New arrival at Five Songs Manor is Engravings by Forest Swords, a record I found by reading the upcoming releases for May and wondering about the new record coming. So far, it’s really interesting, although I have to pause it for now to write about some songs. These songs, specifically.

Common Market, “Back Home (The Return)”

This is a Seattle rap group featuring Sabzi (of The Blue Scholars) and RA Scion on the mic. If you’ve heard the Blue Scholars, you’re familiar with Sabzi’s beats, and if you haven’t, you should fix that. At any rate, you’re likely to equally enjoy both groups. Since I like Sabzi’s work, I like this album a lot. I particularly like the piano on this track. And, as always, I’m always a sucker for artists repping the 206.

A new month for Five Songs! How long will this keep going? I don’t know, but I’ve managed to get past the first couple weeks just fine, so maybe this has some legs. This entry also has a playlist.

Oh man, we just miseed Steel Pole Bath Tub’s “Train to Miami” for this collection. Ugh, such a good song. But rules are rules!

NoFX, “Mean People Suck”

NoFX delivering a super sophisticated message with this song, which can be summed up as “mean people suck”. The breathtaking nuance they display here would be a hallmark of their punk career. Anyway, NoFX is one of those immutable yardsticks of music, a benchmark that you can use to explain other bands. “Yeah, they’re like NoFX crossed with…” or “they sort of sound like NoFX, only they…”. That sort of thing.

You know what I should do in these intros? I should probably just mention new music I’ve picked up recently. christian fitness has a new record that I just picked up, and it’s good so far. And I bought the new album from Nightbringer, a black metal album that I’m looking forward to diving into.

As always, we have today’s songs!

Cypress Hill, “Valley of Chrome”

When they first started out, Cypress Hill was something really strange, with super squeaky beats based around dusty jazz samples and the odd nasal flows of B Real. The first two Cypress Hill records are unique and a lot of fun, although, um, fairly limited lyrical content. By the time we hit this, their fifth album, they were really kind of on fumes. This was a double album, with one rap record, and the other being a rock crossover. It didn’t exactly go well. Rap/rock crossovers seldom do. The rap disc is better, but still won’t make you forget the first two albums. This song, needless to say, is from the rock one.

A peek behind the curtains here at Five Songs International (a subsidiary of Songsanto): I sometimes write these things ahead of time. Like the weekend ones are usually paved out ahead of time. Still the same rules, though: I pick a time, start shuffle, and write about those five songs. But, in order to keep the flow of quality (?) stuff flowing, sometimes they’re not written on the day that they’re posted. Like, for instance, this was written on Friday while I ate lunch. Doesn’t make the songs any less good (or bad? I don’t know yet!).

After I kept shuffle on yesterday, I got Silkworm, Mono Puff, The Roots - lots of bands I wanted to talk about. It can be agonizing letting stuff like that go away, but rules are rules. Without rules, this whole thing just becomes “Josh writes about music however he wants” and then I’ll probably stop doing it. And then ones of people will be deprived of this scintillating work!

Up in the sky! It’s a playlist!

I’m going to have to make myself an index of these bands in order to keep linking back to previous entries, but I suspect I’ll be happy to have done that in the end.

Look out! Behind you! It’s a playlist!

Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band, “Laventille Road March”

The Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band is a side-project/alter ego of The Mighty Mocambos, a funk group from Germany. For this album, the band has added steel drums to the arrangements as a lead instrument, giving the whole enterprise a pretty unique feel, while still very much being instrumental funk. It’s a fun project, and works better than it probably has any right to. This album is about half covers and half originals, and is recommended for anybody wanting more funk in their lives.

The Wedding Present was great last night! Nice mix of older material and newer stuff, including playing “Dalliance” (included on the playlist), one of the great songs about longing ever.

We have music sign!

Knxwledge, “onlijournitro”

This is from yet another DJ album, with this one being basically just a collection of beats. Some of them are quite good, they’re mostly pretty short, and this overall feels like more of a collection of ideas than a coherent work. They’re actually pretty ideal to pop up in a shuffle format, honestly.

I’m going to see The Wedding Present tonight! I’m super excited, I haven’t been to a show in a bit, and they’ve been a favorite band for a long time. I’m super tempted to break my own rules to have them come up, but no, I’ll behave! If you’re behaving, you’ll throw on some tunes! Kick out the jams, Google! (Google has never kicked out any jams.)

RJD2, “The Horror”

Here we encounter another artist that is probably most famous for something other than their albums. In this case RJD2 composed the theme for “Mad Men”, which isn’t a bad encapsulation of his style. The track here is the opening from his outstanding debut album Deadringer, which is mostly instrumental tracks but does have some songs with guests rhyming on them. As opposed to DJ Vadim’s that we just heard, there’s personality on every track here, with a variety of moods, lots of great samples, and fun twists throughout. Too often, DJ albums can end up kind of self-indulgent, but this is one of the great ones.

Big day at Five Songs Inc.! We’re…ok, that’s a lie. It’s just me, and I’m just doing the usual. But I have music for you, so I can’t be all bad, right? Not our best playlist today, though.

Eagles of Death Metal, “Bag O’ Miracles”

Sadly, most people will only recognize the Eagles of Death Metal due to the tragic terrorist attack at their concert in Paris. EoDM is one of Josh Homme’s (Kyuss, Queens of the Stone Age) side projects, playing a booze-soaked bluesy hard rock with an aggressively skanky edge to things. It’s music that really wants you to have a good time, and by god, it’s going to define “good time” for you! Truth be told, after about half an album, I’m usually done, but it’s fine in smaller doses.

I don’t know about anybody else, but I still haven’t adjusted to new releases being on Fridays. For a long, long period of my life, Tuesdays were just a little more exciting than other weekdays, because it was when new music came out. I miss that. I’m old. But I have music for you!

Craw, “Days in the Gutter/Nights in the Gutter”

Craw was an underground rock band from Cleveland playing music in the vein of bands like the Jesus Lizard, Bitch Magnet, etc. Note my delicate avoidance of the “post-hardcore” label! Note, also, that I still managed to get it in there. At any rate, despite being very plugged into that scene at the time, and even living not far away in Pittsburgh, I managed to completely miss them. However, thanks to a Kickstarter project, their three albums got reissued, and it’s great stuff. It really was a pleasure discovering a new band from that scene and suddenly having three albums of material to listen to. There’s a strong Steve Albini vibe to this track, which is OK by me!