All You Can Eat, "Family Matters"
Here on Five Songs, mostly, we like our punk to be DIY and forgotten, mostly. I'm fine with some of the glossier stuff, but the underground shit just feels a lot more vital. There's nothing special about All You Can Eat exactly, but this is fun, they're just having a good time, they're outta there in two minutes, hell yeah buddy.
The Black Keys, "The Go Getter"
It's really such a shame that the Black Keys broke up after Brothers, their triumphant return to their big stompin' psychedelic songs. I wonder what would have happened to them had they had a chance to build on their increasing popularity, and where they might have gone from here.
Uncle Tupelo, "Shaky Ground"
See, if I'm going to listen to some strumming, rather than listen to M. Ward from yesterday, I'd so much rather put on an Uncle Tupelo record.
Boris with Merzbow, "Woman on the Screen"
Rock Dream captures a live show where Merzbow accompanied Boris, adding his electronic noise to their tunes. You can hear those washes of noise on this track, adding texture to the the galloping pyrotechnics of this song. If you're going to do a live album, this is the way to do it: adding some element to it that makes it a novel experience from the studio tracks.
Covet, "ares"
Sure, time for some math rock, why not? Lost in the instrumental prowess of math rock is that sometimes there aren't really songs there. Sure, it's all impressive, and it's fine as something to kind of have in the background to intermittently pay attention and say "oh, neat", but this is also pretty slippery.