|
Post by Martin Stett on Oct 26, 2022 13:55:26 GMT
Volahn - Aq'Ab'Al (2014)
Black metal with a Mesoamerican spin... supposedly. I don't hear much traditional music here, maybe some stuff in the harmonies. But at least I can spot harmonies. This is surprisingly listenable stuff. Instantly forgettable and that trademark black metal growling and screaming is just as boring as always, but there's good energy here, and the intermissions with guitar and flute are a nice palate cleanser in between servings. 6.5/10
|
|
|
Post by Martin Stett on Oct 28, 2022 16:38:26 GMT
Francoise Hardy - Mon amie la rose (1964)
I don't know what to say. It's Hardy. It's fun. We need more artists like her. 7.5
|
|
|
Post by Mattsby on Oct 28, 2022 17:59:43 GMT
Jerry Lee Lewis - Live at the Star Club, Hamburg (1964) All-timer performance of stormy, purring genius... giving off a caffeine high, an all-the-stops superjam, just the Killer at his pianoforte. What more did we need? As the man himself once said: "That Star Club in Hamburg, Germany, was a wild deal. We cut that live, and the audience wanted to tear up the stage. It was a big hall and wide open as a case knife. The best thing about playing there was the equipment—the mics, the amplifiers, guitars, fiddles and piano. We didn’t have that kind of high-quality gear back home. In other places they’d give me a bad piano, I’d usually finish it off anyway." RIP
|
|
|
Post by pacinoyes on Oct 30, 2022 19:54:33 GMT
Matt Speedway - The First Stone (October 30th, 2022) - Free 5 song Demo EP - 7.5 ++ / 10
His 7th Free 5 song EP of demos - that's 35 "sketches" he's given away to us now - quite a window into one of Rock's best songwriters atm - in addition to a "real" album coming next month - as always some great ideas on these though performances are lo-fi limited ........ this is what he says about doing this and why below - also full bandcamp link under the photo:Matt: My OCD means I have to keep making them so that the layout on the Bandcamp page is even. I'm not even joking! I have another full EP to go up soon (maybe next week) called The First Stone.
I just really enjoy making them. Without sounding corny, I'm doing it for myself, and if 5 or 6 other people give it a listen, then great. I think they're some of the best songs I've ever written mixed in with some untidy misfires. It's fun, and it makes me happy. They're all very personal, lyric-wise. I like using sound clips. I've got Lana Del Rey telling me to shut up at the end of one song and Ally Sheedy talking about how she got her role in St Elmo's Fire on another. It all makes sense in my head. I have a Christmas song recorded called "In The Cold Light Of Christmas Day" which I'll put up at some point (probably Christmas) & then leave it there till next year. mattspeedway.bandcamp.com/album/the-first-stone
|
|
|
Post by pacinoyes on Nov 2, 2022 10:37:20 GMT
Brad Marino - Basement Beat (2022) - Depends how much you love The Ramones ........
The Ramones are the most influential band ever - next to The Beatles - and their first 3 - classic - albums influenced almost all the great Rock and Roll that followed them for every decade since. ........if you don't think so, maybe consider there's an entire genre called "Ramonescore" that has been thriving for 30 years (!) and that worships them - all over the world.
This is a Ramones tribute album - but with all original songs - which is very hard to do: Made to sound EXACTLY like the Ramones - with great craft and love - not just influenced by them but an exact replica..........it's unique fun and also a little too much at the same time.
But Marino tops Geoff Palmer in 2022 - his ex-bandmate, friend and competitor in music AND in their Ramones love:
Palmer covered Dee Dee Ramone's limp whole solo album this year (just ok at best) and he played on some other even more lame stuff (that awful Kurt Baker song etc). Marino almost made a better solo album than him in 2021 (Palmer was my #3, Marino my #5 last year) and with Basement Beat and some other good scattered new songs in 2022 he's nudged ahead in their rivalry in 2022 atm
|
|
|
Post by Martin Stett on Nov 2, 2022 14:27:42 GMT
Naniwa Express - God's Infinite Power of the Universe (1982)
Like most Japanese jazz fusion, this starts off exciting and fun, but soon becomes stale. There just aren't enough ideas for a forty minute album. So although this gets off to some decent, Sonic the Hedgehog sorts of jazzy, speedy goodness, there really isn't anything on offer here that can't be found in countless other jazz fusion albums. 6/10
|
|
|
Post by pacinoyes on Nov 21, 2022 6:45:31 GMT
The Speedways - Talk of the Town (November 21st, 2022) - 9 / 10 .....Matt Julian once said of his band The Speedways: "We've had 3 rehearsals and 2 gigs up to this point and are already the best band in England" Talk of the Town - branches out from their lovable, underdog earlier records and while it's less immediate - it is maybe more likely to get repeated listens. In its own way it's pretty ambitious - I don't think any other band could make this whole record but them - and it also suggests they could make other kinds of records too. It's more diverse, muscular and sprawling. No longer content to be small-time big stars within their genre - Talk of the Town is designed - and probably guaranteed - to expand their audience. But it may not sink in - until the 3rd or 4th listen.......This is also maybe as far as they can stretch their template / aesthetic and still be recognizable as "The Speedways". Bigger sounding, with more musical dexterity, and seemingly "inevitable" songs now - ones that are overtly darker than what was always somewhat hidden in their previous "romanticizing romance" compositions. This is also where they can't be your secret music crush any longer - they belong to the whole world now - or to put it in their language - they want to see other people ok? 13 songs on CD - 12 on vinyl - the 13 song version has a simple earworm song ( Strange Love) that isn't essential but fits right in anyway........which could describe the whole mid-section of the record too. 4 songs - that Julian doesn't write - at all - after taking writing credit on every previous Speedways song (?!?) - and 2 songs he doesn't sing lead on - after doing lead vocals on every previous one (?!?). That makes 12 (or 13) songs all about girls - and if you think that sounds boring - they just aren't your band. I often talk about artists that are designed to appeal to critics - "Indie shit" or "Pitchfork Shit" I (charmingly) call it - and that is not this either - this is designed to appeal to the listener. It strives to recapture a song or album you loved in your early adolescence.....that's the feeling they're going after - where the filler and more ambitious tracks logically overlap until you can't discern them in your love for the record overall. A neat trick with this album is play the first 2 songs - and then the last 4 and you have the range of a full Power Pop album - and there's still half of it to go..... The Speedways always had a great tag for themselves on bandcamp - "Heartbreak Rock" - which is so perfect it's almost stupid-funny ........and this is the most Heartbreak-ing and Rock-ing record in their practically unfuckwithable discography.
|
|
|
Post by themoviesinner on Nov 23, 2022 18:58:04 GMT
Epica - The Alchemy Project (2022) -- 8/10Epica collaborate with several different artists on this album and the end result is pretty awesome. There are some nice additions and changes to the usual symphonic sound of the band and there are a lot of different, interesting ideas that actually mesh well together. Another really good release from one of the most consistently great metal bands out there.
|
|
|
Post by pacinoyes on Nov 24, 2022 12:16:50 GMT
Nas - Kings Disease III (2022) - 7.5+ /10
pacinoyes' favorite Rapper - and that dude - God-fearing, ex-Democrat, current Independent thanx, listens to Rap in 2022 only slightly less than he listens to Polka and Jug-band - this has to be the most baffling album - in this genre - in a loooooooong time......
This is the best Nas album - suddenly, improbably, since Life Is Good (2012) - better than previous old Legend cringe inducing billionaires - just like Elon Musk huh : ........ Jay-Z since he started rapping about his fncking wife and daughter and better than Kanye since he started rapping about God, his train utterly derailed and he only started scattering great songs not great albums (New Slaves, Black Skinhead).....maybe the greatest "comeback" album in a genre which doesn't do comebacks - it just does soul killing death spirals - his best most effortless and offhand flow and performances....and as usual the most dazzling lyrics from the GOAT lyricist in this genre....by quite a lot too....the Dylan of this genre......
Suddenly he seems much younger than both those ^ dudes, cooler, certainly wiser.......and maybe I'm overrating it because he's the one Legendary Rap artist who most comfortably fits into Rock's pantheon - which is my thing, yanno? ........but hey, it's my review isn't it.......... so what did you expect?
|
|
|
Post by pacinoyes on Nov 28, 2022 9:32:34 GMT
Van Morrison - Astral Weeks (1968) 10/10One of my favorite jokes is that whenever you hear a Rock album called "beautiful" or "gorgeous" - be highly amused/skeptical. Rock is gorgeous about as often as I am subtle but there is no album those often misused words apply to more than Astral Weeks. Morrison was 22 when he wrote most of this , just 23 when he recorded it - more like was possessed by it rather than he simply created it. There was nothing to suggest this music in his history or in Rock's prior (except "T.B. Sheets" ("tuberculosis sheets" that is, a masterpiece song the previous year): long songs, complex lyrical themes ("Cyprus Avenue" alone is, still, shocking/disturbing) rambling, free form not propulsive like Rock at all - but also outside the formal expressiveness of genres it's often lumped in with (it has nothing in common with traditional Folk Rock, it evokes the Blues without a single identifiable Blues trope etc.). He never made "this" again really (though he made many special records), and no one else did either .....it's a singular, spiritual album and one that no matter how much music you've heard still might not prepare you for it. Most accurate review I ever wrote tbh ........still a 10 ........
|
|
|
Post by Martin Stett on Dec 6, 2022 15:25:05 GMT
Gregory Alan Isakov - This Empty Northern Hemisphere (2012)
I wasn't going to write my thoughts on this, but then the final song happened and my feelings went from annoyance to anger. This is easily digestible bullshit. It's simple indie fuzzycore (I made that word up and have no idea what it means, but it feels right) junk that can play in department stores and be fluffy and safe, but there is not one piece of honesty throughout. This is commercial.
And you know what? Whatever. Who cares, I'm sure some people will really like not being challenged and just listening to soulless crap.
But then it happened. The final song is a cover of Leonard Cohen's One of Us Cannot Be Wrong. I'm not the biggest Cohen fan, but the guy was the opposite of Isakov. He did this sort of folksy-ish music but had the lyrics and songwriting ability to make us reflect and think. Isakov's idea of a cover is to straight up copy Cohen's homework without variation (aside from removing the heartrending wailing at the end of Cohen's original). It is by far the best song on this album (even though Isakov's gentle, pleasant voice doesn't fit into such a painful song), because he is standing on the shoulders of someone who is actually competent. It shows just how totally bland and safe Isakov's work is. It feels like sacrilege - AND I'M NOT EVEN THAT BIG INTO COHEN! (Although this song is pretty great, let's be honest.) If Isakov could have just stuck with his own mediocre work, I would have been bored to tears, but to shit all over an artist that knows what they're doing all while highlighting your own inadequacy? That's priceless. 2/10
|
|
|
Post by pacinoyes on Dec 13, 2022 22:04:08 GMT
Sprints - Back Catalogue LP (released December 1st, 2022) - ~ 8 / 10 (Streaming & Limited Edition Vinyl)
pacinoyes faves Sprints - the best band without a real 1st album - now releases a definitive so far compilation of 10 songs:
their ace debut single (The Cheek - 2020), their noisy debut EP (Manifesto, 4 songs, 2021) - which hinted at even better things - and the better thing itself - their stunning 2nd EP (A Modern Job, 5 songs, 2022).
Sprints are not just a thrilling band when firing on all cylinders - one that I've touted all year ffs - they are also a complex one - mixing Post-Punk, noise, Pop, the roar of (good) Metal, Sonic Youth-type Art-Rock freak-outs, surprising humor and lyrics of anxiety that read like they are torn pages from a therapist's notebook ........like fellow Irish future legends Fontaines D.C. they also use repetition to a mesmerizing, righteous effect.
|
|
|
Post by pacinoyes on Dec 18, 2022 20:22:00 GMT
The Replacements - December 1988 Rehearsal Bootleg -Rehearsing - like a professional band and stuff! - for opening up Keith Richards Birthday Bash - Meadowlands Arena, New Jersey December 17, 1988 - his birthday is today actually December 18th - his 79th Happy Birthday GOAT Tracklist: Unsatisfied / Kiss Me On The Bus / Don't Ask Why / Can't Hardly Wait / I Won't / Asking Me Lies / Achin To Be / Cruella DeVille
|
|
VERITAS
New Member
Posts: 239
Likes: 131
|
Post by VERITAS on Dec 19, 2022 2:23:40 GMT
Still trying to get around to their latest stuff, but 4 by Dungen is such a beautifully composed (mostly) instrumental record perfect for sedating yourself to. Easily one of the better prog psychedelic records I’ve been introduced to in quite some time. Super lush, super cinematic, super melodic. Get into it...
7.5/10
|
|
|
Post by pacinoyes on Dec 20, 2022 2:03:35 GMT
Nirvana - At The End of Lonely Street (1988-1992 (?) Bootleg Demos) - Hard to rate but sometimes stunning.......it sure doesn't suck .....
There are several great Nirvana songs that are not on their studio albums - Even In His Youth (here in Demo form), Been A Son, Verse Chorus Verse, You Know You're Right - etc. that I'd argue are what's missing and what holds back In Utero from real greatness - which is an album of a few unquestionably great songs (Dumb, Heart Shaped Box, All Apologies) - surrounded by more that are ideas that don't really coalesce and at other times repeat to diminshing effect imo (Milk It is a dour, on purpose - Drain You rewrite and things like that)
Blandest - one of the earliest ace songs they had - with Kurt Cobain's screams and guttural moans reminiscent of Peter Green in The Green Manalishi (With The Two-Pronged Crown) crossed with Bob Mould in Chartered Trips - suggests what Nirvana could have done for quite a while if they weren't crushed by fame....heroin.......Courtney......expectations........this song sells him for exactly what he was: not the next Lennon, Lydon, Stipe, Westerberg, or Mould but rather something else:
The David Cronenberg of Body Horror Punk - nobody was this obsessed with his unique motif - the contrast of hygiene - "You're my razor" he sings in Blandest - and the external covering up the much harder to mask internal
Full album link:
|
|
|
Post by pacinoyes on Dec 23, 2022 10:10:36 GMT
Matt Speedway - December & I (Dec 22nd, 2022) ~ 8 / 10
Power Pop Godhead Matt Julian's 8th EP this year - each 5 songs, all bandcamp only - each one good or better - and all free .... That's 40 solo sketches in rough form (39 originals, 1 cover) - while also making my #2 album of 2022 (not free, pay for music wtf) with his (fantastic) band The Speedways: Talk of the Town - where he wrote 9 out of 13 songs ..... sings 11 of 'em......... and played his best guitar parts ever Best Song here : Camera Shy ; Best Song Title: Kim Wilde & Lemonade Full bandcamp EP link below the photo mattspeedway.bandcamp.com/album/december-i
|
|
|
Post by pacinoyes on Dec 24, 2022 8:11:16 GMT
The Clockworks - The Clockworks EP (2022) - ~ 9 / 10If I have EVER turned you on to ANY band - and let's face it, I have you fncking liar - I'm telling you to stop what you're doing and seek out their many great songs on Youtube over the last 2 years - 2 YEARS !?! - then you can thank me, then thank Christ because Happy Birthday Jesus you work in mysterious and wonderful waysI love this........how much? Well so much - I can't think of a better band going on the evidence of this tight af 4 song 2022 EP - which isn't enough yet - BUT - I missed them until this entirely AND they dropped a lot of great songs before and after this EP that I missed too. .....AND that includes a new one - Blood On The Mind - NOT on this EP (but below) Big sounding, authentic with great wit and great energy and economy they are a knockout and apparently they have a A LOT more to come........They are going to be huge unless they get lost in the mad rush of someone who knicks this sound but I doubt they'll be this good. Echoes Franz Ferdinand (1st album), Arctic Monkeys (first 2 albums), Libertines - basically every cool British Post-Punk band of the 00s - without sounding generic. Also - class obsessed - with many great lines about money, being exploited for it and what you need to do for it........ Another Ireland act - along with Fontaines D.C., CMAT and Sprints - all best of of year stuff btw and they use repetition like them too but are less conceptual than all and more immediate too........this is a band like Wet Leg that has a debut coming in 2023 that everybody knows is going to be great unless they fnck it up ......then again they could fnck it up in an awesome way, yanno? How did I miss this? Depressed.....excited.....exhilarated......baffled......where is the album? Oh and Fnck Youtube's algorithm for not recommending this to me - AND all music press who I missed this band in - AND it took the record label to LITERALLY send me a promo copy - in the mail - like we are back in the Dark Ages -
|
|
|
Post by pacinoyes on Dec 27, 2022 18:51:27 GMT
The Cure 5 songs from Songs of a Lost World (????) - 7 / 10 I guess......
Our current Chinese Democracy - God knows when this really comes out or what it will look like - but this has 5 songs nicked live and thrown on Youtube in pristine versions..........quite good, actually - not my thing - have we even met? - but very long, emotive, suitably mopey and dramatic and in their wheelhouse at least..... This band is on tour playing these - so the fact that this record can't be played before seeing them sample it - is pretty much a Death Knell for most bands - but not for them and their fans who are rabid and accomodating........and will dig the "Why so glum, chum" vibe of these 5....... On the other hand, what makes me think they'll eventually ruin this though by not leaving it alone, and extending it to 197 minutes ...........hmmmmmm........we'll find out........ one day........ Full 5 songs below:
|
|
|
Post by pacinoyes on Jan 4, 2023 7:15:56 GMT
The Sound From The Lion's Mouth (1981) - 8 + / 10
One secret about Rock bands is if they do not get one "classic" album - whether it really is a classic or not - they tend to be forgotten .......in the long term people like the repetition they see on lists.
That works against some of my pet bands - The Muffs in the 90s, The Only Ones in the 70s - but it absolutely kills The Sound in the early 80s - who made this record - in a genre - ominous Joy Division loving Post-Punk - that crowds them out years later....... and crowds them off such referential lists which only allow 1 band to make it - if that. Hearing it now .........over 40 years later makes you imagine a whole alternative history of Rock - it is in its own way quite perfect really - with a simmering tension that sounds both passionate and immersively detached.
A genre "lost" classic like their debut the year before ........though people who know them never lost either album to begin with...... another of those fascinating era specific records that only could have been made in that 1980-82 period where Post-Punk, Punk, New Wave, (slight) Goth, poetry, New Romanticism, Art Rock all co-existed in a world of infinite possibility - that Rock doesn't even think to attempt much any more ....
Full album:
|
|
|
Post by pacinoyes on Jan 13, 2023 9:09:12 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 ........ This ended up my #3 album, the highest American record .........and in most years would have been number 1 ........what a stupendous record....3 months later and it still rattles the walls and makes hearing it every time like the first time ........
|
|
|
Post by Martin Stett on Jan 13, 2023 17:46:25 GMT
Premiata Forneria Marconi - Storia di un minuto (1972)
Just when I get so sick of new music (as in music I've never encountered), something comes along and shakes me up. This is... classical/folk prog? CLASSICAL/FOLK PROG!? Be still my beating heart! I don't really have a better label for it: this uses a lot of classical instrumentation and stylings that veer between prog rock, jazz-rock, straight-up classical, rowdy tavern-folk, calm acoustic guitar solos... if nothing else, this album keeps one on one's toes. It's also bipolar tonally, moving so rapidly and randomly between styles that it comes across as disjointed. But I don't mind that. This thing rocks out and makes me feel like I'm in a 15th century mosh pit before whisking me away to Dracula's castle and letting me listen to a nice cello piece before letting someone rip up a Hammond Organ, never allowing me to get comfortable. Ironically, I feel more comfortable with this than most stuff out there. 7.5/10
|
|
VERITAS
New Member
Posts: 239
Likes: 131
|
Post by VERITAS on Jan 13, 2023 23:08:52 GMT
"Gemini Rights", Steve Lacy
Highlight "Bad Habit" above. Record offers some smooth funky synth riffs laced with depressing pedestrian breakup lyrics; grief and relief...rinse and repeat come the next track and the next track. Colourful jams without much depth. Very much my aesthetic, but nothing groundbreaking...
|
|
|
Post by pacinoyes on Jan 14, 2023 1:32:05 GMT
The Circulators - The Circulators EP / Mini-Album (2023) - above a 7.5 - especially the last 3 tracks
Quite a calling card - the first striking 2023 release I've heard:
A cassette only (!) / streaming (for now) introduction that evokes the Exploding Hearts, with a Stiv Bators-attitude and the front to back consistency of the Saints first 2 albums.
Starts off straight Punk - but a Power Pop aesthetic creeps in after a few tracks - to a winning effect.........when they throw in handclaps on It Won't Be Me (track 6) it's so perfect and unexpected you want to hug them........then they top that with the best song here - Wired Over You (track 7)
Full record below - 8 songs, almost 20 minutes long - on Youtube: (and on Bandcamp also) -
|
|
|
Post by pacinoyes on Jan 14, 2023 22:57:54 GMT
Been Stellar - Been Stellar EP (2022) - maybe a 7 / 10 but that's more for potential tbh - it could be even better across a full album
There's a theory that every decade a great band emerges from NYC - and influences everything - Velvets, Ramones, Sonic Youth, Strokes, Parquet Courts ........well if you spend any time in Manhattan you see this band's T-shirts on vaguely heroin chic looking actresses / waitresses nightclub kids a lot..........who the band courts btw - they have a song called Manhattan Youth yanno? It's their best .........and shortest...........not a coincidence
This EP is essentially The Strokes crossed with Shoegaze - and don't the kids just love it. America's great Rock and Roll hope in 2023 .....only a couple of these really grab me - but America doesn't have a lot of great bands right now - so I'll take what I can get and keep my fingers crossed
Some of these songs suffer from being too long without building to anything but monuments to their own haziness ...........cool sound though......
|
|
|
Post by Martin Stett on Jan 20, 2023 18:56:10 GMT
Vektor - Outer Isolation (2011)
FASTER! FASTER! HARDER! Seems to be the principle that Vektor stands for. Thrash metal at its fastest, running at roughly 40,000,000,000 beats per minute. And it is pretty fun. Lyrically they do a good job of creating apocalyptic imagery... but they're less effective at having anything to say. This rebellious stuff about "corporations are bad" and "religion is bad" and "we're raping the environment" just makes them sound like disenchanted boomers on their third marriage whining about society. The imagery is canceled out by the preachiness. But the music is fast, and fun. It balances out. 6/10
|
|