This song comes from the 2016 single Fear & Fury, which was released after their breakthrough record, Foundations of Burden. It was a wise piece of striking while the iron is hot. Pallbearer plays doom metal, heavy and reliant on plodding tempos, and managed to kind of crossover by being fairly accessible due to the clean vocals. This stuff is pretty good, and I like it in the right mood, and Pallbearer does it as well as anybody does.
[Read More]This comes to us from Smile, the US version, because Boris being Boris, there are different versions of this record with different track lists for different countries. I’m not a completist on this, and so I’ll just declare the US version is the best (inasmuch as it is the one I have). But enough of that, is it a good album? Of course it is, Boris doesn’t make bad albums. It’s more on their noisier side, coming on the heels of their most accessible record, but I like the noise.
[Read More]EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
When I die, and you cut my brain open (which I’m sure somebody will), you’ll hear a tiny echo of this song.
From their landmark Freedom of Choice, which is a hell of a rock album, the one where they added enough synth pop into their sound to break through. But ignore “Whip It”, subtract it from the album, and the album would still smoke.
[Read More]I sincerely wish that Rancid made more songs like this. It’s just such fun! Who is against this? Other than Rancid, I mean.
Have we had a lot of Mudhoney recently? It seems like we have. I’m not going to check, though, that would be against the Mudhoney Creed. Which I just made up.
Anyway, not going to analyze this one too deep, this is just a pure ripper in the classic Mudhoney mode. I’ll shut up and you enjoy it.
[Read More]The opening to the 2015 album from False (called Untitled, the same as their first EP, because fuck you!), featuring their blend of black metal with other elements like thrash. The stretch around 1:30-2, for example, is pretty thrash-y. The middle section of the song is pretty doom-y. These kinds of passages are a nice change of pace from just the crush of black metal.
Hüsker Dü’s 1984 double-album Zen Arcade was a monumental landmark in the rock underground. It’s hard to really call it a hardcore album at this point, it’s really moved far beyond it, but so many bands after this would try and sound this good. Everything is still super loud, but the songwriting has stretched much farther than the first couple records indicated they were capable of.
[Read More]The anarchic and sweet pop of the Avalanches is usually at its best when it’s barrelling along, swirling and shimmering. You know when it is not at its best? When Rivers Cuomo shows up for some reason.
I think Technique is the record when New Order really shook off the last vestiges of Joy Division. It’s fully a bouncy pop record, danceable and charming. Because of that, it’s probably my favorite record of those outside of Movement.
[Read More]Another cut from the first Pardoner album, which is just a delightful rock discovery from a few years back. I went in totally blind, just a single review I’d read, and it hits me just right. There’s the right amount of stank on the guitars, the tempo drives nice, it’s just good stuff all around.
So smooth. The lights in the room just spontaneously dimmed here.
[Read More]I wanted to do a special, and decided to search for “explosion” in my library. That turns out to be an album from Explosions in the Sky and a whole shitload of Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. And so, fuck it, here’s five random Jon Spencer Blues Explosion tracks! Happy 4th!
I think I’ve told this story before, but one summer, my job included about a month stretch where I pulled staples from telephone poles. All day long, just moving from telephone pole to telephone pole with a screwdriver. It was miserable, the summer Spokane sun beating down on me as I wrecked my wrists digging into those hateful things. Sometimes, my screwdriver would slip, and I’d drag my knuckles into the splintered surface. The only nice thing I can say for it is that I worked alone, and was able to smuggle headphones in under my hardhat (required by safety rules because I was working next to a road, as if the hardhat was going to save me when someone plowed over me in their F-150) despite the rules against it. Mostly, I listened to the same handful of albums over and over, one of which was Extra Width. This album kept me sane that summer, and a certain dusty heat has clung to it in my memory as a consequence.
[Read More]Probably the most out-there song on Icky Thump, this flamenco goof is not only stylistically funny, but also happens to be a cover, making it another outlier on the record. It’s pretty fun, though.
This is from Mightathon, a compilation of b-sides and non-album tracks from their early years, roughly around Lincoln. There’s some great stuff on this disc, many of which also appear on other comps, so it mostly can be skipped. I’m not sure it’s really very readily available these days anyway.
[Read More]The Arsonists did their own production, which makes things like flipping these strings here so well all the more impressive. They never really got much attention at the time, but this kind of throwback stuff still sounds pretty fresh.
Ska punk, leaning heavily on the punk end of things, out of Missoula. They put out a couple records in the late 90s and then disappeared with most of the rest of the scene. It’s ok enough, as these things go, but can probably be skipped.
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