The Monorchid, "Abyss"
The Monorchid brought back together a couple Circus Lupus alumni in a new band, but this record isn't quite the continuation of the noisy post-hardcore of that first band. In some ways, it's sort of the Hot Snakes to Circus Lupus's Drive Like Jehu. A comparison that absolutely made more sense in my head than it does when I write it down, but I'll be damned if I'm going to go back and replace it. Editing is for quitters and professionals, and I'm neither.
Mustard Plug, "Alone"
Mustard Plug has come up three times here, and I've 1) told my only Mustard Plug story, 2) referenced it, and 3) continued a dumb joke unrelated to them. Will I have anything to say about them that's not my one (sad) story?
Pop Will Eat Itself, "Poison To The Mind"
At their best, the anarchic glee with which Pop Will Eat Itself approached their music made them very charming. There's clearly no particular sense of boundaries or anything here, they're just doing whatever they think sounds good or fun or clever. It's that lack of self-consciousness that made greebo appealing at all, and I think it still works even if some of the specific sounds are a bit dated.
Atmosphere, "Smart Went Crazy"
Atmosphere's You Can’t Imagine How Much Fun We’re Having had big shoes to fill, will Seven's Travels being Atmosphere's best record (and one they still haven't topped, I think). That it doesn't quite live up to that standard isn't really the album's fault, but I did my usual thing where the record following what I think of as a breakthrough gets unfairly ignored by me. It's not that I dislike it, but it's inextricably linked with the previous album in my brain, and as a result most of the time when I think about listening to it, I think of the earlier and better record and just put it on instead. I don't know of a way to break it out of that shadow.
Thrawsunblat, "Thus Spoke The Wind"
Every now and again, I will sample various strains of folk metal, and invariably, it's not for me. I like folk, and I like metal, and outside of Panopticon, the combination leaves me cold. So, Thrawsunblat's Great Brunswick Forest was one of those experiments, and it absolutely didn't change my mind.