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Post by pacinoyes on Feb 22, 2023 0:59:14 GMT
Abi Ooze - Julia's Apartment Demo (2023) - 6 / 10Just like her last release - the first song is cool and everything else is lesser......this is a single masquerading as a full release In the notes she says - No thanks to fuckers. No thanks to enablers. No thanks to assholes.How about producers, bandmates or editors because they could all have helped a lot....... Full Demo:
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Post by pacinoyes on Feb 23, 2023 8:31:49 GMT
The Minutemen - Double Nickels On The Dime (1984) - 10 / 10
History lessons, political lessons, comedy, current events, a guide on amazing bass playing, covers of Steely Dan, Van Halen and Creedence Clearwater Revival, totally Punk but sounds more like Jazz tbh.........most records don't have any personality...........this one is overflowing with it........and it wasn't like anybody else's either
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Post by pacinoyes on Mar 2, 2023 21:16:10 GMT
Matt Speedway - Free 5 song bandcamp demo #9 - Cold Friends and Lemsip (2023)The first free release of 2023 - from our Dependable Power Pop Genius - made while struggling with a cold - first 3 songs are worthy - 4th song could be borrowed for a good tune in there somewhere and the 5th song is a botched recording of sappy stuff so I dunno about that.......that's 45 free songs - yeah all about girls - in the last 14 months from a guy who could easily pull 12 of those into a staggering solo album ..........or a double album.........will he ever do that or do I just have to do these raw demo reviews every month and wonder what these "could" sound like if he got some ambition... ..... The Speedways drop a single tomorrow and the B-side is the 5th recent track he didn't write (he sings it though) - and all of those are good or great.......that's a sign of something.....probably a sign that your bandmates may have solo albums on their radar too ffs........ Full bandcamp link under the photo and all 9 EP's are posted still: mattspeedway.bandcamp.com/album/cold-friends-and-lemsip
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Post by pacinoyes on Mar 3, 2023 6:49:34 GMT
The Whiffs - Scratch 'N' Sniff (out today March 3, 2023) - ~ 7 / 10
The Whiffs exist in that Young Guv territory of Power Pop - a couple of knockouts (Wanted, What They Say) - but Young Guv 3 was a bit tighter than this is ......though a comparable degree of disciplined craft.......too much craft tbh.......but has its moments
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Post by pacinoyes on Mar 6, 2023 9:49:18 GMT
boygenius - The Record (2023) - 5 / 10 (will be released March 31st)pacinoyes - The Review In theory boygenius should actually be worse than Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker's abysmal solo records - I mean that's Double Trouble teaming up consistently - but Phoebe Bridgers - who has made better records - acts as the honey to their Strychnine and boygenius occasionally surprises. On their earlier EP and this debut full length the band dynamic - and Bridgers presence - or help with writing? arrangements? - curbs their pretension .........on the other hand just read the lyric sheet (or better yet, don't)........ and Bridgers can only do so much anyway..........and this is titled "The Record" ffs.... Calling a song "Leonard Cohen" doesn't make you Leonard Cohen obviously ........but I'm not sure they know that...... given how unintentionally funny they are and how flat their actual attempts at humor are too........ I mean they could have called this mix of Starbucks AlternaPop and Big Sister Diaries "My Time As A Sophomore Year College Lesbian" which would have maybe raised this stuff to a 6 but..... Low point: Not Strong Enough High point: I dunno but I'm sure Pitchfork will tell me when they give this an 8 / 10 in about 3 weeks......
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Nikan
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Post by Nikan on Mar 11, 2023 19:00:50 GMT
The more I listen to it, the more it's sadness absorbs me. I like the first half ("side A") more, but the whole thing is Fine really. "Life is meant to be more than this..."
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Post by pacinoyes on Mar 11, 2023 21:42:21 GMT
The New Brutarians - I Don't Want To Know Your Secrets (2023) - 6 Song Mini album - ~ 7.5 / 10
Cool duo follows up their good but inconsistent album from last year by sounding even more like their even better EPs..... so sloppy and minimalist in their take on the Stones skagged out wobbly side .... they sound like their betters drowning in hissing tape distort or with 2 songs playing at once over each other or something........an acquired taste but if you get this aesthetic - like the Jacobites for one thing - you can love this stuff and it can be thrilling in small doses.....6 songs may be their ideal length tbh......this album popped up on Youtube a while back and is back there now and is on bandcamp also....
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Post by ibbi on Mar 14, 2023 11:36:51 GMT
I don't know about rating, but I just listened to Thriller for the first time in a long time in honour of today being da gawd Quincy Jones' 90th and it is still as sick as the day it was born. Reducing him to Thriller is simplistic, but it was right there. Happy birthday old king.
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Post by pacinoyes on Mar 17, 2023 12:39:12 GMT
100 Gecs - 10,000 Gecs (2023) - Um........
Rarely do I hear an album that I simultaneously think is a joke, yet also sucks and yet also moves my bowels so profoundly it makes me weep not merely for the youth of today - they're fncked anyway - but the world in general..... This is that album. Sounding like an annoying practical joke on my ears with a chainsaw - with rave reviews too - 84 on metacritic (yeah,ok) .......it sort of reminds me of things like Death Grips, Sigue Sigue Sputnik, Limp Bizkit.......all of whom were charming and too tuneful by comparison Makes you long for World War 3 - so that you can cheer 100 Gecs demise ........ even if that means your own Imminent Merciful Sweet Death......
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Post by countjohn on Mar 18, 2023 3:38:27 GMT
The Kinks- Everybody's in Show-Biz (1972) 8/10
Gets credited as the start of their "theatrical period" but I don't really like most the later theatrical albums that much and I like this. It still feels like "songs" and not a concept album and the musical style fits with Lola and Muswell Hillbillies. If there's a difference I guess this is the first time they crossed the line and became "campy". Arthur and Village Green Preservation Society were tongue in cheek and twee but didn't have that kind of self mocking irony though.
There's just some really strong songs here. Celluloid Heroes is of course the classic and Sitting in My Hotel is one of the 20 some songs I'd consider for my top ten Kinks songs on any given day. But if I'd heard a demo of Hot Potatoes I'd have told Davies it was way too good of a song to just be about potatoes.
Their core trilogy of Something Else/Village Green/Arthur is untouchable but this and Lola probably round out their top five with Give the People What they Want and Preservation II just trailing those.
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Post by pacinoyes on Mar 19, 2023 22:35:05 GMT
The Heartbreakers - The Yonkers Demo + Live 1975-76 (2019) - 8 + / 10
Every studio recording of Richard Hell in the band before being fired - or quitting - and some live stuff with him.........
The Heartbreakers LAMF (1977) - the restored 14 song editions - is among the purest distillations of American Rock and Roll - but this earlier studio demo is them at a different earlier stage:
The band does 3 of Richard Hell's songs and as fine as they are Hell could never have lasted in this band - too much ego from two guys and The Heartbreakers would later write classics of their own (Born To Lose, It's Not Enough, Get Off The Phone, One Track Mind, Baby Talk are still to come)
Still Hell had a way with words - from You Gotta Lose (though left out of this demo):
"I know it's hard for you to face the fact Max Factor failed your face and that your social life's misshapen because you feel so out of place and that the most magic man you'd meet and ask your soul to keep still could only love you from a distance.................. one man deep"
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Post by pacinoyes on Mar 21, 2023 17:40:10 GMT
U2 - Songs of Surrender (2023) - under a 5 / 10 for all versions
I always say they were never that good - but the truth is they didn't have to end up like this either and that title ends up a cruel joke on them. U2 sold records in calculated, careerist - yet undeniably mythic ways - that their betters could never have hoped for - The Pogues, Thin Lizzy, The Undertones, Fontaines D.C. - and that's just Irish bands. U2 wins the legacy game by default and could take a(nother) victory lap .......instead they stumble and open up many obvious jokes: no new tunes from a band that's written facsimiles for a long time now ..........bad covers of mostly overrated U2 songs. Fontaines D.C. recently topped this entire monstrosity album - with their ace cover of "One" just last year .......and U2 obliterates that goodwill repeatedly here. My favorite U2 song is one they long since threw away (not a coincidence) - 11:00 Tick Tock - a non-album single (also not a coincidence) - from the period before Bono became Christ - and which shows up only in the 40 (?!?) song "deluxe" edition (yeah right) ........play both back to back and in one you'll hear an intriguing mix of influences, mystery, mood and a spacious production technique ..........in the other you'll just hear the sound of money - a wrongheaded amplification of daft lyrics, muzak gentleness, a slow tempo stilted arrangement with no discernible production direction at all - it's a dead end solemnity....... The original version was reflective of their disparate influences and ideas in 1980 .......the do-over version is only reflective of the delusional airbrushed photo on the album cover......
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Post by pacinoyes on Mar 23, 2023 22:03:48 GMT
Local Drags - Mess of Everything (2023) - above a 7.5 / 10.....
No song hits 3 minutes - each of the 10 cuts off at exactly the point when it would start to overstay its welcome........
Half Happy Songs that Sound Sad and Half Sad Songs that Sound Happy........ with a palpable dark pull effect that pops up and recedes with surprisingly appealing touches of Americana - there's not one false note on this album .........except it is so effortless it sounds too easy......which of course it's not
Impressive stuff
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Post by pacinoyes on Mar 29, 2023 5:30:23 GMT
Matt Speedway - Sunday Morning Acoustic Covers Vol.1 - Free 5 Song Demo EP (2023) -His 10th Free EP in 15 months .......he's having quite a week - and by extension so are we ...... a new Speedways video, a separate new Speedways non-albun B-side and now this EP..... All acoustic - all good, of course - and all unusual cover songs too - Tom Petty, Roky Erickson, Lana Del Ray, Alison Krauss (the best of the bunch), and er, Adam Sandler Full link below the photo mattspeedway.bandcamp.com/album/sunday-morning-acoustic-covers-vol-1
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Post by pacinoyes on Apr 2, 2023 22:15:32 GMT
Fontaines D.C.. - Live at Kilmainham Gaol (2021) - 8 + / 10
A live "best of" from the worlds best band (non-Speedways division) - this covers their first 2 sensational albums - sort of sounds like the studio recordings but they play the first album sloppier and the second one they play with the tempos a bit.....not essential the way those 2 studio records actually are (where's "Oh Such A Spring"?)........but they have a truly great live album in them one day obviously ........so this is like a warmup for that one .....
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Post by Martin Stett on Apr 8, 2023 12:47:40 GMT
Great album indeed! I'm not a big fan of hip-hop either, but I think these guys are really good. I'd also recommend their 2006 album A Piece Of Strange. Probably the best hip-hop album I've ever listened to. I just gave this a listen. I found it a mixed bag. The firefighter's story is good enough, but I don't think it's as deep as they want it to be. The meditations on America's love of gangsters and their lifestyle is... well, let's just say that Oneirology did it a lot better. The stuff on the law's treatment of drug use is fine. But as a whole, it's all too diffuse, and the production lacks that dreamy quality that made Oneirology such an enchanting journey. 5/10
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Post by pacinoyes on Apr 8, 2023 23:44:22 GMT
Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of The Moon - 50th Anniversary Edition Box Set - (2023 / 1973) - ~ 9 / 10 .......
Contains a bunch of monuments to its "greatness" (live recording, photos, an amazing, collectible level booklet, vinyl, CD / DVD etc) and as a package this is a fantastic piece of product:
Never has it sounded better and Dark Side of the Moon is very much an album where sounding awesome is at least as important as having awesome songs ........ Pink Floyd - across at least 4 special albums - were a singular band. Unlike others in their genre - they were very precise in how their form(s) matched their content.
Genuinely striking - still - not just striking for their day - and disturbing too - not merely in their sonic palette - which can be quite frightening (On The Run) but also in how they incorporate genuine feeling and emotion with intellect. They've always seemed a bit like a Punk band to me - and hit the synapses in the same way too..........very little of their work is needlessly indulgent - it's rather designed to communicate to a mass audience in ways that are ambitious yet also direct and warm. They do not work at cross purposes with the material they write.........they are serious, but not humorless ...... their best work is worthy of the determined detail they give to it.
Like the outsider British punks that they in some ways were - they also have a snarky, distinctly British wit - "Think I'll buy me a football team" and "The paper holds their folded faces to the floor - and everyday, the paperboy brings more" ........unlike those punks the playing and performance is complex with fascinating vocal phrasing or soundscapes - this album has vocal repetition, whispering, background singers howling like mad, sound effects - clocks, cash registers, lunatics laughing, fragments of talking, and more ..........
Rarely has Rock music been recorded to sound this clean - and not sucked ......... rarely has it been this "adult" in subject matter and not sucked .......... it's quite the opposite .........it achieves a kind of grandeur that seems otherworldly - and entirely their own....
It also sold a billion copies.......... which is just one of the many miracles about it ......
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Post by pacinoyes on Apr 13, 2023 18:32:57 GMT
Matt Speedway - Bank Holiday Blues - Acoustic Covers Volume 2 - 5 song Free Bandcamp EP Demos (April 10th, 2023)Yet another 5 song free EP from Our Fearless Leader - who drops a new EP every few weeks from his generous hands to our unworthy ears - covers of songs this time by Stiff Little Fingers, Billie Elish, Yazoo, Billy Bragg and........The Smiths
Typically cool - and it expands your Pop music knowledge too - and this time it's pretty well recorded (for once) and sung - even if he can't quite hit all those high notes - which makes it better imo .....but if you aren't listening to these EPs already anyway......um........ ah well you're now 11 behind...... Full 5 song EP link below the photo:mattspeedway.bandcamp.com/album/bank-holiday-blues-acoustic-covers-vol-2
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Post by pacinoyes on Apr 14, 2023 1:38:50 GMT
Lana Del Rey - Did You Know That There's A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd (2023) - above a 7 / 10 ........ but it's too long
I wrote this 3 years ago on MAR - about her best record - Norman Fncking Rockwell:
"Although I will say I liked her schtick fine and it flirted with my top 10 - hideous year.......and there is a great cursing line on the album too "If I wasn't so fncked up I think I'd fnck you all the time".......now that might have worked better if the cussing was less frequent but........"
This new record - lush, sweeping, elaborate - needs more lyrics like that ^ actually - to shake you of the comfort it can invoke and sometimes it hits that stoned rapture anyway - she has a way with suggestive couplets - "Baby, I'll bring the coffee - if you bring the wine"......... but ".....Ocean Blvd" is almost like a refined museum album by comparison ...........NFR was the height of Lana Del Rey's Art - listenable and complex about what it said on Love, Sex, Bartenders and California - among other things - in such a way that whether it was schtick or not you could replay it a whole lot
".....Ocean Blvd" goes to some desolate, existential places overall - and when it does most of them suggest Death or at least A Dark Night of the Soul - which isn't as much fun or as panoramic ........still she sings wonderfully and writes impressively often too......and while I won't revisit this as much as NFR - I guess that depends on my mood and how much time I've got....
Great title and album cover .....
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Post by pacinoyes on Apr 16, 2023 8:33:43 GMT
Various Artists - Miles Out To Sea - The Roots of British Power Pop 1969-1975 (2022) - rated a Mostly Soft But With A Periodic Erection on a scale from Entirely Flaccid to Destructively Ubersexy
The cruelest joke of Power Pop - and there's a lot of cruelty (and jokes) - is that it started - or at least was perfected by - the British (Beatles, duh) and became the loser boyfriend specialty - mostly - of Anglophile Americans - while the British themselves then lost the plot and started singing songs about Elves and Wizards for a while......
This is a bunch of British bands imitating The Raspberries - who weren't that good anyway - and then out of nowhere you get a real winner like:
Jimmy Campbell's - Lonely Norman - A fantastic and really mean John Lennon-like barn burner which justifies this whole compilation all by itself.....
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Post by DaleCooper on Apr 16, 2023 10:37:09 GMT
After listening to Lana's latest album, which certainly is a very solid entry in her discography, I dived into Ultraviolence in a way I hadn't really done before. Great album through and through. Then I decided to revisit Norman Fuckin' Rockwell, and haven't really been able to let go since. I've always considered it to be Lana's best achievement, but I don't remember thinking it was this good. In terms of production, lyrical melodies, intrumentation and vocal performance it's just aces. It's quite lengthy, but every single song adds something and there aren't a track on this that isn't at least good. The Greatest still stands out as my favorite, but How To Dissapear and The Next Best American Record are close. It's probably made itself into my three favorite albums of its decade - can't quite say it's on the level Kendrick's and Kanye's magnum opuses' but it's getting there. 9.5/10
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Post by pacinoyes on May 7, 2023 22:18:15 GMT
Matt Speedway - Bloodbath - Acoustic Demos 2023 Part 1 (2023) Sir Matthew the Apostle drops the May edition of his latest 5 song free bandcamp EPs - and this is one of the best ones too - out of the 12 he's given you for free since December 2022. Amen.... These are his first batch of original songs - or sketches - in a while and .........yeah somebody broke his heart ......... again ....well his (neverending) girl problem suffering is our (neverending) gain - this is a beautiful bummer - and the knockout is track 4 "The Embarrassing Times of London" - which you can imagine fleshed out with a band in several different arrangements....and which sounds like his main man - the mighty Elvis Costello - and yet it again sounds exactly like Matt Speedway / The Speedways not a ripoff.......neat trick that is...... Full bandcamp link below the photo......mattspeedway.bandcamp.com/album/bloodbath-acoustic-demos-2023-pt1
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Post by pacinoyes on May 19, 2023 5:11:31 GMT
The Clockworks - Live at the Rio (2021) - 4 Song Performance - ~ 9 / 10
A "no-shit genius" obviously great band - still without an album (yet).......unless they fnck it all up - which they may do since their debut album is now ~ 3 years in the making atm ......
These 4 different songs are not quite the equal of their self-titled, pacinoyes Best of 2022 EP - but they are pretty close............. and that got a ~ 9 / 10 too
If you take these 4 songs + the 4 on the EP + the 6 others they've released that's 14 winners (at least?).......and they are recording their debut at Abbey Road studios right now ffs
Get on the bandwagon while there's still room....
Full Rio Performance - 4 songs, 13 minutes:
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Post by pacinoyes on May 26, 2023 22:31:33 GMT
The Exploding Hearts - Guitar Romantic - Expanded and Remastered (released today - May 26th, 2023 /2003) - 11 / 10 Mattsby , Viced , countjohn , Archie , TheAlwaysClassy , Joaquim ...... The ultimate Summer album - just in time for Summer '23: This 20th anniversary edition of their masterpiece sounds like a runaway train now - so crisp it picks up deeper background vocals and popping guitar fills. It now comes out of the gate roaring in the first few seconds - with sharp and cutting guitar lines that grab you by the throat.......this new sheen sounds like the band feels - all bright colors with undeniable power and charm. Much more well rounded and less treble-y it's now even more a beast of everything great (and fun) about Power Pop + Punk Rock. Now this is a bit of a cash grab - they could have thrown on the whole (awesome) Shattered album as bonus tracks if they wanted to .........but what's here is some of the best Rock and Roll of the last 20 years - and it never sounded better than this - the 10 track album - plus 1 new remix and 2 "new" tracks. Stunning. Full album is on Youtube .....atm..........
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Post by countjohn on May 26, 2023 22:39:29 GMT
The Exploding Hearts - Guitar Romantic - Expanded and Remastered (released today - May 26th, 2023 /2003) - 11 / 10 Mattsby , Viced , countjohn , Archie , TheAlwaysClassy , Joaquim ...... The ultimate Summer album - just in time for Summer '23: This 20th anniversary edition of their masterpiece sounds like a runaway train now - so crisp it picks up deeper background vocals and popping guitar fills. It now comes out of the gate roaring in the first few seconds - with sharp and cutting guitar lines that grab you by the throat.......this new sheen sounds like the band feels - all bright colors with undeniable power and charm. Much more well rounded and less treble-y it's now even more a beast of everything great (and fun) about Power Pop + Punk Rock. Now this is a bit of a cash grab - they could have thrown on the whole (awesome) Shattered album as bonus tracks if they wanted to .........but what's here is some of the best Rock and Roll of the last 20 years - and it never sounded better than this - the 10 track album - plus 1 new remix and 2 "new" tracks. Stunning. Full album is on Youtube .....atm.......... We'll see, these kinds of albums a lot of time don't sound better when they're remastered because the whole idea is that it sounds tight and hard hitting, not airy and spaced out. Looking forward to hearing Jailbird though which is my favorite from it, and that has a poppier sound that might be improved by a glossy remaster. So thanks for the update, just put it on on Spotify. Definitely a great rock album, my no. 2 of all time behind Dinosaur Jr.'s You're Living All Over Me, so users who have not heard it should take the opportunity to give it a shot.
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