They Might Be Giants, "Let Me Tell You About My Operation"
I always enjoy the manic stuff when they really roll it out. A nice performance from Marty Beller on the drums here.
DJ Muggs & Roc Marciano, "White Dirt"
DJ Muggs was always the best part of Cypress Hill, and it's nice to hear him working with Roc Marciano on Kaos, which is a solid pairing. Marciano does good work, and Muggs rolls out a bunch of his signature claustrophobic sounds on the album.
The Books, "don't even sing about it"
OK, OK, I've got it. I'm gonna throw a genre on The Books: glitch folk. HELL YEAH WE DID IT Y'ALL
Simon & Garfunkel, "Bridge Over Troubled Water"
I have nothing to add to the body of words already written about Simon & Garfunkel, so I just want to say: this is how this album opens. That exhibits a tremendous amount of confidence to roll out something this naked, personal, and ambitious to kick things off for a major act.
Lawsuit, "You Should Be Sober"
I've talked about Lawsuit before, but they were a local act in California that I only encountered thanks to a friend catching them at a show and getting me a couple of CDs. And the album and EP I have (this comes from the latter) are both just flat out fantastic. They're not a ska band, but a rock band that uses horns in a way to really punch up the arrangements. But the center of things is Paul Sykes's fantastic vocal performances. He always sounds so vulnerable, so upset, so angry, so playful, so wry, and just so connected to the listener. This is the final track of that EP, and is a hell of a closer.