There are a bunch of long songs on YSIV (Young Sinatra 4), but I’m not sure that it totally works for me. Goodness knows I don’t have a problem with long songs in general, but I really kind of want more evolution over the course of a track than this exhibits.
See, now, this makes a point. Bellow through a bullhorn, pound away with some bass and drums, get the point across. Done.
[Read More]I’m not going to egghead this for you.
That beat is structural, you could build an office building on that thing and it would be bomb proof.
This beat is fine, but I’m not quite as excited about it as I was the last one. I kind of feel like Czarface is good, but doesn’t stand out particularly. It’s sort of the shelf-filler of the Wu-Tang supermarket.
[Read More]The album opener to Out From Out Where, this record had the enviable task of following up the magnificent Supermodified. To Tobin’s credit, he didn’t really try and make Superdupermodified or whatever, he just continued evolving on his own path. This record moves a little bit away from the frantic excess of the previous, a little more towards orchestration, and just ends up full of cool textures.
[Read More]Happy Halloween! Time for a spooky special!
Inter Arma released a covers album, Garbers Days Revisited, in 2020. This sort of thing is pretty traditional in metal, thanks to Metallica’s Garage Days Revisited. Inter Arma does nice work with their covers, as befits such a good band. This is a Ministry song here, so it’s supposed to sound like this.
Seattle producer Jake One worked with a whole bunch of guest MCs on his album White Van Music, but thanks to being the product of a single producer’s vision, it still feels pretty coherent. There’s a lot of excellent stuff on this album, although its long running time kind of wears on you eventually.
[Read More]Television’s Marquee Moon is a landmark album for good reason. It’s a key album in establishing post-punk, with its sophisticated winding guitars and complex songs. But anybody who describes Television always makes it sound so much more clinical and cerebral than it really is. The experience of listening to the record is really just so pleasant.
craft is a black metal band from Sweden that has been around for ages, putting out an album every five years or so. This is their most recent one, which I picked up for some reason, and it didn’t stick with me at all.
[Read More]Stupid Beatles! It’s not my birthday! Or this blog’s birthday, which is a day off of mine! I can’t put them in charge of anything.
When you make really elaborate song or album names, it can easily tip over into pretension or tweeness. Andrew Falkous does a really good job with it, though. I mean, this album is called Love Letters In The Age of Steam. That’s really good!
[Read More]Psalm 69 represents the last time Ministry was fun and not just a repetitive mess. “Jesus Built My Hotrod” is the highlight, but the album is chock full of similarly punishing industrial metal. I think the way to approach Ministry is to probably start with this album and then work your way backwards until it stops appealing, and just pretend that this is their last album.
[Read More]I really enjoy tom-heavy drum beats like this. Yeah, I wouldn’t want it for every song, but for the occasional tune, bring it on. Also, this song gets in and out in two minutes. Nice work!
I gotta say, you can count your fingers differently and really change the intent of this title by quite a bit! This isn’t the best song from Martha Reeves, when it comes down to it. It’s pretty predictable and a little too syrupy. Not unpleasant, but not great.
[Read More]I come to you today with an important piece of information: buying records from a band based entirely on a particular comic artist doing the cover art has a pretty shaky track record. NEWS YOU CAN USE. Blah blah books and covers or something. Anyway, Evan Dorkin is really good!
An underrated aspect of country, whatever the variety, is that it’s often a lot of fun to sing along with. Jay Farrar further has the advantage of being pretty reasonable to keep up with across his bands. I really only know Trace well enough among Son Volt’s work to sing along with, but it’s fun.
[Read More]More of Labradford’s drone-y version of post-rock, with that lovely build up during the song.
No, this isn’t actually a Motown song, this is actually from Stax, from 1968 even. Usually, it’s easier to spot which label we’re dealing with.
Frankly, the fact that a band appearing on here called “The Mad Lads” turned out to be old soul and not some fifth-tier third-wave ska band is a massive upset.
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