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Post by MsMovieStar on Sept 30, 2022 20:41:45 GMT
Oh honeys, Tamino - Sahar (2022). I've always been a sucker for a gorgeous voice. 8/10
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Post by pacinoyes on Oct 1, 2022 14:04:50 GMT
The Pixies - Doggerel (2022) - ~ 6.5 / 10
The original Pixies made 5 records - 2 that were pretty great (Surfer Rosa, especially Doolittle), 1 very good (Come On Pilgrim), and 2 that were too long and where they started to pay diminishing returns - those last 2 were really just so-so ones with some awesome songs (Trompe Le Monde, Bossanova) - that sounded like the band throwing stuff at a wall and seeing what sticks.
Since reuniting with a new bassist the Pixies essentially sound like a band imitating the legacy of The Pixies - sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't and the band has no artistic driving impulse like they did in 1987-1989. Still it isn't "bad" ......and maybe suggests a better record is to come.
Starts better than it finishes up.....
Full album:
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Post by pacinoyes on Oct 2, 2022 8:06:53 GMT
The Bobby Lees - Bellevue (comes out Oct 7th - 2022) - above an 8 / 10...... One of the most bad-ass, visceral - and loud - Rock records of the entire ~ 6 year MAR era - right up there with Amyl and The Sniffers Comfort To Me (2021). Like that knockout record - there's a lot of darkness and dysfunction nestled within the lyric sheet here - and that makes Bellevue sound and feel pretty righteous. The Bobby Lees secret weapon - Sam Quartin - is 2022's best vocalist - just like Amy Taylor of Amyl and The Sniffers was last year. Quartin is now both the starting point and conduit for songs that are infinitely more memorable than anything on their 2 previous records. She not only writes 'em - now she inserts herself within 'em too like any good actress (her other job) would. Rarely has Garage Punk made as much thematic sense as this - both to sing along with but also to think back on. Wild, unhinged, but also focused and precise - like this year's stupendous EP - all 4 songs show up here btw - there are so many incidental, seemingly spontaneous joys to this record it becomes a template for its whole genre: Shouts, screams, sinister whispers, deranged laughter (a Quartin specialty tbh), the way she enunciates words, profanity, crashes of cymbals, furious and clever guitar and bass fills, rudimentary, creepy childlike piano and more ................ almost everything on this album works ...... That's a (pacinoyes) new song of the year contender, a cover song (below), album and EP of the year contenders too - this suggests they are Nirvana in 1991 or The White Stripes in 2001 - everything they touch is kinda great ....all of a sudden ..........without being that too much (in The Bobby Lees case - not at all) in any real, noticeable way prior ........
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Post by pacinoyes on Oct 5, 2022 21:34:12 GMT
Black Country, New Roads - Ants From Up There (2022) - ~ less than 6.5 / 10 ......I guess ...... The years most acclaimed Rock album (not mine!) for people who don't really like Rock and Roll or like bands who look like a weird religious cult (creepy photo below - this band looks like a suburban Utah family that The Stones would kidnap and assault tbh) .......this is kind of like a less anthemic Arcade Fire for 2022 - and I can't remember the last time I played the Arcade Fire for fun While "well-played" in a muso jerkoff Prog way this also has - banjo, violin, saxophone, flute, marimba, glockenspiel, mandolin, and cello........and ends with a 13 minute song.....which would be fine if it was Reoccuring Dreams or Sister Ray I guess......... but alas, nah...... You couldn't make this less "pacinoyes-y" if you tried - I'll just be sitting over here finishing off the stale beer and listening to the Dolls - thanx .....
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Post by Martin Stett on Oct 7, 2022 16:24:39 GMT
Black Antlers (2004) - Coil
Overlong, repetitive electronitrash. The industrial, semi-ambient nature would be fine as unsettling background music if it would commit to that, but no, there is actual... singing? I'm gonna call it singing. Anyway, it gets in the way of just working as bgm and certainly fails at being music to properly listen to. This is a mess. 2/10
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Post by pacinoyes on Oct 8, 2022 17:42:06 GMT
David Bowie - "A Divine Symmetry (An Alternative Journey Through Hunky Dory)" - Will Be Released November 25, 2022 - slightly less than 7 / 10 Still one of Rock’s most overrated albums - ever ………..but now even longer! On the other hand if you just say “as a warm-up for Ziggy” maybe it’s more justifiable…… Lots of marginalia - outtakes, demos, live tracks that all reveal how shaky fragile this was in conception and (very) often ham fisted in delivery. A lot of this sounds even more cabaret than the final product and very much like his hero (one of them anyway) Anthony NewleyStill no arguing the high points - Changes, Life on Mars? - except you can get those on ChangesBowie too yanno. Lyric wise he was in mostly cringe Random Lyric Generator Mode: Andy walking, Andy tired Andy take a little snooze Tie him up when he's fast asleep Send him on a pleasant cruise
But he was a big thinking fella and such small details as lyrics and the appearance of authenticity were, um, small compared to the vastness of space and such………and anyway...... “as a warm-up for Ziggy”………..well you get the idea……
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Oct 8, 2022 22:22:59 GMT
But he was a big thinking fella and such small details as lyrics and the appearance of authenticity were, um, small compared to the vastness of space and such……… And..... yanno..... the actual music.
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Post by pacinoyes on Oct 9, 2022 16:43:56 GMT
Alvvays - Blue Rev (2022) - ~ maybe above a 7 / 10 .....
One of those shimmering, exceptionally tuneful and sadly descending Blissful Pop records - found often in Shoegaze / Dream Pop - that sounds marvelous as it plays but evaporates a bit upon reflection - at a bit too long 14 songs too.
Achieves something of the withering pensive effect of a female fronted version of - Young Guv's "3", The Boys With The Perpetual Nervousness album or even the literally female fronted The Jeanines "Don't Wait For A Sign" record - none of which are exactly like this - or in this genre even......and none of which may be as "good".......at its best moments anyway
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Post by pacinoyes on Oct 10, 2022 9:14:06 GMT
PJ Harvey - B-Sides, Demos & Rarities (will be released - November 4th - 2002) - at least 8 / 10
Maybe the most essential "gift wrapped trash" release by a major artist I can think of - in a long time anyway.....
Curated in such a way as a package - and sequenced - so that it becomes a mystery to be solved and poured over - just long enough in material to be engrossing but not (too) exhausting.
Where her "lesser" work becomes - in this format - entirely necessary and vital - why what was unreleased was that way - what demos reveal - and they are very revealing - from skeletal and suggestive to fully rounded and downright frighteningly etched. The songs are linked too with some of the ideas of her unreleased originals (non-demos) - intertwined like a divine text of her artistic process which is both spontaneous and well crafted.
One of the best box sets of recent years - and unlike the other really essential ones of the MAR era - Dead Man's Pop (2019), T. Rex's "1972" (2022) - it is career spanning not just era specific - about a still functioning artist - and casts her in such a comprehensive light as to raise anticipation specifically for what she might do next......just based on this work here - not her impressive proper discography.......which is a feat all by itself.......
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Post by Martin Stett on Oct 13, 2022 15:49:33 GMT
Une main lave l'autre (2018) - Alpha Wann
Hip hop has rarely worked for me. Outside of the wonderful The Other Side of the Looking Glass from Alias and a couple of Japanese rap tracks in otherwise rap-free albums (my Japanophilia strikes again), I have found hip hop to be repetitive, obvious and boring. The "lyrics" so rarely say anything of substance and the lack of musicality makes me long for some free jazz, because at least those guys are kind of funny when they're terrible.
But what if I listen to a full album in a language I don't understand? Will I finally connect with the rhythm and understand why this music is so popular.
Nope. No way, no how. Despite a couple of interesting lead-ins to the verses, everything, and I do mean every fucking thing, sounds exactly the same as what came before. Not understanding the lyrics meant that I could just zone out, at least. The lack of melody is so non-existent that it was pretty much just white noise, but that isn't what I came here for. I came here to be wowed, dammit! It's been forty seconds and I have already forgotten this whole album! 3/10
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Post by pacinoyes on Oct 13, 2022 23:39:06 GMT
The Beatles - Revolver - Deluxe Edition (will be released October 28th, 2022) - Well, a 10 / 10 but all the Beatles Deluxe Editions fall short.....this is no exception...... I've said it before - no album with Yellow Submarine and Good Day Sunshine is gonna ever be MY "greatest album of all-time" or even of 1966 (that's Dylan, thx) but what is so annoying about the Beatles legacy is everybody knows the UK editions and their supplements (the essential Past Masters and the pacinoyes approved Let it Be Naked which I could argue improved that one maybe) so well.....and then it's always just rather unenlightening alternate takes. This one includes the 2 songs the should have knocked the two most obvious duds off ^ from Past Masters - Rain and Paperback Writer - but that's hardly an epiphany to this specific collection. The Beatles toured in '66 dammit - and not coinidentally declined (at least in consistency) when they stopped touring imo (or after Pepper more accurately) ...... something else could have been included instead of selling the same stuff again. I just reviewed PJ Harvey's box set which is a "holy shit" revelation ......this is more like a redundant confirmation. The pristine way they treat their legacy is a whole lot less fun and frankly more annoying than the others member of the 60s UK Big Four (Kinks, Stones, Who). Still it's Revolver, so.....
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Post by pacinoyes on Oct 16, 2022 22:44:36 GMT
Winter - What Kind of Blue Are You? (2022) - ~ 7+ / 10
Winter (that's Samira Winter btw) has made a dream pop album that is nearly as good as the ones that critics would rate quite a bit higher - it's not quite the equal of the something (somewhat) similar like Alvvays Blue Rev a record I praised but also called overrated - but certain people: less outgoing square pegs, depressives, My Bloody Valentine fans, people obsessed with circling dissents may prefer it as they crawl under the blankets and contemplate a hazy uncertain future.
Some of this is quite jarring and noisy which will appeal to those types ^ - and also how the drums are used for one thing, to achieve a genuine reeling effect through patterns and repetition - putting the "dream" in Dream Pop where things go from fuzzy to razor sharp just like that might in a dream or in a waking moment in life where you asking yourself "Wait, I must be dreaming?"
Hipster handjobs all around....
Full album:
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Post by pacinoyes on Oct 18, 2022 6:30:09 GMT
The Speedways - 4 Song Sampler - Studio Tracks From the upcoming Talk of the Town LP (November, 2022) - Um.....not sure how to rate this - a 9 / 10 maybe? Not sure if these are the final mixes?2 songs already released - the stupendous Shoulda Known and merely excellent A Drop In The Ocean - and 2 they played live and are better in these versions than what's floating around from some live shows: Kiss Me Goodbye which is closer to Shoulda Known and is fantastically booming and in their wheelhouse and Talk of the Town which is far outside their comfort zone and sounds like Thin Lizzy crossed with the commercial 70s songs of UFO (Too Hot To Handle, Lights Out) - interlocking guitars, attitude and a killer big riff - this song feels unlike them and them at their most epic. One of the very few "no shit, obviously" great bands of the MAR era.......album please.......:
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Post by Martin Stett on Oct 18, 2022 15:24:06 GMT
Chao Gardens (2019) - Evaboy
What the hell is nightcore? Or... breakcore? Footwork? I'm just going by the descriptions I'm reading from other people. Is all of it this much fun? These feel like some awesome cityscape bgm from mid 2000s video games. Like Persona, if Persona was actually good. Simultaneously calming and invigorating, like escaping to a new world. This does outstay its welcome a bit towards the end, with some weaker songs like Heartattack!Gimmedat! feeling like padding to get this above 30 minutes. But for a good while, this is hypnotic night driving stuff. I can definitely see myself coming back. 7.5/10
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Post by pacinoyes on Oct 19, 2022 5:21:04 GMT
The Cure - Wish 30th Anniversary Edition (comes out November 25th, 2022) - Well.........not rated....exactly The Cure have a record worth buying........ and that has a full arc too - the singles compilation - Standing On A Beach (1986) .............but my gf loves Wish so let's just say if you love it too - I guess you will also like all these "instrumentals" added on here for some reason I know, I know, she isn't reviewing THIS record ......but I'm not about to get on her bad side over a record review and some pointless bonus tracks, ok?.......geesh The band showing off their colorful wardrobe:
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Post by pacinoyes on Oct 19, 2022 18:26:04 GMT
Black Lips - Apocalypse Love (2022) - maybe slightly above 7 / 10
Recent terrific records like The Bobby Lees - Bellevue (2022) and The Exbats - Kicks, Hits and Fits (2020) could actually BE Black Lips albums from their peak era - they played genuine Rock and Roll in a hideous time when people were creaming their jeans over Oxford Comma(s), acoustic guitars and dour Post-Grad "Alternative" Bullshit.
Now, many years later - they take a left field turn that's really, really weird........ swampy .......a sort of a stoned, lost in the desert and odd Americana not unlike the Meat Puppets in the 80s.
Incredibly strange record........... almost a novelty album..........with a perplexing undertow to it......did I mention it was strange?
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Post by Mattsby on Oct 19, 2022 20:28:23 GMT
Black Lips - Apocalypse Love (2022) - maybe slightly above 7 / 10 Recent terrific records like The Bobby Lees - Bellevue (2022) and The Exbats - Kicks, Hits and Fits (2020) could actually BE Black Lips albums from their peak era - they played genuine Rock and Roll in a hideous time when people were creaming their jeans over Oxford Comma(s), acoustic guitars and dour Post-Grad "Alternative" Bullshit. Now, many years later - they take a left field turn that's really, really weird........ swampy .......a sort of a stoned, lost in the desert and odd Americana not unlike the Meat Puppets in the 80s. Incredibly strange record........... almost a novelty album..........with a perplexing undertow to it......did I mention it was strange? Didn't know about this album until your post! Some iffy songs but I liked it overall, found it slightly mesmerizing and creepy (appropriately Octoberish)... Crying On a Plane straight up haunts ya, but even the songs that start '60s-group ballady sweet, they blacken towards the end, almost as if the pall was always there (like the ender The Concubine). Operation Angela maybe my fav... reminded me a little of The Deadly Snakes. Apocalypse Love very good, I could see Stolen Valor as a popular-played fav. It's funny how many reviews call the album "Lynchian" - the bandcamp site description is fun, calls it "doom-glam."
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Post by Martin Stett on Oct 20, 2022 16:09:21 GMT
Boris At Last - Feedbacker (2003)It's called "Feedbacker." What more can I really say? I suppose that it is more listenable than most drone I've heard - it attempts to vary things a bit with a sorta-screamy rock number in the middle - but ultimately, the mixing puts the drone and feedback into the forefront, and it swallows all else. I've heard worse white noise, but in the end, it's still just noise. 4/10
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Post by pacinoyes on Oct 20, 2022 21:38:32 GMT
Arctic Monkeys - The Car (comes out tomorrow 10 / 21) - ~ 7.5 / 10 Well, it's not a Rock record that's for sure - heavily orchestrated and expansive it sounds like they poured over these arrangments endlessly. Sounding like a cross between Bowie, Roxy Music - post-Eno - with some of Alex Turner's best ever singing - this is better than their lesser ones - albums 3,4,6 and not as good as the ones that made their rep - albums 1, 2 and 5 - that were you know.....Rock and Roll. This record is almost stubborn at how much they commit to this sound and it's fairly striking how much of this they pull it off. No one could have predicted that they'd be here 16 years out from Fake Tales of San Francisco....
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Post by pacinoyes on Oct 21, 2022 6:22:30 GMT
Dry Cleaning - Stumpwork (2022) - 8 / 10.... higher? tbh......damn .......This band's debut was an interesting, ultimately tiresome record to me. New Long Leg (2021) - I gave it around a ~ 7 / 10 but critics loved it more than that........and this record is now their London Calling or something like that..... Taking their "schtick" I believe I called it back then to a dizzying new level of narrative singing, "talking over" knotty musical compositions that flow and ebb and are clipped and concise in their delivery. Reminiscent of nothing so much as tension filled Post-Punk fragments of records you smashed and then try to rearrange and piece back together .......that the more you play it the more it becomes scary / funny, compelling....... It's an amazing record, modern and classic and tight at 11 songs some so short as to be maddening and punchy and others weirdly long and mesmerizingly "aimless"........I've played it a dozen times in the last 2 days and it gets better each time - that rare album that's awesome at first and then expands in your recollection so you want to revisit it..........and is not "schtick" in the way the first album was either. Some of this reminds me of my beloved The Long Blondes - Someone To Drive You Home (2006) - and THAT is one of my favorite albums of this century. Like that great record there's marvelous oneliners throughout and you will study this record's lines of demarcation to a dizzying degree: "Autonomy can be found at the shops" is a line that The Long Blondes could have written...... Ray Davies.........Paul Weller.....Morrissey.........Alex Turner too.......add Florence Shaw to that list now........and there's a lot where that line came from......
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Post by pacinoyes on Oct 22, 2022 17:31:16 GMT
The Libertines - Up The Bracket - 20th Anniversary Edition - (October 21st 2022) - 10 / 10 In the current era where acclaimed Rock bands look like fncked up librarians or asshole college professors it may be hard to believe how much The Libertines not only looked like a Rock band - but sounded like several great ones - all at once: Beatles, Kinks, Stones, Dolls / Heartbreakers, Jam, Only Ones, Pistols, Clash, Replacements, Oasis, Strokes.......more even. They acted like one too - wild, careening, inspired, fraternal, reckless, poetic and this stacked reissue of the 12 song UK version adds a bunch of fascinating demos, outtakes, B-sides, a live show that totally captures the entire glorious era ....... One of the best albums ever made.......in any version......
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Post by countjohn on Oct 23, 2022 19:44:15 GMT
Like the new Arctic Monkeys. Not sure what's so "difficult" about it, the songs are conventionally good and it has very arresting production. It's not like the last one where it was more about the sound and it was so low key and ambient. Now I still like the last one better because it's weirder and hangs together more, the funk songs here are good (love the guitar) but they don't go with anything else. Still these last two are the best music they've ever made, their first one might still be my "favorite" because of what it meant to me at the time and it's more important.
In the days of their first few albums I would have never believed they had something like the song below in them, they've had a huge arc like The Beatles or Bowie which is what has been missing from rock music. Love The Strokes for example but you can't just try to make the same album over and over again.
Anyway, I'll give it a solid 8. The last one was a 9 and I'd give their debut a nostalgia 10 but the production has not aged well at all, very mid 2000's loudness war.
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Post by pacinoyes on Oct 23, 2022 22:46:59 GMT
Matt Speedway - Television Monsters - Free 5 song Demo EP on Bandcamp (2022) - ~ 7.5 / 10Power Pop genius bandleader releases his 6th free solo 5 song demo EP of the year - he's just giving these away ........ but next month - he charges you actual money for a highly anticipated (by me) new Speedways album (Nov 21) This sounds more "complete" than some of the other "sketches" - and are his most recent - written and recorded in the last week.....so maybe he is planning a solo record in 2023 (?) Great song title: I'll See You In My DrinksFull bandcamp link to the EP below the photo: mattspeedway.bandcamp.com/album/television-monsters
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Post by Mattsby on Oct 24, 2022 0:45:22 GMT
More Kicks - Punch Drunk (2022) - maybe an 8 / 10 - at its best it's a blast - will have to see how it holds up........(released today - Friday, September 16, 2022)More Kicks 2nd record is a big step up - much louder and more muscular than their decent but more small time self titled debut (2019). This mixes 60s Rock, 70s Punk, New Wave, with 80s (and 90s!) Indie and several eras of Power Pop. The 3 terrific previously released singles - (Animal, Terminal Love, Hurts Like Hell) are all up front - and matched by some other standouts "Colour Me Stupefied", "In Love", "Goodnight, Goodnight" and "Come Home". That's 7 really special tracks out of 12 - but Kate Clover's Bleed Your Heart Out did similar music on a tighter, filler free 10 track album this year ........ the 7 best songs on Punch Drunk are arguably as good as anything on Clover's album but when you play this it doesn't measure up to that level overall. Still Punch Drunk has some of my favorite music of 2022 on it and 7 songs isn't just 2 or 3 after all. Color Me Stupefied - below - - the first quasi-ballad they've pulled off. Add me to the Punch Drunk love. I'm still catching up with new stuff....but prob my fav album of the year right off the bat. Love every song except for Seven Ways and Middle Aged Art - oust those for a tighter 10 my lads. Whole album: morekicks.bandcamp.com/album/punch-drunk
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Post by Martin Stett on Oct 24, 2022 16:15:13 GMT
Japan - Gentlemen Take Polaroids (1983)
Brb, gotta remove the screwdriver I just tried to stick into my brain. 2/10
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