Buildings, “Smell the Pool”

I really kind of tend to think of noise rock as mostly a 90s thing, with it kind of falling out of fashion after that point. But, of course, it’s alive and well, and bands like yesterday’s Pile and today’s Buildings are showing that there’s plenty of excellent stuff being made. I miss you, Amphetamine Reptile, but there are plenty of bands keeping the sound alive.

Krallice with Dave Edwardson, “Rank Mankind”

For their seventh album, Krallice brough in Dave Edwardson (Neurosis) to change things up. It’s still very much a Krallice record, with all the dizzying ideas that entails, so Edwardson mostly just kind of inflects the proceedings some. He gives the vocals a certain visceral grounding that gives this all a little bit more of a gutteral feel, as opposed to the sometimes purely cerebral feel of Krallice. The band is incredible as always, and this album rips.

Your Old Droog, “Gyros”

That punishing, thick blanket of bass, backed up by the little clicky drums, is such a tasty combination. I just want to roll around in this beat, or spread it on my sandwich.

Mr. Lif, “Status”

If you listen to the story on the album, this is supposed to be a cheap beat that Mr. Lif could afford, but Insight absolutely kills it. It’s so funky! Shuffle is ON it today.

Circus Lupus, “Pop Man”

Post hardcore band Circus Lupus put out two albums in the early nineties, and I probably don’t have to mention that this is a Discord album. The most obvious feature is Chris Thomson’s rambling, half-shouted/half-sung lyrics, but looking past him, Arika Casebolt on the drums is the real highlight. Of the two albums, my favorite is this one, Solid Brass.

The Austerity Program, “Song 17B”

I’ll say, it’s a very good bit to have all the tracks on your album named either “Song N” or “Untitled”.

Bim Skala Bim, “Set Me Up”

This is another one of those songs that has a tremendous sense of place about it in my memory. This came out early in 1995, in my last year of college, and my friend Miranda and I listened to it over and over sitting in the lounge of my dorm. We’d get my roommate’s Super Nintendo with the floppy drive going, and fire up a bootleg copy of Super Bombliss and spend the afternoon blowing each other up. I can picture the crappy TV, the empty pizza boxes, and my shitty toaster in the corner of the lounge. It’s a gift for a piece of music to call up such a vivid memory like that, and I can become Captain Cheap Tetris again, if only for a couple of minutes.

Michael Kiwwanuka, “Rule the World”

There are times, doing this, that I feel like a real fraud. Who am I to be writing this stuff up? I’m not a musician, I’m not a writer, I have no training in any of this, I don’t fundamentally know what I’m talking about. On many levels. I feel like I’m just an ape, ooking at the pretty noises.

This feeling eventually passes, usually, but it’s hitting me pretty hard today.

Dead Kennedys, “Moon over Marin”

The closer to the second Kennedys album, Plastic Surgery Disasters, it’s one of those anthemic songs that the Kennedys would occasionally turn out. This is actually about as accessible as they ever got, although there’s still Biafra’s strange warble to contend with.

The Toasters, “T-Time”

I think the Toasters were at their strongest in their instrumentals (or near-instrumentals). This is just a groove, horns, and some soloing, and ain’t nothing wrong with that.

Wilco, “Bright Leaves”

Wilco returned from hiatus for 2019’s Ode to Joy, although their hiatus only lasted three years, which is like a normal inter-album pause for many bands. Anyway, the album kind of feels like it’s looped back to The Whole Love in terms of the song construction - setting aside the (relative) noise of Star Wars and the sort of confessional feel of Schmilco (this track notwithstanding). Is it good? Well, I think it’s good, but maybe not great. It’s not an essential Wilco record, but I like it just fine.

Mary Wells, “You Beat Me To The Punch”

Lots of Mary Wells recently, which is OK by me!

Olivia Tremor Control, “The Opera House”

Music From The Unrealized Film Script, Dusk at Cubist Castle is one of the key documents of the indie pop underground from the mid-90s. Although it hasn’t retained the level of enduring fame as In The Aeroplane Over the Sea, it’s very much a peer to that one. The record nerds who went nuts over Neutral Milk Hotel at the time were already nuts over Olivia Tremor Control.

The Ocean, “Bathyalpelagic I: Impasses”

You know, I think the zone is actually bathypelagic, not bathyalpelagic. Come on The Ocean, get your shit together!

Claw Hammer, “Succotash”

Jon Wahl really has one of the unique voices in rock, and certainly in underground rock. He sounds like he was transported out of a cartoon or something to front a blues-flecked rock band. Very strange! This was Claw Hammer’s third album, but the immediate prior one was a full-album cover of Devo’s debut record, and nobody heard the first one. Well, I certainly haven’t, and I’ve listened to a lot of this band. At any rate, coming off that cover record, this showed that they could really light it up with originals.