should probably be lower) and 10/10 for diversity. Average it out yourself.

Actual mini-review.

Let's make this short on purpose. Yet another band recommended to me for Neutral Milk Hotel similarity, actually that's a lie. It was the Mountain Goats similarity at first, but it's closer to the former. A lot closer to the former. This is Akron/Family's self-titled debut. Apparently this is described as "freak folk" due to the folk arrangements combined with the usage of all sorts of objects as instruments. Like The Glow, Pt. 2, this is not a concise album, running 61 minutes. But it's a good album. This is some top-notch psych-folk, like what people say NMH did with all the crazy instruments they supposedly used (oh boy, a saw and fuzz!) taken to a higher level. The song arrangements aren't as tight as either The Glow, Pt. 2 or In The Aeroplane Over The Sea but the wide array of "instruments" is amazing. The lyrics aren't as good as the other two bands mentioned, but the vocals are superior. To conclude, I like the name of the genre used here. Freak folk sounds pretty cool, and this sounds like what I imagine freak folk as. 9/10

[rayword45]

Day 64: Nothing Lasts... But Nothing Is Lost by Shpongle (Album Choice: Spenner)

Hooray for psychedelic music. I don't have any acid on me, so the music will do for now. Mix ambient music, psychedelic trance, world music and spoken word samples. This is what you get, apparently. This was planned to be Shpongle's final album but like Lil Wayne, they decided against retirement. There are supposed to be 8 songs (each one representing part of the dream sequence) but the whole thing is split up into 20 tracks (To... Thwart piracy?) and flows like one track. Isn't that convenient? These guys chose the creepiest mascot possible, and dress like freaks. Not hippies, more like a milder version of Cirque du Soleil. All signs point towards "good" here.

You know, I'm a bit wary about commenting on any individual tracks because of their incredibly ineffective anti-piracy scheme. Truthfully, since I'm expecting a world of psychedelia, I'd rather just lay down on the floor and listen but I can't do that. I have a challenge I've almost beat already. The description I was given is pretty accurate. You can hear traces of ambient and psychedelic/goa trance here as well as a heavy Eastern music vibe. There's some other stuff, like jazz during the beginning of Mentalism (there, I mentioned a track) but those three are the most prominent. There's no real title track, but there are two tracks each with one part of the album title (guess how they split it up) which aren't seated next to each other. This is due to ONE bastard track, Shnitzled In The Negev. But that doesn't matter because the whole thing plays like one song. Speaking of that, I've noticed that the more I focus, the less I hear the gaps between songs in this "gapless" player that they call Winamp. That's not related to the music. Like the last psy-electro album I reviewed, there's a mixture of electronic music and analog instruments. The main thing that comes to mind are the flute that's used throughout the album, and the incredible trilogy of guitar-based tracks at the end, starting with a short noise-heavy electric guitar solo in Connoisseur Of Hallucinations, then moving to a more melodic rock guitar on the penultimate track, ending with acoustics. That's my album highlight, instead of one individual track. Good to have something unique in this filler ass review.

Was this album psychedelic? Yes, in the way you'd expect out of psytrance, which isn't that psychedelic for a group defined as a "psychedelic music project". After listening to the stoner heaviness of bands like Sleep, the whacked-out epicness of Butthole Surfers and Ween (The Pod is a fine piece of psychedelia once you let it penetrate your mind), and the lo-fi ambient of Boards of Canada, the psychedelia here doesn't seem that extreme. I was expecting more drugged-out sounds here. But is it good? Yes. Although I wish they had taken a less obnoxious approach to anti-piracy and just broke the damn thing up into the correct 8 tracks (or preferably, one long track).

And bonus review.

Today I listened to Vicious Delicious by Infected Mushroom (Album Choice: dore). It wasn't as good as Classical Mushroom.

How much longer does a mini-review have to be? I've already beat Christgau in terms of review length here fuck you.