You know, I didn’t think it could really get more third wave-y around here, but it seems like New Shuffle might be even more fond of the stuff. But, you know, here you go!

Death From Above 1979, “Never Swim Alone”

Pounding drums and bellowing through distortion is a time honored formula that almost always gets me going. Just big, pounding, and shameless. Delightful!

Less Than Jake, “Glumble”

Lots of Less Than Jake recently. This comes from Losers, Kings, And Things We Don’t Understand, a compilation of the various non-album cuts that they produced before and around the time of their first proper album, Pezcore. In these early years, Less Than Jake was really more of a punk band than anything else, but they did a good job with it. As always, it’s more down to the energy and hooks than anything else with pop punk.

Today!

J Church, “Bomb”

Camels, Spilled Corona, and the Sound of Mariachi Bands is a great name for an album, in this case the first of multiple singles comps that J Church put together. As befits a band as prolific as they were, J Church was constantly putting out songs on 7"s, random comps, splits, and other places. They had the good grace to collect that stuff together periodically, and the comps are really basically on a par with their normal albums.

Almost like a Special in here today!

Mr. Lif, “Success”

I feel like I haven’t bought a new concept record in a while. I suppose some of the unintelligable garbled metal I listen to could be concept records, I’d have no real way of knowing. You could tell me basically anything about the lyrics or themes or whatever of some of those slabs and I’d probably believe you. At any rate, many of my favorite concept records are rap records, and I Phantom is one of the very best.

Lots of electronics today.

Prefuse 73, “140 Jabs Interlude”

Rivington Não Rio, the 2015 album from Prefuse 73, was something of a return to form for Scott Herren, his best work since Surrounded by Silence for my money. This track takes a little bit to get going, by turns downright pyrotechnic by the end, and Herren’s beats are great when he’s really going for it.

RJD2, “Shot In The Dark”

Prior to firing shuffle up for Five Songs, I had just been listen to STS x RJD2, a delightful collaboration featuring some absolutely ferocious work from RJD2. He’s still never beaten Deadringer, mind you. But I wanted to plug the fact that he’s done some cool shit otherwise.

I’ve legitimately missed this. It was a bit of a grind at times, and I’ll have to find the right pace, but it’s nice to be back in the saddle. And it’s nice to explore the dusty corners of my music again. Here is today’s trip into the vault.

Edan, “Humble Magnificent”

One issue that I have with this thing is that I stopped doing “previously"s, which was a huge hassle, but I haven’t gone back and re-tagged everything. So, I’m not entirely sure what I’ve covered. At any rate, Edan is a rapper/producer/DJ out of Boston who has thus far only made two albums (Primitive Plus and Beauty and the Beat) and a mixtape, but it’s all magnificent. His beats in particular are fantastic, the perfect blend of dusty loops and filthy drums. One of the best pieces of music news in 2018 is Edan’s return to music, with a new album coming out soon. I couldn’t be more excited!

It occurred to me that I didn’t explain who Plexasaurus Rex is. That’s my music server! As you might have guessed, I’m using Plex, and I have to say: so far, it’s pretty good! Did a good job organizing my music, interface seems solid. No complaints thus far. And, of course, I gave it a dumb name, the same dumb name that every other sad nerd who thinks they’re funny gives their server. Anyway, here’s today’s tunes,, now that we have today’s sad exposition out of the way.

WOAH. Kinda blacked out there for a little bit. But we’re back! We’re using a new service! This time it’s all running on all our own shit so it should be solid! I’m only at the mercy of the software! And the device it’s running on! And my home network! And…hang on, I’ll come in again.

Aw, who cares? The rock stopped, and now it’s going again. I think I even have most of my own music back. Let’s do this! HIT IT, PLEXASAURUS REX!

Well, right now, Five Songs is on hopefully a brief hiatus. Amazon has shut down their music locker service, and downloading all that junk has taken time. And, somehow, I ended up with about 5k extra songs in the process. So, I’ve written a script to walk the library, look for anomalies, call into the Discogs API…look, it’s complicated. Once I get the library cleaned up, I’ll need to get a new solution put together for streaming it, and then I can resume. Sorry, everybody. I know this is the only source of music on the Internet, and it kills me to disappoint you all. You’ll have to, like, talk to your friends and family or something.

Today!

Buck-O-Nine, “Voice In My Head”

We like to mock the third wave of ska here at Funf Songs, because it’s eminently mockable. But, there’s a reason why we have so much of the damn stuff, and that’s that when it’s done well, it’s sprightly and charming and summer-y. In the winter, it reminds of long, bright, warm days. In the summer, it just ups the mood to another level. Buck-O-Nine weren’t amazing, but they were pleasant and good and it’s worthwhile to just listen to some pleasant and good things sometimes.

Nice one.

Gaunt, “Powder Keg Variety”

The formula is so simple. Just big guitars, big choruses, and a fun tune. It’s Cheap Trick, basically. But, dammit, it’s still delightful, and I can’t get enough of this. I miss Gaunt, y’all.

Metallica, “The Judas Kiss”

The formula is so simple. Just big guitars…aw, fuck it.

Crackerbash, “Chesham”

The formul[gunshot]

One of the things I always liked about Crackerbash is is how rubbery their bass always sounded. It’s so propulsive, especially when it separates a little from the main guitar line.