At The Drive-In is probably best known for one of their successor bands, the Mars Volta, but they also totally ruled. They were less prog-y than the Mars Volta, with more post-hardcore and straight up punk going on. But despite being more conventional, that doesn’t at all mean that the songs were uninteresting. This is from my favorite album by them, Relationship of Command, their final album (before the 2017 reunion).
[Read More]I spent a bunch of time with The Hunter last year, seeing if I could really get to the point of appreciating the record. It was a really big break with their previous two albums, and my initial reaction when it came out was that I didn’t care for new path. After that time spent, I can say that I still prefer the big prog-y compositions, but there’s a lot to like in this leaner album. It’s probably the right on-ramp to begin listening to Mastodon, truthfully.
[Read More]Well, I don’t remember getting this one. It’s from 2002, old enough that I don’t think it was from a grab bag or anything. It does sound like the kind of thing that might have caught my attention, some kind of strange combination of grindcore and drum’n’bass. At any rate, this is pretty interesting, might put on the rest of this album after I’m done with this entry.
[Read More]Conjurer followed up their excellent 2018 album Mire by doing a couple of collaborative records in 2019. They put out Curse These Metal Hands (which is great!) with Pijn, and then the record with today’s track, Conjurer x Palm Reader. It’s, uh, a split with Palm Reader. It’s just a four-song EP, with Conjurer contributing this cover of Mastodon’s song along with a cover of Slipknot’s “Vermillion”. It’s certainly an inessential record, but fun enough.
[Read More]Happy birthday to me! I’m…more than 4 years old.
There’s a lot I like about Labradford, and Mi Media Naranja in particular. And then it kicks of with “S”, that beautiful reverbed out guitar…and then you get that high pitched tone. And it drives me crazy. I wish it weren’t there! It’s unpleasant!
I came across clown core through their absolutely insane videos (here’s the one for “flat earth”). But honestly, this kind of thing is really right up my alley. Sure, it’s avant-garde as hell, but it’s also goofy, the drumming is extreme, it’s noisy. Good stuff!
[Read More]Happy birthday, Five Songs! Four years ago, I kicked this thing off. If I’m counting properly, this is entry 776. At least. It’s possible I missed a tag or two somewhere. That’s 3,880 songs! Approximately! Because I’m sure I’ve missed duplicates somewhere. But I did do 26 songs from the Melvins, which helps make up for it.
Anyway! It’s come and gone a bit, and I’m not sure how much longer I can keep up the updating every day pace. But I thank everybody who has tuned in to one of these, who has commented here or on Twitter, and just generally said kind words. It’s very appreciated when it’s acknowledged that somebody besides me is paying any attention. So thank you! And on to the tunes!
[Read More]As an unabashed Operation Ivy guy, I was always a little disappointed with Rancid. They always just seemed a little more dour, a little less tuneful, and a little less fun. That said, the album of Rancid’s that I like enough to listen to pretty often is …And Out Come The Wolves. Just listened to it earlier today, actually!
This song is from The Meat Of Life, which I think is the better of the two albums from the second incarnation of Clem Snide (the other being Hungry Bird). It’s a warm, comfortable album, with the usual sweet (and subtly dark) songs from Eef Barzelay. It’s not the album to start with, but it’s a solid record.
[Read More]This is from the Lips’ Christmas On Mars, the soundtrack to their movie project, and it’s very much a soundtrack. As a result, it feels disconnected when you’re just listening to it, and it doesn’t really do a whole lot for me. The Lips can sometimes tend towards the abstract to begin with, and this album goes very far in that direction.
This was the huge Arrested Development hit, featuring a hook borrowed from Sly and the Family Stone and a fun storytelling vibe. This album was huge, driven by this single, and then got completed wiped out by Dr. Dre taking gangsta rap to the top of the charts with The Chronic. At the time, critics lamented that this album represented a path not taken, but I think that really erases the direciton rap had already been heading. So instead, this is just kind of a footnote.
[Read More]Ryan Lott’s project Son Lux went from a one-man project to recording as a full band on Bones, and the resulting input of two more people has resulted in a more expansive and interesting album to me than the previous ones. There’s a lot of this that kind of gives off Flaming Lips vibes, honestly.
Noise rock out of Sicily, Uzeda have been active for 28 years and made only four albums and an EP in that time, a blistering pace that even Shellac have managed to best. Well, whatever, those albums are pretty excellent.
[Read More]This is from the first Palace Brothers album, when it was not at all clear exactly who Palace Brothers were or who was playing on the album. It turned out to be Will Oldham, of course, who played with the Palace moniker for a while before recording under his own name and then Bonnie “Prince” Billy. While I think he’d do better work later as he settled in, the starkness of the arrangements and the gloom of the lyrics result in a super effective album for setting a mood. (That mood is “bummer”.)
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