Five Songs, 7/15/2022

Cobalt, “Gin”

Gin, that’s a very good idea.

Television, “Friction”

Forever the song before “Marquee Moon”.

The Beatles, “I Me Mine”

We’re skewing old today, which is fine, because I am old. So old.

Fine, I’ll say something more: Let It Be has some memorable songs, but there’s a lot of wankery on it and it’s kind of a shame that their discography ends with this instead of Abbey Road.

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Five Songs, 6/13/2022

Sunless, “Spiraling into the Unfathomable”

Has it been a while since we’ve had extreme metal on here? It seems like it has been. Sunless’s 2021 release, Ylem, is a fine example of the sort of dissonant death metal that I usually go for in the death metal space. While I’m not sure it’s super stuck with me like my favorites in the genre, it’s crunchy and plenty surprising, so I like it.

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Five Songs, 12/28/2021

Nitzer Ebb, “Control I’m Here (live)”

I mentioned the other day that I kept up with the proliferation of Nitzer Ebb releases for a while, and this is a good example of what a pain in the ass that was. When they started picking up some momentum after Nine Inch Nails brought a lot of attention to the genre, the label decided to try and pick up some buzz for Ebbhead by releasing a live EP. But did they just release a live EP? Oh my, no. They released it in two separate discs you had to buy, with the first one including a slip case that would fit the second one. Did they release both halves at once to make it easier to pick up? Of course not! I did find both halves, and frankly, it’s just a live EP and totally not worth tracking down.

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Five Songs, 8/9/2021

Fall Out Boy, “Saturday”

Pop punk is one of those genres that never really changes or evolves, and just relies on sappy emotion and snappy songs. You really need to nail the catchy songs and the energy or it’s going to come across as limp or manufactured. When done right, though, it’s delightful. That said, the first couple Fall Out Boy records totally nail it, so happy for this to come up.

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Five Songs, 7/11/2021

Pallbearer, “Over & Over”

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.

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Five Songs, 4/28/2021

Phono-Comb, “Grip ’n’ Grin”

Phono-Comb is a successor band to the great Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, which you probably guessed if you’re familiar with that band’s work. Two-thirds of the band (Don Pyle on drums and Reid Diamond on bass) played in the band, and their lone LP (1996’s Fresh Gasoline) is great. If you’re not familiar with the Shadowy Men, I just found out that Yep Roc has brought their three outstanding records back into print, and you need to go check them out now.

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Five Songs, 2/21/2021

Seam, “Shame”

I love EPs! I miss rooting around in record stores and coming across them, because they were often a surprise. It doesn’t happen very much any more, or at least, I don’t come across them very often. Probably just means I’m out of touch. I’m very old!

Anyway, this is from the Kernel EP, but this song is just an alternate take of a song from Headsparks, so this EP is pretty inessential. Buuut, I do miss EPs.

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Five Songs, 12/11/2019

Sam & Dave, “Said I Wasn’t Going To Tell Nobody”

Seems like it’s been a long time since we’ve had any Stax stuff up in here. So, it’s a delight to get some Sam & Dave, which I just tried to write Save & Dam. Which is a solid name, and is officially my Sam & Dave cover band.

The Reigning Sound, “Wait and See”

I remember buying this record, and I can remember repeatedly sorting it into the correct place in the old CD collection, and I can even recall pulling it out on multiple occasions and listening to it. And I have no recollection of what it sounds like. My stupid brain keeps thinking that it’s like The Hold Steady, and it’s not really.

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Five Songs, 11/29/2019

Crackerbash, “Bad Karma”

I know we’ve had Crackerbash on here before, but by way of reminder, they’re a forgotten punk/power pop band out of Portland who were active for just a little while in the early 90s, producing a very good album and outstanding EP, along with a few singles. Then, right as the music scene in the Pacific Northwest blew up, they disappeared. Like fellow Portland band Pond, their stuff stands out by having more of a melodic sense than some of the more dour bands of that time and place.

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Five Songs, 11/22/2019

Led Zeppelin, “D’yer Mak’er”

Little known band out of the UK, Zeppelin presaged…uh, sorry, I can’t do this.

Grandaddy, “Jed’s Other Poem (Beautiful Ground)”

I really only have a couple things to say about most bands, and I’m legitimately terrified of just repeating them. Individual bands mostly don’t come up often enough for me to really remember what I’ve said before, and goodness knows I don’t go back and read previous entries before writing something. I’m not going anywhere here with this. I’m mostly just positing that I’m just a bag of random associations doing a stimulus/response over here, and I’m constantly concerned that I’m going to be revealed to be the worthless hack that I am at any moment.

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